Nevada Road Trip 2011

Photo: Paul Hadley

Scenic Drive

Nevada, 2011

I'm in Vegas for Concrete, Baby

Yep. Its true.

I am sitting in our car, in a Wendy's parking lot, in Vegas. I've been sitting here for two hours. On a work conference call. I am simultaneously watching a presentation on line on my computer and participating by cell phone. The mute button is on right now AND I am actually listening. I've asked questions. I've offered suggestions. I am taking notes. I am participating. I can multi-task. Actually this training is coming to an end and I am starting to lose it a little because two hours in a hot car on a phone and computer with the Wendy's drive thru busy for lunch behind me is making me a little nuts. Which is why I started writing this while I still listen as the training session winds down. This is the advantage of being a telecommuter. With my computer, cell phone, wireless internet connection and my own enthusiasm, I can do my job from anywhere - including a car in a Wendy's parking lot in Vegas. Oh the modern world we live in. I do need to get up and stretch my legs soon because my legs are starting to fall asleep. And its hot as hell in this car now.

We woke up at 4:30 am, left the house just after 5 am and got here to Vegas around 10:30 am. Paul drove and I started working in the car, in the dark. I actually get a lot of work done on these road trips. Because I am stuck in the seat for hours of driving.

Why are we in Vegas on a random Thursday afternoon? For concrete. Yes. We are about to attend one of the largest concrete shows in the world. I'm talking about World of Concrete. World of Masonry. At the Las Vegas Convention Center. Since 1975, this is apparently the only annual international event of its kind. Why are we going to this thing? To get ideas for concrete flooring. For the house we are building. And because we know someone who can get us in for free. We weren't going to pay $75/person to attend. And because Vegas is on our way to the desert, where we need to be this weekend to meet with a guy about drilling us a well.

So...my call is just about to wrap up and then we head off into the wild world of concrete, followed by dinner and a night staying at the Hard Rock hotel/casino. Here's hoping we get some good ideas for cool concrete floors...and that we see some funny stuff at the trade show. Trade shows are weird, especially when its not your industry or line of work. I can't wait to see what a concrete trade show is going to look like. Stay tuned for a report from Vegas on the World of Concrete World of Masonry trade show.

Fun Road Side Sitings on the Byway

Happy Wednesday! Here are a few images of amusing things I've spotted on the side of the road on our Byway adventures. All of these were shot as we were speeding by, so forgive the poor quality of some of the photos. America is full of fun road side sites. What's your favorite road side siting?

Car lot - Pahrump, NV - December 2011

Art - Miami - December 2010

Route 80, Nevada - May 2011

Kites on the beach - Oregon coast, July 2010

Dinosaurs! - Thanksgiving Point, Utah - March 2011

God - Outside of Vegas, 2011.

Shoe tree wannabe - California to Arizona - 2011

Kings & Queens! Very sad bar/castle: Pittsburgh to Chambersburg Route 30 - September 2011

Vegas Moon

Giant rising, orange, almost full moon over Vegas...as captured with no flash and driving by at 80 mph...

More Dreamy Byway

I've been busy, with no time to write all the things I want. More to come soon. For now some dreamy Scenic Byway memories...

Utah Salt Flats

Lake Tahoe

Pipes Canyon, Pioneertown, CA

Route 50, Nevada

Route 50, Nevada

Dixie National Forest, Utah

Also see: Dreamy Scenic Byway

Cloudy Drive Route 15 Vegas to Salt Lake City

Spotted Leaving Las Vegas on Monday Morning...

The King...and I

Elvis was my first love. He really was.

When I was a little girl I was very aware and very upset that I had missed my chance - I was too young to ever have a shot at being Elvis' girl. I am pretty sure I also realized that the Elvis I loved, the dashing young man from the silly movies I would eat up, was no longer around, having aged into the real Elvis that was still very much present in the pop culture of my childhood in the 1970s.

Still, I was heartbroken to know that he would never be mine, and heartbroken when he died. And to this day I love his music and I still think he was one of the hottest celebrities ever. The man was just pure handsome and pure sexy. Those of you who are younger than me may not get all of this. He was still a major force when I was young - still performing and very much a super star in spite of his weight and drug and alcohol problems. His movies were on TV all the time.

