Before I get all carried away about our week off and what we were doing while we were gone, I want to say that we now have the three new horses listed on the website and have a couple more horses scheduled to come in within a week or so. We will also be working on the new Fun Auction this week. We should have it up and running by early next week. There are still a few days left to get your items in if you have items you wish to donate. Whenever you take time off it also takes a few days to get caught back up and get back into the swing of things. We have been doing this so long we and it is such a huge part of our lives that normally we step right back into it like we never left. I have to admit, being back , we were a little out of sorts and were not sure how to go about our day. It sure was nice to have 7 days with no responsibility at all other than to eat and keep ourselves entertained. That’s exactly what we did. A huge thank you to Kelly and Sandy for holding down the fort while we took a much needed break! Heading Out: Last Wednesday we woke up and worked a full day like we normally do, but as soon as we were done we got in the car and headed out. Our flight was out of Mitchell Field in Milwaukee and we were headed for Las Vegas. This was not going to be your normal Vegas trip, especially since Karen and I are not gamblers. The reason we went to Vegas is for a few reasons…..flights and good hotels are cheap, Vegas is a great central location to a lot of other great places to go, and the main reason, we have always wanted to see U2 live and had this chance to do just that. Plus, even if you are not a gambler, Vegas has a lot to offer, great hotels, shows, food, night life, you name it. How did we end up planning a trip to Vegas you ask? Well, for the past couple of years Karen and I have planned a trip to Montana to spend some time in the Rocky Mountains for some photo taking opportunities. We could never find the time to make that trip happen. We also planned a trip to Chicago to go see U2. That trip was going to turn out to be too expensive and we ended up having to sell our tickets to that show. We also were hoping to get back to Las Vegas for 3 or 4 days like we did last year. None of these looked like they were going to happen any time soon. With a little planning and luck we were able to kind of combine those three separate trips into one we could make time for and that we could afford. How nice that U2 came to Vegas, that we could get tickets and a stellar deal on a flight and hotel. Then to top it off, we found the time to see some wonderful sights as well. Being that we both quit smoking it saves us a lot of money and we saved our pennies and planned for most of the summer. We put off most of our other plans to make this one trip happen. It was a great week. We are back now and we missed the dogs and our forum family though. Las Vegas: So we landed in Las Vegas late Wednesday night. We took a cab to our hotel which was directly across the street from Caesar’s Palace and the fountains at the Bellagio. What a view we had from our hotel. By the time we drove down to Milwaukee, flew to Nevada, got through the airport and the cab ride to our hotel, we were pretty tired. Even though it was Vegas and it was only about 11pm, we opted for a couple tacos at Del Taco on the strip, ate and went to bed. Joshua Trees: On Thursday morning we got up early and had the bell hop at the hotel get a rental car delivered to us for the week. We got breakfast at the Flamingo next door and hopped into the rental car and headed for southern California to go see the Mohave National Preserve and the Joshua trees that grow there. Neither of us had ever been to California and even though we didn’t go more than 100 miles or so into California, it was cool to say we finally made it there. We put on a few hundred miles through the Mojave Desert stopping for photos of the Joshua trees and the landscape. We made it back into Vegas just before dark, cleaned up and headed down to the Rio for their buffet. If you have never been to the World Buffet at the Rio, you have to try it at least once. The buffet is 120 yards long and most everything on it is really good quality. Driving into desert 
Road Runner we spotted 
Scott finding out it's not a great idea to just grab onto a Joshua tree 
Joshua tree forest (quite the difference from the forests around here) 
The Venetian: After dinner we headed to the Venetian to see the Blue Man Group. I had seen the Blue Man Group once before in Chicago, about 10 years ago and loved it. Since then I have been trying to get Karen to agree to go. She just wasn’t into it and never really thought she would enjoy their show. The show was fantastic and Karen was very pleasantly surprised. It’s hard to explain what the Blue Man Group’s show is like. It is a strange combination of music, humor, skits and a lot of really state of the art special effects mixed with audience participation. We both really enjoyed the show a lot. I am really glad I was able to get Karen to go because she was really blown away. Their show is brilliant and does not have a dull moment. It is held in the beautiful Venetian hotel. The Venetian has indoor and outdoor canals and gondolas like in Venice. The hotel itself is one of Las Vegas’ nicer hotels with marble floors and hand painted murals on the ceilings. View of a ceiling in Venetian 
