The Looooooong Way to Vegas!

A week ago or so Peg flew out to Washington DC to spend a few days with Shelly while Shell's husband Bill went to a conference. * The plan was for her to spend a few days there and then we would take the rest of the week and have a little vacation in Las Vegas when I went to pick her up. So she had a wonderful couple of days (three, actually) flitting around our nation's capitol with Shelly, visiting the White House, the Smithsonian, etc. They even took the subway (she's so proud of herself)!


* They do this every year. Bill has a big conference and Peg, and sometimes Carlene, go and hang with Shell. All it costs is a plane ticket, since they stay in the same room. Well, a plane ticket and a little shopping and dining as well.

So Wednesday, after I dropped Dan off at school, I took off for Vegas. Since I had a little time to kill (like all day!) I thought I'd go up around Utah Hill instead of through the Gorge. I got as far as the turnoff to Gunlock and thought as I hadn't been there in a long, long time I should take a little side trip. Well, once there I thought I might as well go on up to Enterprise since I hadn't been there for a long, long time and never on this particular road. The Mountain Meadow Massacre monument (above) is nearby and I stopped there for a bit.

Side trail: I'm still not quite sure how I feel about the massacre. Conflicted, I guess. I don't condone it, but I can understand what happened in light of past events, the lack of communication, and the heat of the moment. I think it should be viewed (in the Church, anyway) as a cautionary tale: Even good men (and women) can be deceived into doing the wrong thing.

Another side trail: Here's a whole other issue for me: On a regular basis, some people and groups call for an official apology from the church and point to this inicident as an example of Brigham Young's iron control over all that occured in the Utah Territory. This implies that the Church sanctioned the killings and by inference, other nefarious deeds that occured (or may have occured) during this era. I won't into all the arguments against that theory (others have done that, exhaustively) but I will mention that Pres. Young did in fact send a message to let the party pass through in peace but it arrived too late.

Last side trail on this subject (I promise!): As I said above, the MMM keeps getting brought up, old arguments and animosities revived, etc. and I think "Come on, people, get over it! It happened a long time ago. Just move on!" Yet in some ways don't we in the Church hold on to the persecutions of the past? And it wasn't that long ago both Illinois and Missouri officially apologized for the mob (and state-sanctioned) violence that drove the Mormons into the wilderness. (Of course the official body of the church, indeed the great majority of the church did not know about MMM until after the fact.)

Whew! That's enough of that. Let's get on to Vegas, shall we?

Once in Enterprise (winners of the KHS homecoming game this year 41-6) I took a road directly west out of town leaving behind an approaching storm.

North and west of Enterprise I hit the Utah-Nevada Border. Although the above picture shows only juniper trees, the pinyons in this area are overwhelmingly single-leaf pinyons. Known for their large, easily shelled nuts, I'm a little late to be picking any up off the trees or the ground. Fortunately, this was a good year for pine-nuts and I picked some up in Kanab at the pawn shop before I left. Around Kanab, and points east, the Colorado (or two-needle) pinyon predominates. The nuts from this pinyon are smaller and harder to crack, but some claim they are more tasty.

Side trail: Pine-nuts are one of the more fatty nuts (I looked it up) and a pound of nuts can contain more than 3,000 calories. Basically it breaks down like this: Fat -50%, Carbohydrates - 25%, and Protein - 25%.

Also seen in the picture above is the ubiquitous rabbit-brush and its yellow flowers.



Between Panaca and Caliente, heck, between Panaca and Las Vegas there's a whole lot of nothing except wide open spaces interspersed with the occasional oasis and mountain range.



There are large swaths (!) of Joshua trees extending along the base of the mountains (which are otherwise pretty barren except for maybe at the very top). There's that rabbit brush again.
Side trail: Joshua trees got their name from early Mormon pioneers who thought they resembled Joshua raising his arms to the heavens in prayer.



Right out in the middle of all this is the Pahrangat National Wildlife Refuge, a series of small lakes, marshes and wetlands providing an important stopover point for migratory birds.



Finally, in late afternoon, I reached Vegas and checked in at the Golden Nugget where we had a good deal on the room. Picked Peg up at the airport later that night and slept in the next day. Wonderful! The next evening we went to The Lion King at the Mandalay Bay Theatre. Really great show with extraordinary costumes. Peg and I were thinking that Grace ought to be there watching it with us. I think she would've really enjoyed it.



Of course no trip to Vegas is complete without shopping and we spent a good share of one day at the outlet stores downtown. Peg is trying to get as much Christmas shopping done as possible because Sarah's baby is due the middle of December. Peg's decided she really doesn't have time for Christmas this year. She's even threatening to not decorate! I'm sure a few things will find their way out of the Christmas boxes, however.



The high point of Friday was our trip to the Las Vegas temple. The session was small, but the spirit was great and the celestial room beautiful (first time we'd seen it). All in all we had a great weekend.