You have to appreciate his ability to generate global appeal and adoration and that this global appeal and adoration continue to this day - decades (34 years now) after his death. You know you are going to find Elvis songs on karaoke machines around the world - and crowds of people who know the words to the songs. You still see Elvis merchandise everywhere. I bet Graceland still pulls in the crowds (I have never been and it is on my list). Occasionally you can still catch his films (so deliciously bad) on TV and you can probably see them all on Netflix. Finally, you know you will continue to find Elvis impersonators - good and bad - around the world - performing shows and even weddings.

Elvis has always been synonymous with Vegas. He performed there at the Hilton Hotel in the late 1960s and into the 1970s (his last performance there was in 1976; he was scheduled to perform again in 1978, but he died in 1977). To this day you continue to have Elvis impersonator shows in Vegas and you even now have an Elvis-themed Cirque du Soleil show - Viva Elvis.

This past weekend some of my family met in Las Vegas to celebrate my mother's 70th birthday and we stayed at the Hilton. The Hilton is off the main strip and was at one time one of the big places to stay in Vegas. It is a very different experience than staying at one of the themed, newer places on the strip - an older, less crowded, more mellow crowd. We were delighted to discover that the Hilton hosts an Elvis impersonator show. We had to see it.

Trent Carlini - calling himself "The Dream King," has been impersonating Elvis Presley since the real Elvis' death. He was winner of ABC television's "The Next Best Thing." I never saw that show but understand it was about impersonators. He has been performing various Elvis shows in Vegas since the 1990s and now performs "The King" most nights at the Shimmer Cabaret Theater at the Hilton.

It is a small show, in a small, intimate cabaret scene - bar, cocktail service, small stage. It is the kind of show that gets better when you have a really great audience and the performer can feed off of and interact with the people. Unfortunately he did not have a great audience that night - present company excluded. When we walked in I was mortified to see such a small audience on a Saturday night. I felt very uncomfortable for him as a performer. What does it feel like to walk on stage and see hardly anyone in the audience? Deflating and energy sucking I am sure. And those that were there - most of them were pretty old and lacking in energy. Was our night a fluke? Or does this happen often? Perhaps he has been playing there too much and for too long?

I wondered if part of the problem is the time of the shows. The setting seems appropriate, but the shows are too early - one a night around 6:45. That seems too early for this type of cabaret show. Who wants to rush to this kind of show at that time? This show needs to be at 8 or 9 or 10 at night.

In spite of the sadness I felt about his small audience, he was a really great performer. He really looks like Elvis and he has a great singing voice and sounds like Elvis. He has it down. He is a fun performer. If you are an Elvis fan, you will appreciate it. Our small group of six did what we could to liven up the show with lots of clapping and cheering and moving around to the music. We had a great time and I would recommend the show. However, I should add that we had complimentary tickets from the hotel (thanks to my sister). The prices on the website note $37-$70. I would probably pay the lower end to see it, but not $70 because it is a very small show.

Regardless of the disappointing audience, he really looks and sounds like Elvis and is very entertaining. For an hour or so I could lose myself in that music from my childhood and fantasize that I was seeing the real Elvis - my first love.

Tonight on the Vegas Strip

Headed to....

A nice thing about living in Salt Lake City is that a weekend getaway to Vegas is only about a 6 hour drive. And we get to stop at the Scipio gas station petting zoo on the way. Happy weekend!

Cool Lake Tahoe for a Hot Day

I just found this little video I shot on Lake Tahoe back in May. A great scene to cool you off on this hot summer day.

Thunder Mountain Monument - Nevada

If you have the opportunity to drive across northern Nevada on Interstate 80 between Salt Lake City, UT and Reno, Nevada, I recommend making a stop to see The Thunder Mountain Monument.

Last month My Scenic Byway took us to Reno to see Elvis Costello in concert and we drove I-80 from Salt Lake to Reno. Approximately six hours west of Salt Lake, and two hours east of Reno, around the town of Imlay, we spotted something on the south side of the Interstate. It was like this weird, giant art project in the middle of nowhere. We had no idea what it was, but we had to check it out.

