By Jason
Ann, Athena and I spent last weekend in Las Vegas. Why take a 4-month-old to Vegas? Mainly to see Dan and Heather, with the side benefit that it’s a short, cheap flight and a good dry run for our upcoming trip to Chicago and Cleveland.
We stayed at Terrible’s Hotel and Casino, which is a few blocks off the strip and had better reviews than a lot of the cheaper hotels on the strip. The hotel room was nice, but you had to walk through the cramped, smokey casino to get to it. This seemed to be a common tactic at other hotels too, along with the standard psychological tricks with lighting and layout.
Athena loved rolling around on the big hotel bed:
Ann will probably write a bit more about our adventures in Las Vegas proper, but I wanted to post some photos of our drive out to the Valley of Fire State Park.
The Valley of Fire is less than an hour’s drive into the Mohave Desert. The sandy tans and green scrub are suddenly broken with red, wind-carved rocks.
In the picture above, note how green the desert looks. It’s a bit of an optical illusion with the low viewing angle – when you’re higher up, you can see how sparse the vegetation really is.
It’s an amazing place to visit, and a photographer’s paradise. You can see Dan getting exactly the right angle:
The weather was perfect, too, sunny but only about 65 degrees or so. There was a fairly strong breeze, which Athena just loved.
Here we are in between shots for a family photo. You can see the more posed photos in Flickr, but I really love this one because it’s a little more candid. Note Athena preparing the shove the cloth in her mouth and/or pull it off of Ann’s shoulder, a favorite passtime.
Here are Dan and Heather with more sandstone in the background:
The rocks have ancient native petroglyphs. Sadly, some of them have been defaced fairly recently. It takes a special kind of jerk to carve their name over millennia-old artwork.
Here we are on the viewing platform, with the landscape stretched out behind us. Athena is apparently not afraid of heights.
I really like how this photo of the two of use turned out:
Rainbow Vista is another great stop in the park. Here you can see bands of different color in the rocks and chasms. Athena gives the place a thousand-yard stare:
Heather, Ann, Athena and Dan wait for me to get back from my usual wandering:
Okay, now this one is just too cute. It’s practically cheating:
Dan is not exactly the biggest softie but I think Athena won him over:
I have to end with this shot of a series of fractures that really struck me – are we looking at rock, or the grain of some enormous tree?
I have a lot more artsy photos of the rocks and the desert landscape at Flickr, far too many to post here, so feel free to check them out.