Washington: Mukilteo Ferry, Ivar's Seafood by the pier

After leisurely meandering through the Mukilteo Lighthouse Park for a while and enjoying the stunning scenery and people (and pup) watching, we had to acknowledge our rapidly growing hunger growling in our bellies before it evolved into either of us being outright hangry! Luckily for us, within a short few minutes walk of the Lighthouse Park is an Ivar's restaurant and takeaway window, where you can load up on fresh-from-the-ocean goodies cooked up hot and fresh for you! They also offer root beer floats, so whether you're looking to cool off in the warmer summer months or simply an excitable fan of root beer and ice cream paired in a drinking vessel, that's a nice surprise. Antho, of course, had to have one. Not gonna lie, it was pretty damn good, too. I'm more of a savory person, so I was super excited about my fried oysters- and let me tell you guys, I was not disappointed. I can eat oysters in any form, whether it's fresh off the half shell or battered and deep fried, and Ivar's were super juicy and ultra-fresh, and a damn fine bit of fried oysters. 

Antho opted for some of the fried cod, and he was quite pleased with his choice, too. I snagged a bite or two of his fish and it was so juicy the liquid gushed down my hand, which I take as a good sign. Maybe be wary if you're not a fan of wearing your food, or smelling like your fish dinner later, but we weren't complaining one bit. We found a comfortable place to sit away from the minimal crowds, where we could listen to the gentle lapping of the waves as they rhythmically beat against the pier. Gulls stood their ever-vigilant watch as we ate, hoping for a snack. Even though the food was SO good, we couldn't help but toss out a fry or two as an offering to our feathered friends. There was even a large jellyfish who drifted (swam? floated?) by, offering us plenty of opportunities to photograph their undulating advances.  When we finished eating, we wandered a little further down the path, finding a little cove where we could take in the sunset and coincidentally find ourselves surprised by a suddenly rapid-rise of the tides. We escaped to high ground in time, and caught a ferry returning to the dock to disembark the passengers, which was fun to see from a new vantage point.

 Overall we had a blast, and we're excited to see where we end up next!

Washington: Mukilteo Lighthouse Park

Mukilteo, a hard (for us) to pronounce but lovely community North of Seattle, is home to a gorgeous beachfront park and a busy ferry route. During one of our free afternoons of exploration, we decided to head up North and see what all the fuss was about! We're glad we went for it, as we had an absolutely lovely time strolling through the park and taking in the sights, sounds, and smells of the area. Well, more smells for Antho than there were for me, given that my sniffer is pretty weak and bordering on full-on anosmia, but I digress. As the sun began to slowly lower itself in the sky, we were able to enjoy the brisk air and beautiful light for a good while. The weather being as it is up here, meaning a strong tending towards grey, drizzly days for an extensive portion of the year, we were not alone in our appreciation of a somewhat rare nice day. I'm not complaining about the company, though, as we were able to see a few super cute pooches and proto-humans galavanting about, which always makes our hearts warm. There were couples having a romantic picnic, families lounging on blankets or gathering around a particularly comfortable piece of driftwood, and the casual neighbors out walking their pups. While part of the park was closed on the day of our visit due to a wedding, we couldn't even be grumpy about that because there were still so many other things to enjoy! From the open, expansive grassy fields where people and their pups were happily playing, to the beachfront views offering unhindered sunset scenes and ferry-viewing, to the paved walkways leading to the nearby piers. Antho and I both thoroughly enjoyed our visit, and I look forward to the next trip so we can check out the lighthouse close-up! Unless, of course, there's another wedding, in which case we'll wander elsewhere!

These days, we're both gainfully employed and don't find as much free time available to go out and explore. Even so, it's awesome having so many options available to us here! Not only does Seattle proper have an outstanding number of parks, but each neighborhood, each suburb, has its own public spaces worth exploring. I'm so excited for the upcoming spring and summer months! There's always going to be an adjustment period where money and time feel tight when you move to a new place, but we both have secured jobs with room to grow and advance along with benefits and decent pay. In time, we should be able to breathe a little easier and make more time for exploration again. 