So, we took the next exit and turned back on a dirt road that ran parallel to 80 East and found ourselves at the site. There was one other car there - two women travelers who had stopped for a picnic lunch on their journey. When they left we were the only ones there. You walk through a gate and enter this very open but fenced 5- acre compound with the monument. The entrance is free, but there is a box for donations. There was no caretaker on site.

The founder and father of this place was Frank Van Zant. He was born in 1921 in Oklahoma. At 14 he joined the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) and later served in the European theater of World War II. He had a passion for Native American history and culture and believed he was part Cherokee, changing his name to Chief Rolling Mountain Thunder.

In 1968 he settled in the area where the monument resides and lived in a travel trailer. He started sculpting wet concrete into sculptures and into walls and buildings around the trailer. He attracted up to 40 followers at one time to join him on the compound, adding rooms around the trailer to create the large monument you see today. The Chief scavenged a 60-mile area around the monument, collecting trash and incorporating it into the main building's walls and its surrounding other buildings, old cars and sculptures. The art was on the outside - decorated walls, sculptures.This trash transformed into art and became the monument. He said "I am using the white mans' trash to build this Indian monument."

The height of the monument was the 1970s. By the 1980s, the followers had left and the Chief was running out of money. In 1989 his second wife and children moved away and an act of arson destroyed all the buildings except the monument. Sadly Chief Rolling Mountain Thunder shot and killed himself that year.

Since the Chief's death, his son Dan has taken on the charge of caring for the monument. He comes once a month and has others look in on the place. He tries to raise money to keep the monument maintained. He struggles to protect the site from vandals. Over the years things have been stolen or damaged. When you visit the place you will see how remote it is and how easy it would be for this to happen. Which is a shame. Because a place as unique, intriguing and weirdly beautiful as this deserves to survive and to be seen by many.

Smithsonian Magazine wrote a good article about the story of Thunder Mountain. Read it here. You can also read more about the monument's history and construction from its official site at http://www.thundermountainmonument.com/.

The place has some really crazy, creative, creepy stuff. For more images from the monument see my earlier blog entry Stuff of Nightmares.

My First Cave Adventure - Lehman Cave - Great Basin National Park

A few weeks ago on a road trip to Reno to see an Elvis Costello show, we stopped along the Byway to see Great Basin National Park. The park is located near Baker, Nevada, near the Utah border, just off of the Route 50 "Loneliest Road in America" stretch that crosses from Fallon to Delta. You must do this drive if you have the chance. It is amazing in its remoteness and beauty.

The Great Basin National Park has a lot of interesting things to experience. In the high desert, this park hosts 13,063 foot Wheeler Peak. It has 5,000 year old Bristlecone pine trees - some of the oldest trees in the world. That alone is a reason to go there. The area has some of the darkest night skies in the United States - high elevation, low humidity and very low light pollution means this is one of the best places for star gazing in America. It also has the Lehman Cave, which was the purpose of our visit on our fast drive by the park at the end of a long weekend visit to Nevada. We did not have time to stay longer, camp and really explore the park - that is for future visits.

This national park is named for the Great Basin which is the largest area of contiguous watersheds in North America. It is a 200,000 square mile hydrographic area that drains internally. All precipitation in this area evaporates, drains into the ground or into lakes. No water from this area reaches the ocean. It also contains the lowest elevation point in North America, Badwater Basin, and less than 100 miles away, the highest elevation point in the contiguous United States, Mount Whitney. The Great Basin encompasses Reno to the west and Salt Lake City to the east and extends south to close to Las Vegas and north into Oregon. It includes Lake Tahoe, America's largest Alpine Lake. Much of the geography of this region is desert and sparsely populated.

Lehman Cave was my first visit to a cave. All those years living in Pennsylvania, Virginia, Maryland and Washington, DC I never once visited Luray Caverns out in the Shenandoah area of Virginia. All my Byway travels I just never visited a cave. I think caves are fascinating, but they also freak me out a little. Being under ground, in tight spaces, in the dark - just not my thing. I am amazed at the feats of spelunkers and I am sure they see some incredible sites, but I don't think I will ever find myself doing that. But Lehman Cave, like Luray, is the kind of cave that has been set up for visitors to walk in on a guided tour. No crawling. Established walkways. Lights (except when they turn them off so you can see and feel the true darkness of the cave). Very safe. Very much not freaky. Especially if you have someone to cling to when they turn off the lights.

