Nevada - Gambling, Hiking & Overeating

It's been a busy week, first up was Cedar Breaks National Monument - drove up to 10,500 ft, 3 degrees, snow & ice on the trails! Beautiful amphitheatre, looking down into red, yellow & white peaks & canyons. Not much hiking as we really didn't want to slide down a mountain.

Picnic lunch, then off to Kolob Canyons, a part of Zion National Park. Here we were looking up at amazing red peaks, did some hiking ( now 20 degrees), & started a pine cone collection. Somehow we seem to end to collect stuff! One hike took us along a creek & required us to cross this water 6 x each way!

Went to Sonny Boys BarBQ for some yummy eats, including deep fried cauliflower & hush puppies. We ended our time in Cedar City by watching their agricultural parade, the highlight do which was herding about 1000 sheep down the main drag! quite a sight to see.

We moved on to Mesquite, Nevada & boondocked in a casino, spent $1.00 & left with $30.00. From there we drove out to the Valley of Fire State Park - spectacular scenery, lots of petroglyphs, good hiking & 27 degrees. We had breakfast at the Virgin City casino- $3.99 for eggs, hash browns, toast & a 16 oz., bone in ham steak!

We are now in Las Vegas, have had a couple buffets, of course, wandered The Strip, spent a few dollars, took a lot of pictures. We took in Freemont Street with Pat & Trudy- lots of street performers & lots of "interesting" people dressed in costumes expecting tips for photos - everything from Superman to Mario to showgirls. I foolishly ate some deep fried Oreos & Twinkies - this I don't recommend. We walked The Strip on Halloween night, even crazier than usual, lots of bizarre costumes again!

We can remove one more thing from the Bucket List - we drove 2 hours out to see Death Valley. Everything from the view at 5000 ft from Dante's View, to 282 ft below sea level at Badwater Basin. Every color & shape of rock formation that you could imagine at a cool 24 degrees. Now I feel that we got our money's worth from the National Park pass that we bought last October!

Had our last buffet tonight - we must have eaten over a pound of crab legs each, along with clams, shrimp & of course, dessert! probably won't sleep very well, but I think it was worth it!

We head further south in the morning, not nearly warm enough here & no beach!
Having a blast!