Sunset from the edge of Vegas

Another day, another adventure. 

I think we had initially set out with grandiose plans for a hike or some kind of epic journey but as we wound our way through neighborhoods dotting the edge of town and the shadows grew more pronounced we opted for something simpler. Like most cities, once you venture towards the perimeter you'll find you're more likely to encounter off-the-path hangouts popular for a variety of reasons, many of them apt to be questionable. In our ambling drive we had gravitated towards one lesser-known spot where there's a park, a view, and the occasional cop rolling through trying to break up any naughty shenanigans that may be going on behind closed car doors.  We spent our time rather innocently, eating inside Vanticore before walking through the park and catching the sunset from atop one particularly scenic hill. It was a pleasant way to spend an afternoon off with Antho, relaxing in the van and talking while the light around us fades. Another vehicle joined us on the hill and while they listened to music they weren't so loud as to be totally obnoxious. A patrol car did roll past us on the main road at one point, but the van doors were open and we weren't bothered. Naturally, I took it upon myself to snap as many photographs as my whims dictacted, and the cream of the crop will be included below! 

Vegas: Springs Preserve Late Fall visit

The Springs Preserve here in Vegas likes to get dolled up for different holidays throughout the year and they try to be inclusive of the multitude of different cultures living together in the valley too, which is great! Whether you're a member like Antho and I or just a regular visitor going for a spontaneous outing you can expect to stroll up to occasionally discover a themed entrance appropriate for the most timely celebration, and during this trip out we found the Preserve dressed up for Dia De Muertos, an event celebrating beloved ancestors and family members in Latin cultures. The decorations are not the only way they celebrate as there are also fun activities and live events, music, food and crafts going on during the 2 day celebration! This year the event will be November 2nd through the 4th and you can learn more here. It's advised to get your tickets ahead of time! We didn't go for the paid event as we aren't particularly familiar with the celebration and we weren't there at the right time, anyhow. During our visit, the decorations were the only thing really going on and the preserve was pretty quiet. This was fine by us as we enjoyed strolling around in the late-afternoon light and checking out some of the hiking trails we hadn't yet ventured out to in prior trips. There's several routes you can take through the more open and natural side of the preserve, and we enjoyed our visit quite a bit. We definitely didn't see every trail or every thing there was to see out there, but it was a lovely use of an afternoon. I hope you enjoy the photos! Cheers.  

 

Vegas: Fremont Street Experience

Fremont street is the original Las Vegas strip, built around the main transportation hub of the early days.  Over the decades since it spawned it's fallen in glamour to the newer casinos of the South Strip. You can still easily take the Deuce down to Fremont Street, but it noticeably diverts away from Las Vegas boulevard for a few blocks in the weird dead-zone between the old and new, where money seems to have skittered away to other locations as the crackheads who amble the streets grow in number. This has had an interesting impact... while I will always readily recommend Fremont Street experience to any tourist who asks me for advice, it's due to the fact that the buskers who proliferate in the streets are a class of their own and the amenities are half the cost of the newer end. Downtown and Fremont feel like an island, separate from "The Strip" that most tourists know, and yet this is the original. It's worth seeing if solely to see where the city came from and how much it has changed over the years. There's always some form of live entertainment, be it an Elvis impersonator or "Safe Sax" guy, spray paint artists or the dancing DJs. Fremont is guaranteed to be a memorable experience!

More photos after the cut!

Vegas: Downtown night shoot

 Downtown Las Vegas and Fremont are symbiotic areas, in ready walking distance from one another but still somewhat disparate entities. The farther you get from the casinos on Fremont street, the thinner the tourist crowds become- sometimes literally given that the Heart Attack Grill on Fremont street actively advertises to the larger crowd with advertisements encouraging you to "gain all the weight you ever wanted" and free food for people over 350 pounds. The Heart Attack grill greets you at the corner of Las Vegas Boulevard and Fremont- meanwhile, a couple streets over in what is dubbed "Fremont East" or Downtown you'll find vegan restaurants, sushi, small hipster bars and juice bars a plenty.  There are still plenty of hotels, motels and hostels on either side of the coin though again, the farther you get from the casinos and telescreen of Fremont Street experience the more different (and run down) it may feel. It's a bit of a patchwork of old and new as Zappos moved into the area and started investing into it there have been pockets of luxury apartments and shiny new murals and shops catering to their tribe. 

While the area was the original Vegas strip it had cascaded into near oblivion with the newer casinos farther south...a lot of money has been poured into rejuvenating it over the past few decades and it's brought a lot more life into it while trying to maintain the charms of it's original state- things like 99 cent shrimp cocktails and cheap surf and turf compete with bikini-clad dancing DJs and a zipline that sends shouting thrill seekers overhead in a parade of butts or bellies.  

There's always something going on downtown, and we live relatively close to the area as a whole so we've enjoyed going out for a stroll or bike ride with our friends or visitors. On this evening our good pall Ceedro joined us in our jaunt, and it was a lot of fun. We even found the Ghostbusters's sweet ride! This post will cover the photos I took downtown while tomorrow's will focus on the actual Fremont Street Experience. Enjoy!

 

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!