New Year in Las Vegas

Bacchanal Buffet

Jerome

Nellie Bly

Fireworks on the strip

Our plan was to spend New Year's Eve in Las Vegas, so on the morning of the 31st, we left Sedona to go farther west. First, we stopped by Jerome, a former mining town turned ghost town turned artist community. The fog was thick due to the rain last night, and as our car wound its way up the hill to Jerome, it did look a bit weird and eerie. 

There were several boutiques with impressive glasswork, including glass jewelry. I bought some pottery from local artists, and we visiting Nellie Bly, which is the largest kaleidoscope store in the world. I have never been to a kaleidoscope store at all before, but it is a lot of fun. They had kaleidoscopes of all sizes and type. I bought a necklace with a small kaleidoscope of on it, which is made with shards of gems from gem shows. It actually works as a kaleidoscope! I like it because it looks like a plain silver necklace with an Alice in Wonderland design on it, but it sort of has a secret--that you can look inside the tiny lens, and see all of those jewel tone colors.

We stopped by the Mine Cafe for a fantastic breakfast. The waitress convinced me to get a blackberry mocha latte, which ended up being the best latte that I have had in my life. 

From Jerome, we continued about four hours to Las Vegas. We rented a condo that overlooks the strip. 

For dinner, we went to the Bacchanal Buffet in Ceasar's palace. The price was marked up because of the holiday, and we had to wait about 45 minutes, despite their kiosk system. Their kiosk pretty much let's you take a ticket, and they will text you when you should come back in line, during which you still have to wait about 45 minutes. Not the best system, but I suppose it could be worse. The food was phenomenal. The crab legs and bone marrow were my favorite. Their impressive dessert bar made me feel like a wimp, since by then I was so full that I could only try three desserts. 

That night, we walked along the strip, which was entirely closed to traffic. It was like one giant block party, since apparently 300,000 people are on the strip for the New Year. There was also a random parade of zealous religious folk, who were yelling about how everyone there would be going to hell, and Jesus was alive and watching them. 

We left earlier to watch the fireworks from our hotel. Since it overlooked the strip, we had a great view of the entire performance. 80,000 firework were shot from seven of the casino rooftops, choreographed to music. It was a fantastic display.

Sedona

End of Cathedral Rock Trail

Cathedral Rock Trail

Casa Grande

Cafe Elote

Vom Fass

While I was marveling at the beauty of the Tucson area, my family kept assuring me that Sedona was even more beautiful because of the red rock.

On our way to Sedona, we stopped by Casa Grande National Monument, which is the first protected archaeological site in the nation. Casa Grande was first "discovered" by a catholic priest, but was built around 700 years ago. It is the largest ruin of the Hohokan people, who now prefer to be called the ancestral Sonoran Desert people. That area used to be river, so they built an irrigation system around Casa Grande. The river has since dried up, probably due in large part to damming projects. Holes were put into the Casa Grande walls, to measure passage of time based on the sun. The Casa Grande was abandoned, but the descendants of the SDP still live in the area. There is a very informative video at the visitor center about this history.

We continued on, through Phoenix, to our destination, with my dad complaining that I drove too slowly because everyone was passing me. I was driving well above the speed limit, which was 75 miles per hour, but everyone else seemed to be doing 90. People drive very quickly around here. 

Sedona was beautiful as promised. The red mountains loom high over the town, and I wondered if people who live there just take it for granted, kind of like how I would take the Empire State Building for granted. The mountains stand like stalwart guardians of the town. Apparently a lot of artists live here. 

The forecast was for rain tomorrow, so we rushed to Cathedral Rock Trail, which others warned us was steep and narrow at times.

The red dust reminded me of Uganda and Tanzania. As we got to the steeper area, people had to descend or ascend single file. Daunted by the climb, I decided to sit to the side, and let my brother go on ahead. A younger girl sat next to me. "I'm not going to make it back down if I go up," she said.

"Yeah, me too," I agreed. "Besides, the view is really nice here, it can't be that much nicer at the top."

I should interject here that I was wrong, and as a general rule, not only for hikes but maybe for other things in life, the view usually is indeed nicer at the top. 

We chatted for a bit, when she finally said, "do you want to try to climb it? Maybe we can climb up together?"

The peer pressure was enough to motivate me, so I said okay--mainly because I felt like I would also be holding her back now, if I didn't go. I'm glad that I did though.

We climbed up that narrow section, which was the steepest part of the hike. There was a significant amount of climbing after, which wasn't hard for me since I used to live on a fifth floor walk up. Most of these areas may seem steep, but the way it is designed makes it unlikely that you would fall very far if you slipped, so if you did slip you would be injured but probably not dead or permanently maimed. 

I caught up to my brother at the top of the trail, which overlooked everything around Cathedral Rock. It was worth the climb. The sun was about to set, and the valley below was a deep red. 

We made our way back down, and made an attempt to catch the sunset from the Cathedral Rock viewpoint, but unfortunately did not make it. 

That evening, we put our names down at Cafe Elote, for dinner. It is a popular and highly rated Mexican restaurant, that takes no reservations. The wait was two hours, so I did a bit of shopping and returned. The rain came, a downpour, making me really glad we rushed to do the Cathedral Rock Trail when we did. 

I went to Tlaquepaque shopping area, which is a beautiful little village style mall decorated with lights for the holiday season. I stopped by Vom Fass, which has an impressive collection of artisan oils and liqueurs. I bought a rose liquor that was very fragrant. The store gives samples of almost everything. 

Cafe Elote had good food, but was not worth the wait. I had the lamb adobo, which was good, but not two hour wait good. I would deal with a two hour wait for a small handful of restaurants, but this is not one of them. The corn cake dessert is interesting. I would recommend trying Cafe Elote at least once. 

There is a lot is Sedona that I did not get to do, so I hope to go back one day.