Las Vegas

John and I just returned from a trip to Las Vegas. The primary reason for the trip was for a veterinary conference at Mandalay Bay, but don't worry we managed to fit in a lot of fun as well. Unfortunately I got the flu while I was there so I spent a lot more time curled up in my hotel room than I planned to. We still made it to Mystere (a cirque de soleil show), but John did a lot of things on his own and with a friend of mine from Vet school that was out at the conference as well.

We also manged to go on a day trip to the Hoover Dam, which was absolutely incredible. As you can tell from the photos the water level in the lake is quite low.

They are in the process of building a bridge over the Colorado river so that people driving to Arizona can bypass having to drive over the Hoover Dam. I don't recommend it if you are afraid of heights!!

We also were able to drive to Red Rock Canyon which is only about 30 minute drive from Vegas. You can't tell from the picture, but it was intermittently raining and incredibly windy while we were at Red Rock, so all of our sight seeing was done from the car.

For the last 2 days of our trip we went to Death Valley National Park in California. Death Valley has the lowest point in North America, Badwater Basin which is 282 feet below sea level. In the summer time the park can be at 120 F (and had the 2nd highest temperature ever recorded of 134 F in 1913). Luckily the winter time is the perfect time to go and it was around 70 in the lowest parts of the valley and only in the 50s at the higher elevations around the park. It only rains on average 2 inches a year (and of course it was raining when we arrived in the park!! but it soon stopped and the total amount it rained was recorded as 'a trace amount'). It was also the beginning of the wildflower bloom in the park, so we did get see a lot of yellow flowers.

This is John in our rental car (a blue Prius) in Death Valley, we were happily surprised when we went to pick up our rental car and discovered that we could rent a hybrid Prius (the same car that John has at home). We got excellent mileage during the journey into the park starting around 4000 feet and descending to below sea level, though even with the trek out of the park we still averaged 41 miles per gallon. Go Hybrids!!!!!

When we returned home after our week long vacation, a red eye flight home, and me still getting over the flu, John and I collapsed on our couch and settled down to relax and watch a movie on TV. I was happy to find the Sylvester Stallone movie, Cliffhanger, on TV. I guess this doesn't seem to many like a nice relaxing movie, but it brought back memories of a time I was sick when I was in the 9th grade. I asked my dad to go out to rent The Princess Bride, when he arrived home he told me they were out of the Princess Bride so he rented me Cliffhanger instead. :)

Love, Sara and John