Friday: Friday we had no plans except for the big U2 show later that night. So the whole day kind of had that big night energy feel to it. We didn’t do a whole lot during the day. We took our time getting up and getting ready. About 10:30 or so we walked down to the MGM to a little Mexican Cantina we usually like. The atmosphere is good, but to be honest, the food wasn’t anything special this time around and was over priced. After lunch we walked back to our hotel, grabbed the cameras and headed across the street to the Bellagio and Caesar’s Palace. Caesar’s Palace is my favorite Vegas hotel and the Bellagio can be appreciated by anyone who loves beauty and being in a lavish setting. Caesar’s is filled with beautiful statues and of course, the Forum Shops. The Forum Shops are 3 floors of shops featuring all the big name companies and designers. It’s not uncommon to see a pair of shoes there for $5000 or a statue for sale for $125,000. People like us cannot shop there obviously, but it’s fun to look either way. Where else but Vegas can we show up in tee shirts and shorts and walk into a store selling $50,000 urns and $25,000 dinning room chairs. We spent a grand total of $4.00 in the Forum Shops. Karen got thirsty and we bought a $4.00 Sierra Mist. What’s cool about the Forum Shops is that all the stores are indoor but the ceilings are painted and lit to make it look at feel like you are outside in Rome. Every hour it slowly changes from night to day. All along the streets are huge fountains and statues. It really does feel like you are walking down the open streets of Rome. In front of part of Caesar's Palace 
Fountain at Belagio during the day 
A Beautiful Day: Finally, the main reason we traveled 1800 miles……U2. Some of you get this and others just won’t, but what I will say is that U2 today is similar to what Bob Dylan and the Beatles were to people years ago. These bands lasted for years and were the voices of a generation. U2 is very much that kind of band and has the connections and following like no other band. Getting a chance to see them is an inspiring and rare treat that we have both wanted to do for quite a few years. That day was finally here. The Las Vegas weather was a beautiful 80 degrees with a clear sky…..perfect. We took a cab to avoid the traffic we knew would be a problem with 60,000 people pouring into UNLV’s Sam Boyd Stadium. We arrived a couple hours before the show and there were already a few hundred people there waiting. As we walked up to the arena we heard music playing, it was U2 music. As we got closer and walked past a section of fence that gave us a glimpse of the stage, we saw the the music was coming from the band. They were doing their sound check and we sat down and watched them perform 5 full songs….an extra little treat. We met a lot of people while we were there. People had traveled from all over the world to come see the concert. We met people from Australia, London, Canada, Germany, Venezuela and just about every US state. All of them flew in just for the chance to see U2. It was very cool and the people were all very cool as well, all sharing a love for the band we traveled so far to come and see. The concert itself was awesome to say the least. They played for 2 and ½ hours and included as many of their classics as they could put into one show. The sound was incredible and Bono was at the top of his game. Not too many bands these days can keep 60,000 people rapt like U2 can and for this amount of time. A U2 concert is very much a spiritual event and unlike any other band in recent times. Former President Bill Clinton was there as a guest of Bono to help promote the One Foundation which was founded by Bono to end world hunger. Amnesty International was also there and got an appearance on stage as well. There was also a live satellite feed from the international space station to the jumbo screen for a quick comment from the space station crew as well. The band has connections…hehehe. The stage itself was something. It looks a bit like a giant spider adorned with lights. It stands over 300 feet tall and has a screen that raises and lowers above the stage….quite a spectacle. What we thought was really cool was when we were sitting in our seats waiting for the band to start and were approached by a woman who asked if she could take our picture while we gave each other a kiss. What a weird request. It turns out that she worked for the One Foundation and at the end of the show they were going to post the photo of us kissing on the jumbo screen above the stage. That’s exactly what they did…..very cool. Too bad we missed the opportunity to take a photo of our photo on the U2 stage….oh well, still very cool. We did not risk bringing the good camera with us to the U2 concert in fear that they may not allow that, but here is a shot of their stage. 
