My Mountain Trail

Merry Christmas!

Friday, December 25th, 2009

We hope all of you are having a wonderful Christmas season. We are!

It seems like we got a late start on our Christmas vacation this year. And, I guess we did. As a result though, we still haven’t taken our annual Christmas-email picture. Maybe in the next few days.

We have been busy after all. For the last few years we have been wanting to stop in Las Vegas to eat at Bobby Flay’s Mesa Grill. We are big fans of his Southwest style of cooking, and have several of his grilling cookbooks. So, eating at his restaurant was on our list.

On our way towards LV we called our friend Terry, who lives in Henderson. He was planning to leave to visit family the day after our planned arrival, so he offered up his driveway to park the camper. And, he was available for dinner.

And so we did get to go to the Mesa Grill. The food was excellent (Terry’s coffee-rub filet was probably the best), the service was pretty good, and the company was world-class. We had a great time, and Terry’s experience dealing with the Strip traffic, valets, and general Vegas hype made it a piece of cake to get in and out of the restaurant. Ha! We were home in the Mothership by 10:30 p.m. Maybe earlier!

The next day we needed to get workouts in. And, well, we were on vacation. We slept in a bit, made some yummy Ethiopian Sidamo coffee, and some breakfast. And then, finally Lori and Terry went swimming and Cookie and I went running. By the time we were done, had eaten lunch, and gassed up the rigs, it was about 2:30 p.m. Too late to drive to St. George and arrive before dark.

So we didn’t go. We decided to go to Valley of Fire State Park, which is about an hour outside of Las Vegas.

VOFSP is really nice. We camped in a pretty secluded campsite (they all are this time of year) in the red rocks. Slept in again. And then went for a bike ride. It was really beautiful, and defintely a place we will visit again. Maybe even on this trip.

We left VOFSP at about 3 p.m., arriving in St. George at about 5:45 p.m. (including the time change). It was completely dark. Oh well, we have stayed in Snow Canyon State Park, our destination, before so we just went with a pre-selected campsite from our last visit. Turns out it is a good site for the Spring/Summer, but a bit cold for the Winter. So, we moved today, on Christmas day, to a super nice site w/ a Cookie playground in the back. And good sun for the solar cell and general warming.

Today we hiked out of the canyon to re-connect w/ family and to enjoy the spectacular surroundings. Most of the pictures I took were on film so I’ll try to share those at some later opportunity.

That’s our story for now. Our cell access is very spotty, but I have found that the digital mode is slightly better than the voice mode. Here goes posting… Merry Christmas everyone!