Apparently May is a good time for water in the cave. Usually there is no water.

Lehman Cave was discovered in the late 1880s by Absalom Lehman (proudly from my home state of Pennsylvania). Lehman had a mining history from Australia but had settled in that area, Snake Valley, for cattle ranching. Soon after his discovery, Lehman was guiding 100s of visitors a year into the cave. After his death the land was sold and by 1912 it became protected as part of the Humboldt National Forest. Lehman Cave became a national monument in 1922 and was loosely managed by the US Forest Service. A couple who owned land in the area acted as custodians and oversaw continued work in the cave to clear pathways and guide visitors. For awhile they used one of the larger rooms as a site for meetings and parties, including weddings, dance parties and Boy Scout jamborees. In that room where they once held all of these events there is graffiti on the ceilings - over 100 years of people leaving their names. Being in that room it was fun to imagine all the people who had been there and the crazy things that must have happened down in that cave. Candle lit dance parties pretty deep into a cave? I would have loved to have been there. Over the years the National Park Service took greater control and continued to improve the site for visitors. Electricity came into the caves in the 1940s replacing the older candle lit tours.

The cave was amazing. I am so glad we took the tour. I can now say that I am not afraid of these kinds of caves and I look forward to seeing more in the future. This visit inspired me to go and see the new documentary Cave of Forgotten Dreams about the Chauvet caves in France.  If you have an interest in caves and ancient man, I recommend seeing the film.

I don't have other cave experiences to compare it to, but I am assuming that Lehman is much smaller and more mellow than a place like Luray. From all the signs I used to see on the Virginia roads advertising Luray, it just seems like a very touristy place. The Lehman Cave is not that known and is far more isolated as it sits in a national park that is off the beaten path. So, I feel this was probably a good first cave experience. I don't like to visit places that are super touristy with crowds of people. If you feel the same way, then this is a cave for you.

Our tour guide.

Here are some tips for visiting the Lehman Cave.

• You can only enter the cave with guided tours. Park rangers give the tours every day of the year except Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years Day. We had an excellent tour guide.
• You should make recommendations ahead of time, especially in the summer months. We visited the cave in early May, on a Monday, and took the very first tour of the morning. We were lucky in that our tour group consisted of only my husband and me and one other couple. Tours are typically up to 20 people. If you can score a tour with so few people, it makes the experience all the more amazing so I recommend going to see the cave when it is not high tourism season. It is a very different experience when you have a small, quiet group. They do a lot of school tours so you may want to check to make sure you aren't going to be touring at the same time.
• Tours are given from 9-3 in the winter and 8:30-4 in the summer. You can do a 60 minute or 90 minute tour. We did the 90 minute tour and I recommend it. You see more rooms in the cave. Costs are $6 or $8 for adults. Kids are less expensive and they have senior discounts.
• In the summer months they do candlelight tours so you can see what it was like for the first people who explored these caves back in the 1800s.
• The caves are chilly (50 degrees) so dress appropriately.
• You can not bring anything into the caves other than a hand held camera and flashlight. You can't bring water, food, gum, bags and backpacks. You don't have to bring a flashlight - they have lighting. 
• You can take as many photos as you like and you can use a flash, but from my experience the flash changes all the colors and lighting and the photos look weird. I set my camera for the highest ISO (3200) for me and that allowed me to take the photos you see here without a flash - not the greatest, but good enough to capture the sites. 
• They are now screening for White Nose Syndrome. Meaning they want to know if you or any of the clothes you are wearing have been in a cave. They do not want you to bring White Nose Syndrome bacteria into the cave that currently does not have it. There are very few bats in this cave. The guide said they rarely or never see them. We were fortunate to see one very tiny bat. I love bats and wish there were more. There isn't much living in the cave and entrances are restricted, so this is probably why you don't have a lot of bat activity in this cave.
• The elevation of the park and the cave entrance (6,825 feet) is very high, so you should plan for a lot of snow on the drive up in the winter months.

Cave Bacon. Yeah, it really does look like bacon and that really is its name.

Cave Drapery.

Stalactite forming in action.

Cave graffiti - two women who made it way back into the cave in the late 1800s. Awesome.