Shame on you Las Vegas: So after the U2 show, 60,000 people poured out of the arena. Those few that brought their own cars were herded to the parking lot, the other 50,000 people were funneled through a maze of signs and ropes to a giant football field across the street from the arena. This was the taxi line. The idea was to get the crowd lined up and as a cab pulls up and leaves with its passengers, the next group is up. So there stood thousands and thousands of people waiting for their chance at a cab back to the strip which was about 15 miles away. The problem was the taxis never showed up. 2 hours after the show ended only about 50 cabs had showed up. The city was also supposed to send city buses out to the stadium to help get people back to the strip. The first bus showed up 2 hours after the concert was over. An hour later one more bus showed up. Shortly after that, 2 more buses finally showed up. So thanks to the pathetic lack of planning by the city of Las Vegas, about 10 to 15 thousand people were stranded all night long standing in an open football field with no way to get back to their hotels, no food, no bathrooms…..nothing. After a couple of hours, Karen and I walked a ½ mile down the road and flagged down a limo that was driving by and bribed the driver into taking us to the strip. The ride was going to cost us $150.00 so we split the cost with 6 other people who were all in the same mess as we were. I guess we got lucky. We made it back to the strip around 3 am, ordered a pizza and went to bed. We can only assume that the thousands and thousands of people who still had no ride back were still standing there when the sun came up the next morning. Las Vegas knows better and has the means to move mass amounts of people from place to place. Have you ever seen the crowds, cabs and buses down on the strip? Shame on Las Vegas for creating a situation that had it been any other band’s fans, would have turned into a full blown riot. As it was, it got scary and ugly at a few points while we were there with crowds blocking traffic and plugging up the roads trying to bribe and beg a ride out of there and back to their hotels. Zion: Even though we were up most of the night trying to find our way back to the Vegas strip the night before, we got up fairly early, hopped in the rental car and headed north out of Las Vegas. We stopped at the Rio buffet one last time for lunch before leaving town. We were headed for Zion National Park in Utah which was about 3 hours away. We reached Zion at about 4 pm. View driving into Utah to get to Zion 
About one half of the park was open to vehicles and the other half open to park buses only. So we drove through the parts that allowed us through. What a place! Huge red sandstone walls in the canyon…..heaven on earth. We drove from the bottom to the top of the canyon, up the steep switchbacks and through a mile long tunnel that was bored through the mountain, stopping for photo ops constantly. Just before dark we turned around and headed to the little town just outside the park to look for a hotel for the night. View of switchbacks from a hike 
Boy did we get lucky and work out a deal on a nice place! The very first place we stopped at was in a beautiful location, directly under one of the tall red canyon walls and along the bank of the Virgin River. It was beautiful. It turns out they had just added a couple of suites and were offering a price break for anyone wanting to rent them for the night because they still smelled like paint and they could not promise that the wireless internet was working or the satellite TV was working right yet. So we got a stellar deal on the nicest hotel room we have ever stayed at. It had a double set of patio doors as its entry which gave breathtaking views of the river and canyon walls. Once inside there was a full living room with satellite and a huge LCD TV. There was a full kitchen, a huge master bedroom with another LCD TV and a giant bathroom made completely of marble. In the gardens in the front yard were wild Mule deer who could have cared less how close we got. We took tons of photos, got some supper at the local sports bar and came back to the hotel to relax and plan our adventures in Zion for the next day. Shot of our motel for the night 
Shot of Scott with the mule deer we saw along the road in the park 
