Red Rock Rocks!

On the Saturday evening, our group all gathered at the Mirage where we hopped on board a bus that took us to Red Rock Canyon Ranch, 20 miles west of Las Vegas. It is referred to as 'Red Rock' by locals because of the striking red-colored sandstone formations found throughout this small valley. These formations can be seen from almost anywhere in Las Vegas. The Red Rock area was, for most of the last 600 million years or so, originally part of a deep ocean basin. Movements of the Earth's crust began occurring about 225 million years ago, causing the seabed to rise slowly.

As soon as we left the city of LV, the terrain and landscape changed dramatically, where we found ourselves smack in the middle of the Mojave Desert with tumbleweeds, cactus, Joshua trees, coyotes and other critters all around us. It was hard to believe that just a few miles away was the infamous flashy, neon-lit, bustling Las Vegas! Not too many people know about the Ranch where anybody can arrange to go there and have a huge bar-b-que or go horseback riding, although it's mostly done for groups of people.

When we got to the outskirts of the ranch, we all given cowboy hats with a leopard hatband(!) and then boarded horse-drawn stagecoaches and wagons! Off we went, like a bunch of pioneers, across the rugged landscape, as the sun was setting. The mouth-watering aroma of barbeque greeted us as we pulled into the tented and picnic-bench area, and just seeing the campfire, made me feel like a kid at camp all over again! We had all kinds of wine, beer and soft drinks and a FEAST of a chicken barbeque with corn on the cob, salad, huge baked potatoes, and the best darn baked beans I've ever tasted!

After dinner, we had a huge raffle, with the proceeds of the raffle sales going to Siegfried's sister, Dolore, in Romania who is a nun and runs an orphanage. I won 3 prizes, one of which was a gorgeous, huge autographed poster of Siegfried & Roy posing with a white tiger! Then we roasted marshmallows, made S'mores, had hot chocolate, and even had fun taking our little trips out to ye olde Out House with the ye old kerosene lantern!

On the way back on the horse drawn carriages, our two horses bucked when we went up a hill!! Guess the horses were trying to tell us we all ate too much!! Anyway, they were bucking and neighing to the point where our wagon almost toppled over!! We all had to get out while the driver calmed down the horses!! It was really just like the wild west, and was a complete blast. The wagon ride back down to the bus area was just magical: clop, clop, clop, holding on for dear life (!), a full stomach, wonderful new-made friends, singing crazy songs, and all under a warm night sky full of a millilon stars! I haven't seen that many stars in years, since the sky in the City has so much haze. Out there in the desert, the air is clear and so invigorating, and unlike the Las Vegas Strip, the only light was from the moon and the kerosene lanterns on the wagons... It truly was a special, magical night I'll never forget.

After we returned to the Mirage and all went our own ways, I decided to walk down the Strip aways to browse the shops and see if I could find a pair of the same type of sunglasses I bought a couple of years ago in Vegas. Those are now broken, and I wanted to find another pair like them so bad, so the search for these same sunglasses became 'A Quest'! I swear I must have looked on every damn sunglass rack on the Strip! Anyway, I kept walking and walking, and thinking that, oh well, I'll just go as far as the next bus stop, and then hop the bus to get back to my hotel. But when I'd get to the next bus stop, there was no bus, and so I would decide to walk a little further to the NEXT bus stop! Well, it turned out that I was so mesmerized by all the shops and stuff to see along the Strip, that I just kept walking, until I finally found myself back at my hotel!! Now, THAT is one LONG walk! I walked from the Mirage all the way back to the Tropicana which I'm told is about 4 miles!

By then, I noticed that a pain in my left heel that had been there before I left for Las Vegas, was now getting worse. But I just figured it was from all this walking on the hard pavement. Just about collapsed when I finally made it back to my hotel room where it felt like heaven to take a hot bath and order room service! Little did I know what was wrong with my foot, but more on that later!