Vegas: Valley of Fire part 1

Valley of fire, a relatively short drive of about an hour from the Las Vegas valley on the interstate, is a state park with over 40,000 acres of beautiful desert landscape full of a variety of lushly coloured stone formations, petroglyphs dating to over 2,000 years ago and all sorts of other wonders. There's a small fee of $10 to enter the park but it allows you access to all of the hiking trails- of which there are definitely too many of to try to conquer them all in one day. You can also opt to camp for up to 2 weeks in any 30-day period, which is handy for those people living out of their vans or RVs or even just locals looking for an extended staycation. The ancient artifacts and glyphs are protected by state and federal law, so please be respectful when visiting and don't deface anything! It's happened before and caused an outcry as the perpetrators were sought out to be charged.  There's some serious history among these stones, so with that in mind enjoy your stay and have fun! 

This post is mostly about our trek to get there as it was one of our first real journeys stretching Vanticore's legs. The van is an older model but new to us, so we're still breaking her in and trying to get a feel for how she handles. There's been some hiccups and a few trips to the mechanic along the way, but such things are to be expected with any vehicle, especially one that's been on the roads for more than 140,000 miles. On this venture she held up well and Antho drove her for hours - from leaving Vegas to get to Valley of Fire to later taking the scenic route around to Lake Mead and then all the way back home. We spent the majority of our day in the van, so of course we had to stop and grab some snacks along the way! There's a market along the two-laned road to the park where you'll see a lot of semitruck drivers refueling for the next stint of their journey as well. Inside you'll find a plethora of tempting snacks and diversions from dangerously hot jerky and sauces to a vast stockpile of fireworks. People the world over love their fireworks and Americans are no different, though the laws vary from place to place and the actual use of some of the fireworks for sale in their warehouse may be frowned upon when you get home. We didn't make any explosive purchases this time and stuck with dried fruits, jerky and beverages to power us through. 

More photos after the cut!

Vegas: Bonnie Screams Halloween haunt

Bonnie Springs has no shortage of entertaining ways to while away the daylight hours throughout the entire year, but come sun down in October things shift gears quite a bit. After their normal operating schedule, the springs close down to the public for a couple hours as the ghouls start to crawl from their crypts and the venue itself changes it's name from the unassuming "Bonnie Springs" to "Bonnie Screams"! It's a fitting change in moniker as the shadows spread and spookiness prevails you might find yourself hard-pressed to silence a scream. Not only is the location famously haunted (as explored in an episode of Ghost Adventures) year round, anyway, but when the barrier between this world and the next one over thins during Halloween it's bound to get a bit spectral. Even during the supposedly safe daylight hours I found myself screeching in shock and horror in the wax museum when one of the wax "figures" sprung to life and damn near scared the shit out of me, literally... Luckily for us, it was just one of the gunmen from the afternoon shoot-out messing with us, but with the thick and ominous atmosphere of the wax museum I really wouldn't have been surprised if that had not been the case. There's a lot of history at Bonnie Springs as it was an important stop in the Spanish trail for some time and helped in the exploration ever Westward that led European settlers to build up the Americas as we know them today...  but prior to that Paiute tribes and indigenous people called this place their home for much, much longer. If all the tales of misfortune attributed towards building upon ancient Indian burial grounds holds any water, the entirety of Las Vegas and especially Bonnie Springs would be rife with curses and foreboding. 

With multiple haunted houses to explore, the cost of the tickets themselves is quickly absolved. We had a lot of fun and thoroughly enjoyed our exploration of the grounds. One especially fun thing about your tickets is that you can do the haunts as many times as time permits in the evening, there's no limit- so if you need several rounds through to get your satisfaction you absolutely can! On top of the haunted houses there were live performances from fire dancers and magicians, tapping into the otherworldly powers provided by the Hallowed eve. Between our explorations of the petting zoo and daytime grounds, we did have an hour or two to pass before they reopened to the public...we opted to hang out in our van after moving to the Screams specified parking. We watched the sun go down and took a few more photos of the van, and ourselves, before we were able to strike out for the spooky fun. You have a couple of options from there- we opted out of the zombie paintball this year as it wasn't in our budget and instead took the creepy walking trail up to the haunt. Though the darkness made it difficult to snap much, I'm not terribly bothered by this as I wouldn't want to ruin the fun for anyone else! Suffice to say, winding our solitary way along a desert path in the dark with creepy sounds echoing among the terrain and the occasional hung man, clown or other otherworldy spook greeting us around various turns had our hackles well and raised before we even entered the grounds proper...

