Tuesday, October 20, 2015

Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area

We got up early again and set out to explore the Strip the other way. I'd never made it to the Las Vegas sign so we had to get there. Turns out the sign is much further down when you're walking than it felt while driving. HA! :)
We made it!
Dork.
Exercising by the sign
We are still doing the fantasy fitness challenge at our gym and the challenge of the day was to jump back and forth over a line 50 times in 2 minutes. We thought it would be fun to do at the landmark sign. It was! Jackson did his in front of the sign and then a ton of tourists arrived so I moved to the less populated area to do my exercising. We had to kind of hurry back from that adventure because Jackson had to be on a call for work. Lame. I went shopping with my "winnings" from the night before. It seemed fair to me. ;)
Jackson had to call in for a work thing- ha ha!

Once that nerd wrapped up on his call, we headed out of the city for a hike I'd read about. No trip is complete with a stop at Tropical Smoothie first, though. Sooo good. I love that place. Ok, armed with smoothies we hit the road for about 45 minutes until we got to the park. A small entrance fee and we were let into a paradise. It was amazing. There is a 13 mile loop around the park with all kind of places to pull off to park so you can get to some great trails. We loved it.
Gorgeous hiking view
Gorgeous hiking partner
Petefish.
Yoga pose. Typical.
This place was incredible!
I couldn't take enough photos!
Mid-hike landscape
The road less traveled.. 
Splendor. 
We chose to hike to La Madre Springs. In hindsight some of the other hikes would probably have been a little cooler. Oh well. It was still gorgeous just the "springs" weren't exactly what I'd imagined!
Ok, really? We hiked for this!?

Jackson made one of his "famous" videos. I'm not sure why he turns into a salesman when we record this things, but so be it I guess?!

What Jackson calls an easy hike was 6 miles. SIX. Up hills. Ugh.
Better than the "springs"
NO FILTER. JUST AMAZING.
We made it back to the city just in time to relax for a bit before the hunger we'd worked up hit and it was time to find dinner. Dad and Diana hooked us up with a free buffet (sense a theme? Free food? My favorite kind!) at Planet Hollywood so we headed over. It was a good buffet, but no Rio! Also, we had to wait in line which you don't have to do with Dad and Diana's status (they'd returned home that afternoon) so that knocked us down a notch, too. ;) We've been Vegas spoiled! We did manage to finally catch the Bellagio fountain show that evening. It was lovely. The weather was just perfect all day.
Bellagio fountains 
Cute boy taking in the show
We were wiped out after that "easy" hike and turned in a bit early. One more day left to hang out before we head back to Indiana...

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