Nevada: Hoover Dam

Hoover Dam is a marvel of modern engineering roughly a half hour to forty-five-minute drive from the city of Las Vegas, Nevada, proper depending on traffic. This massive feat of cement and hydro-electric power provides the literal spark of electricity that keeps the city of Sin sparkling away and attracting visitors all-year-long, powered by the Colorado River and the Lake Mead man-made reservoir. Unfortunately for the residents of Las Vegas, like your's truly used to be, the water levels of the reservoir have been dwindling away over the last couple decades to leave a depressing ring around the entirety of the lake demonstrating how high the water levels used to be, versus their current levels. As a youngling, my family would drag me out to the lake pretty regularly for outings and Hoover Dam would get a visit at least once a decade to make sure I was aware of and, hopefully, appreciative, of it's importance to the valley. As an adult, I'm still grateful for the construction of Hoover Dam and the cheap energy it has provided the nearby cities for the majority of my life. Having a power plant in your own backyard is certainly a boon, though many newer residents of the valley might not be aware of just how close their energy creation is to their home. 

As is the case for most of us, the future is uncertain. There have been efforts to push water conservation in all the areas that benefit from the Colorado River's limited supply, but as the populations continue to grow in the drought-riddled areas there's going to be ever more scrapping over ever-more-scarce water supplies. It's not just the city of Las Vegas that benefits from the reservoir, after all, but much of Southern California, Utah and Arizona get a boost from this nearby supply. For many years it's been a cheap and efficient supply, but when the costs go up? I'm glad I'm not there to find out the result... I don't know that it's going to go full Mad-Max style up in the Mojave desert, but I can't say I'd be the least bit surprised if it did. 

Also, as a long-time resident of the area, it's kind of crap in my eyes how they've started charging for anything remotely resembling Dam-accessible parking. If you're willing to wait and possibly fight a bus-full of tourists, you might be able to find free parking at an outlying area, but otherwise, you're gonna have to shell out for the privilege of viewing a National Treasure. Bastards. Last I checked, you can't even go inside the Dam anymore due to fears of terrorism. 'Murica, home of the scared-shitless, am I right? Vegas is far more likely to be attacked by homegrown domestic terrorists, as clearly demonstrated by the terrible incident in 2017.  But I digress, being a center of power for a large region of the American Southwest probably makes it a consideration, which results in the over-the-top security measures being implemented. It is what it is, I'm afraid. 

Vegas: Charleston 01 - drive out to Mount Charleston!

Driving out to Mount Charleston from the city of Las Vegas is a fairly short sojourn of roughly an hour for the vast majority of the mountain. When it comes to finding a change of scenery, though, it's an absolute treat and for such a short distance it's practically like traveling to a foreign planet. For the cost of gas and some time rolling down the freeway, you can escape the asphalt and concrete jungle to frolic among wildflowers and trees, plus the additional elevations let you chill off by about 10-20 degrees Fahrenheit: a much-needed respite from the summer heat of the valley! It's beautiful out there, too. There's a lot of camping available, varying from the power and water necessitating RV setups to boondocking areas, depending on your skills, needs, and equipment. While both Antho and I have done overnight boondocking camps here in the past, most of our visits over the more recent years have been day trips. It's an easy drive from the city, not so far that you really need to worry about extensive preparations but you should absolutely take a big bottle of water and some snacks along, just to be safe. Whether you're going hiking or just hoping to do the scenic loop in your vehicle, it's better to be prepared in the event of an emergency. On top of going camping most weekends with my family as a kid and getting stuck in sand dunes, rock pits, mud, and any other perilous desert surface, I've had the same car for over a decade, and as a result, I've gotten uncomfortably familiar with the variety of ways a car can poop out on you in a time of need. Crap happens, so be prepared. Maybe that timing belt you never thought about decides it's time to let it go, like Elsa in a blizzard, right as you crest a perilous peak. With my old lady, she simply loses engine power and glides to a stop wherever she loses momentum- but maybe your car will go out in a violent paroxysm of mechanical failure when you least expect it. As a responsible human being, we need to plan and prepare for these things to happen when we least want them to because murphy's law insists that's when they must absolutely happen. Such is life. Plan for the worst, hope for the best. But don't let that stop you from hitting the road! There's so much out there to see and enjoy. The world is a big, beautiful place after all. Get out there! 