More photos after the cut...

Vegas: Bonnie Springs Petting Zoo

Once you've made the drive out to Bonnie Springs, you may as well stay and partake of all the activities available! Of course there's a restaurant, lodging and horseback rides available for those of you who have the time and the funds, but for us we were more or less limited to what we could partake of in the same day the petting zoo and shows are plenty of fun. We had wandered around old town a bit but as animal lovers we were, of course, far more excited to partake in the petting zoo and mingle with the animals. There are all sorts of animals wandering around in the open, including fainting goats, but out of respect for the animals PLEASE do NOT spook them! Even the adorable fainting goats, for as novel as their quirk may be, are actually fainting out of fear against their will and it is not good for them.  Most of the people working the grounds are volunteers and are there out of their love for the animals, so please respect them and the animals. If a volunteer tells you to cut your shit, whatever it is you're doing, then listen to them. Don't be a turd. Animals deserve respect too, and though I myself am not a vegan or especially religious, I understand that we share a special communion with our fellow sentient beings on this planet. 

That all being said, have fun! Just be respectful. Human, animal, two-legged, four-legged (or  less/more), we're all here for a short ride so let's be kind to eachother. 

More photos after the cut...

Vegas: Journey to Bonnie Springs

Bonnie Springs is a small ranch outside of Las Vegas, a short drive from the city itself and even closer to Red Rock canyon. It's entirely possible to drive to Bonnie Springs for a pleasant day trip from the Strip if you're a visitor who seeks external enjoyment beyond the plinkity-plink-plinking of slot machines trying to bribe your last nickel and dime from your pocket. For the locals, Bonnie Springs is a great way to escape and get some much needed bonding time with this thing called "the great outdoors". There's a plethora of fuzzy things to interact with and introduce your small humans to if you'd like them to view their fellow beings with some measure of respect.  The drive itself was pretty straightforward and quite enjoyable in Antho's big comfy van named Vanticore. We grabbed some food on the drive out and made a day of it. There's a restaurant at Bonnie Springs with a fully equipped bar, so if you're wanting to make a full day of it there's no reason not to, we're just broke and don't get to partake of the fullest of their offerings available due to our lack of funds. Such is life. Gotta live within your means, so we make do!

Vegas: The Watching Dead Party at Shakespeare's Grille and Pub

Happy New Year guys!

Believe it or not, I still occasionally go out and do caricatures. It's not something I like to do all the time anymore as I've made it my career for nearly a decade and, unfortunately, that didn't always make it fun for me but when the time is right and the fates align I can be found out doodling again for fun. This was one such occasion and for one magical night I could be caught at Shakespeare's Grille and Pub in Henderson for the Watching Dead party! There was no shortage of victims for my zombie caricature to slaughter off in new and amusing ways (bottle through the cheek? check!) or with entertaining new friends (birds in hair, squeakers in beards, etc). It was a good night and I had a lot of fun! I'm often surprised by the turn out of eager models when I do this, but I really should credit my buddy Danny, AKA Fat Beard, for his hard work putting these events together. Not only did he go through all of the work to hammer out the rights to view and display these shows in public with AMC, but he does an incredible job of spreading the word and promoting the events before they happen. Danny's a great dude and a key member of the Critical Care Comics  non-profit that spends their free time visiting children in the hospital to have Batman, Spider-Man, Wonder Woman, Deadpool or any of their other local heroes to deliver 28 pages of happiness at a time. They've been recognized by local newspapers like the Review Journal for their efforts and while this is an offshoot work done of Danny's own efforts, he's an integral part to the engine that keeps CCC running. It's always nice to work with him and he's always been a professional, caring dude who does the best he can with everything he has going at once. I'm happy to consider him among my friends and am excited for all the work we might be able to accomplish together in the new year! More photos after the cut...