On Sunday morning we got up early and headed into the town of Hurricane to the good old Walmart to pick up hiking supplies, sweatshirts, trail mix, water, etc. We then headed back into Zion, parked the car at the guest lodge and took the park bus into the canyon for a series of hikes. We did the lower pool hike, the weeping wall hike and the river walk and Zion narrows hike. The river walk which took us into the Zion narrows was really cool. The canyon narrows down to just a few feet wide and you have to walk in the water up river to see the narrows. The water was cold and deep in spots, but we still did that part of the hike. What a place Zion is. By 5pm or so we were wiped out, all hiked out and took the park bus back to our car and drove to the outside edge of the park for one more hike to a place called Canyon Overlook for sunset pictures and views. That was kind of a scary hike, but we made it to the top where the view was fantastic to say the least. We met some nice people up there who took our picture together for us before we headed back down the canyon. Scott and Karen at Zion in Canyon Overlook 
Scott on rock wall during one of our hikes 
A few scenic shots from various hikes, including a couple of water falls 
Karen hiking in the narrows of Zion in the Virgin River 
Scott on our way back from hiking the narrows in the Virgin River 
Bryce Canyon: Our trip to Zion was over and we hopped in the car and headed for Bryce Canyon, about 2 hours away. We got to Bryce Canyon at about 8pm, ate something at the local diner and grabbed a room in one of the only two hotels around (Best Western) and went to sleep. We were wiped from all the hiking. We got up before the sunrise on Monday morning and got into the Canyon for sunrise photos. Holy cats is it cold at 9000 feet in Bryce Canyon! We got a lot of really cool photos, but the first hour or so was bitter cold. It eventually warmed up a bit and we got to see most of the canyon from the many scenic pullovers along the park road. Bryce Canyon is spectacular as well and is filled with deep red sandstone spires called hoo doos. That part of Utah is also really beautiful and isn’t so dry like the dessert in Nevada. There are lots and lots of horses and horse ranches among the buttes and canyons. It’s very pretty. One of the tunnels along our route 
A few views from various areas of Bryce Canyon 
Scott at one of our spots in Bryce 
Our last night: By noon we were ready to leave Bryce canyon and make the 5 hour drive back to Las Vegas. Most of the drive was really pretty and it was a nice drive, which also took us into Arizona. We got to see a lot of ground and different kinds of terrain on this trip. We made it back to Las Vegas around 5pm and went back to our hotel for a short one hour nap after that long drive from Utah. One of the scenes along the road on our way back to Vegas from Bryce 
After our nap we took a cab down to the Stratosphere, then down to Freemont Street (old Vegas downtown). Freemont street is a place we both agree we really like. It is where we stayed the first time we ever went to Las Vegas and is a place that feels much more like the old Vegas. The street is covered for 6 blocks with the world’s largest LCD video screen that plays a spectacular show every hour on the hour. We had supper at the Golden Nugget, walked Freemont Street, then took the Deuce (city bus) down to Circus Circus and the Riviera to explore those casinos for a bit. The only money we gambled while we were in Vegas was $10.00 I stuck into a penny slot machine in Circus Circus trying to win a new Mustang. I didn’t win the new car, but I did win $25.00 and cashed out before I gave lost that back to the machine. I also took Karen’s picture sitting on the carousel at Circus Circus. Have any of you ever seen the movie “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” with Johnny Depp? The scene with him and his “agent” getting stuck on the carousel was done on that very same carousel and we had to get a quick picture. Freemont Street (Downtown) 
Karen on the carousel (no clowns) 
From Circus Circus we walked the 12 blocks or so down to the Mirage to see the volcano show, then down to the Bellagio to see the lighted fountain show one last time. That took us until midnight or so, we had a mixed drink at our hotel then went to bed. The next morning we packed up and flew back to Milwaukee. From there we made the 4 hour drive home where we got to see Sandy and the dogs again. The dogs missed us of course and even though we had a great time, it was nice to come back to our dogs and horses and our forum family. Hope you all missed us too!! | 