Vegas: Tony's Pizza in Boulder City

After all the driving, the hiking, the climbing, and the outdoors, we were ready for some food. Some hot food. We had initially planned on going to the Coffee Cup, a place we'd visited in the past after an overnight outing not far from Boulder City, but by the time we arrived we found that they were nearing their closing time for the day and there was a sizeable church group already waiting at their doors to enter and order. 2pm, people, that's when they shut their doors! So ideally you'd want to be there by 1pm at the latest, as no one should ever want to be those last minute jerks who rush in right as a restaurant is preparing to close for the day... trust me, I've worked in restaurants and seen how the cooks react to being made to unpack the food and re-open the line after shutting down and closing for the day. It's not pretty.  Spare yourself the potential digestive disturbance and the cooks the misery and take your hungry party somewhere still open for another couple hours. In this instance we decided to go just up the street and grab some slices at Tony's Pizza, an institution I've been dining at since sometime in middle school when my dad hauled us out to Boulder City for the remainder of my middle and high school career. It's a small town, so small there's only two real stop-lights,  so there weren't many options when it came to food... during my highschool years there were two Chinese restaurants, two sit down Mexican restaurants,  a local coffee shop that eventually got bought out by Starbucks, a Port of Subs and Subway, KFC, A&W and a Taco Bell. No Wal-Marts. No Casinos. There's actually no gaming in the city limits of Boulder City, which is why you'll find the Railroad Pass on the outskirts as you head in from Vegas. Last I checked there was even a cap on building growth, limiting the amount of homes or residential buildings created every year.  Given as much, it's really no surprise that Tony's Pizza is almost exactly as I remember it, down to the people working. Things don't change as fast in Boulder City, and that's okay if that's what you're into. It is kind of nice in a nostalgic way. The food was tasty and hot, fresh out of the fryer when it came to our fried zucchini, chicken tenders and fries. We were satisfied with our meal and pleased when we hopped back into the van for our trip back into the city. 

Until next time!

💖

XOXO,

NAU

Vegas: Blue Springs in Lake Mead National Park Recreation Area

On our trip back in towards Vegas from Valley of Fire we decided to take the scenic route towards Lake Mead rather than coming directly back via the interstate. Along the way we found a small turn off for a little path near a river called Blue Springs. There was another couple walking around with some cute little dogs when we arrived, but after they left we were alone in the desert with the small rush of water nearby the only other source of visible vitality. The trees throughout the area were dotted primarily along the banks of the small river, a vital source of life in the desert. There were, of course, ample signs of human presence...we found this rusted out old can during our stroll and Antho was considerate enough to carry it along with us until we got back to the parking area and he could throw it away properly. Leave no trace, people. It was kind of neat to see this old can, but it didn't need to be out there. There were also some broken bottles and glass scattered about...vestigial stains of some party held who knows when... While we're certainly not perfect, we do try to be aware of our impact on the environment and keep our detritus under control. Antho keeps a garbage can in his van so that we always have a readily accessible place to put our garbage, out of the way, out of the environment. It's a shame people don't clean up after themselves, but if we all do our part it doesn't have to get so out of hand. Do I sound like I grew up watching Captain Planet? Good! People have a tendency to take our planet for granted and it's a real shame, there's no guarantee that we'll get off this rock and onto another in time to save our species if we aren't proactive in our efforts to maintain the home we have. It doesn't matter what country you call home, the Earth is everyone's planet, and every human alive throughout the recorded history of humanity thus far has been an Earthling. This is our pale blue dot, let's respect it.

More photos below!

Vegas: Van-Camping at Valley of Fire

Valley of Fire is a beautiful national park area that is a relatively short drive outside of Vegas. We've gone and done the drive before but couldn't stay overnight on that particular outing, so we made a point of it to venture out when we had the time and check out their camping.

After making our usual stop at the little convenience store at the turn off, we made our way towards the campsite. We knew we were off to a good start when we saw this purple haired young lady biking about near the turn for the campsite road. There are two distinct pay stations in the park when you're planning to stay overnight- there's the initial entrance where you should pay your $10 entry fee, then once you enter the camping area there's a separate pay station where you should pay your $10 overnight camping fee, or more if you're staying in an RV as there are separate stations for RV campers with electrical and other hook-ups needed for the long-haul traveler. There is the option to get an annual park pass for about $200 if you intend to camp more than 10 times throughout the year and it's really worth it for the savings. We've gone twice now, which is $40 or one-fifth of the annual pass...we could easily make the trip another 8 times, so we'll probably be getting that pass here soon. It applies to multiple parks, not just Valley of Fire, so there's more practicality to it than you might initially think.. 

This trip went really well and we had a great time, though we didn't get to fully utilise our campsite because we were a little under-prepared. There are fire pits at every campsite so you can easily set up your own little toasty s'more station and tell spooky stories under the stars, though we didn't have any firewood this time... We made sure to bring some next time through, though! We spent most of the evening star-gazing and talking, which was really nice. There's no cell phone reception in the park so even if my work had tried to get ahold of me they wouldn't have been able to. We listened to a lot of the Lord of the Rings trilogy audio-books on CD while driving which was fun. Antho hadn't really ever delved into the series much prior to our dating, but I made sure to watch the Trilogy together when we had the chance. The books have a lot more detail and some additional characters, and the CDs Antho found were a bit older so they had a fun charm to them. Overall we had an excellent trip and a great time! We went back at the first available opportunity and will be back again soon enough.

More photos below!

Vegas: Valley of Fire part 4

This will be the last in the series of Valley of Fire posts I'll be doing for now, so if you're sick of seeing all these pictures of pretty rocks you can rest easy as the posts on this blog will soon be back to different subject matter. As for me, I absolutely love Valley of Fire and am excited to get back out there again soon and take more photos! Anyone with access to a camera can be a photographer, really, but it's the practice and personal perspective you bring to it that defines you from the rest- at least in my little ol' opinion. Everyone has a different way of seeing the world, as is especially clear when asking others to take photos for you when you have a particular vision in mind. My camera is nothing terribly fancy, at least compared to those massive lensed things I see the professionals using, and I've had it for years yet I'm still learning how to fully utilise all the functions it has at it's disposal and am always finding something new and interesting to try. So far it has worked well for my needs and I'm grateful to my past self for picking it up on a whim back at that shopping center in Shin-Urayasu station. Every day, every outing, is a new opportunity for exploration and experimentation and documenting it along the way helps to preserve those memories for years down the road. As long as digital media remains I can literally scour digital impressions of my memories. I think that's pretty amazing. 

And Valley of Fire? It's beautiful. I highly recommend going if you're ever in the area. We didn't even set foot near their visitor center, but if you have the time you can learn a lot about the area and it's history. By this point in our stay the sun was starting to dip lower in the horizon and we were starting to feel a bit of a crunch for time. The park is open from sunrise to sunset, and once the sun goes down it gets dark out there- very dark. The city lights of Las Vegas are miles away and the winding roads are only sporadically lit with street lights, making it a bit of a nerve-wracking drive if you're not careful. By the time we neared Lake Mead it was far too dark for photos as the distance between pools of light grew and their pale beams barely pierced the shadows. 

What photos remain will continue after the cut!

Vegas: Valley of Fire part 2

Valley of Fire is massive; the kind of expansive that would make an agoraphobic clutch up their hands and shriek in abject recoiling panic. 40,000 acres is a lot of land, and there's a lot of sand, stone and sky occupying that grand space. We spent the majority of our day here and still didn't see a fraction of everything there is to find or photograph. Every step we took was temporarily recorded in the sand, only to be blown away with the next strong gusts as we dipped our toes in the ocean of desert. The same was true for all sorts of life- we found a complicated tapestry of prints scattered among the bushes, a rich story of the creatures making this harsh environment their home. Even with all the tourist traffic and human footfall entering the area the local inhabitants seem to be doing quite well if the scattered piles of scat and abundant variety of tracks were any indication. Given the ephemeral nature of prints in sand and the frequent gusts we can get out here, we can only presuppose that the prints we witnessed during our trek were fairly fresh, maybe not within the hour but likely sometime in the same day or the night prior.  This is in contrast to the petroglyphs and ancient artefacts of prehistoric civilisations and species that also abound throughout the valley. History lingers while life invariably goes on, legends of the past looming on stone faces above a web of interspecies interaction. I doubt the rabbits care much for our stories, but who knows? Maybe they see human prints in their sandy home and contemplate their origins, coming up with their own tales of mysterious bipedal giants who occasionally stumble through.

More photos after the cut...

Vegas: Red Rock hike 2014/11/01

Las Vegas, for the uninitiated, is a city seemingly adrift among the vistas of the harsh Mojave desert. While there are several small towns and cities within an hour's drive of the ever-expanding edges of the Vegas cityscape, once you pass those you're pretty much in the wastelands. We're talking the land of infamous Area 51, the Nevada Nuclear test site, Graboids, and Fallout New Vegas. The benefit to all this expanse of unrepentantly rough terrain is that much of it is exquisitely beautiful if you dare brave getting to it. Red Rock Canyon is among these prettiest of places while conveniently close to the city limits and relatively low on the difficulty. You can certainly opt to scramble up challenging rocks and scurry through caves and cracks, but you do so at your own discretion.