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Thursday, December 27, 2018

Vegas to Red Rock, NV

December 18, 2018
 

"You think that I am impoverishing myself withdrawing from men, but in my solitude I have woven for myself a silken web or chrysalis, and, nymph-like, shall ere long burst forth a more perfect creature, fitted for a higher society." - Henry David Thoreau




I love Tennessee.  It has its seasons.  Our fall and spring are to die for.  But in winter, the green fades and it rarely displays that cozy, snowy postcard winter bliss.  More likely, it will be a disagreeably cold and rainy couple of months.  This family starts to feel a little trapped and stir crazy.  So this year, we decided to do something a little different. 


 I'm always on the lookout for cheap flights from Tennessee to … well... anywhere.  Seriously.  We just constantly scan all the flight deals until we see something interesting.   And that, my friends, is step one of the trick to traveling on the cheap.  Find the cheap flights.  To anywhere.  And then go to that place.  On those dates.  The rest can fall into place fairly easily.  You simply cannot operate the other way around on a normal human's budget if you want to go to more than a few places during your lifetime. 
So to summarize the absolute biggest trick to travelling...
 
How to find flights...
  • [Me]                Where are flights cheap?
  • [The internet]  Vegas round trip $97, December 17th - January 4th
  • [Me]                We're going to Vegas!
  • [Also Me]        But I don't want to go to Vegas!  I hate Vegas.
  • [Sensible me]  Ah...but you can drive to a lot of places from Vegas.
  • [Me]                Right.
 How NOT to find flights.….
  • [Me]                 Cold sucks!  I want to go to Puerto Rico the week after Christmas!
  • [The internet]   Puerto Rico costs seven million dollars the week after Christmas.
  • [Me]                  I give up.  I'm going to Target to buy a cute scarf instead.
 
Confession.  I had both of those conversations, but not necessarily in that order.  So...long story short...the internet told us we could go to Vegas from December 17th to January 4th.  And that is exactly what we did.  So what do you do when you the universe sends you to Vegas?  You  make the most of it and then get out of there as soon as you can.  Sorry Vegas!  But you are expensive and half naked.   We did find a fun little park near the historic Fremont Street.  At least we thought it was a park.  It was certainly fun enough with giant chess and cornhole, a three story Victorian train car to climb around in and a 30ft polar bear made out of car hoods.  As it turns out, it was a staging area for Lyft rides!  As in...you call Lyft to pick you up and hang out at the Polar Bear till they show up to get you.  Crazy.  It does, however, shed some light on why we were the only kids in the park. 








So after our obligatory stay at Circus, Circus where the kids put their whole heart into winning all the Willy Wonka cards from the pushy quarter game and after Tom and I spent our customary $20 to see if Luck would be our Lady...we headed for the hills.  Literally.  We fled Vegas and rushed to Red Rock Canyon.   

I have a confession.  I don't care for cities.  They bore me.  I admit that there is an energy in cities that is exciting, but it pales in comparison to what a quiet sit in nature does for me.  I crave being in the presence of something real.  Thirty minutes outside the city and we were transported to the Nevada of before.  Before the invention of neon lights.  Before tiny computers in our pockets called strangers in automobiles and told them to pick us up at the giant polar bear.  Before scantily dressed girls wearing feathers.  Before Blackjack and penny slots.  Only terra at its purest and sweetest.

There is such a stark contrast between the city rolling away behind you and Red Rock Canyon rising before you.  The right angles give way to the stunning curves and pockets of the canyon.  The pleading of buskers yields to the whispering of grass.  Despite a parking lot teeming with cars, we were greeted with near solitude, only passing three people as we meandered along the ridge, up and over the first of the hills.  I watched a long-eared jack rabbit bound across the rocks . We followed it over the crest of a hill, amazed at how it could be so clever as to disappear from our view entirely in that barren landscape.


Naturally, walking up to the canyon, the gravity of the place was lost upon the kids.  They moaned and whined about the prospect of walking so far for a bunch of rocks.   We ignored the pleading to go back to the hotel.  We only half attended to the complaints of ankles and knees that were hurting straight out of the car.  However, as we began our steady climb up the canyon, the complaints seemed to obey the laws of gravity and remained  tethered to the ground.  Our spirits rose with every foothold up the canyon.  









As we climbed, we watched the red rocks suddenly change to white Aztec sandstone.  The red coloration is the result of iron minerals in the rocks, exposed to the elements and converted to rust.  Rust never looked so beautiful.  Dizzy  epically dabbed over the Mohave Desert and did a little bit of cactus hugging.  We inspected all the gnarled trees and dared each other to peer into crevices in the rocks.  We climbed to the top of the first hill and peered curiously into a sole puddle of water, pooled into an indentation.  Strange enough to find a pool of water so exposed at this elevation, but more curious still to see that it was full of bees, some still with enough strength to muster movement in their wings.  Where in the world had they come from?  And how long had it taken one of them to find this oasis in the desert and send word back to the hive?
















 If you didn't know better, you'd think we had only two children.  But I assure you that we do have three.  At some point, we gave up trying to capture Olive in photographs, since she would risk her life darting behind rocks and ducking to evade the camera.  Truly,  she does travel with us.  And the lack of photos prove only that we respect her wishes...to an extent.  Someday, she will ask us why there are no pictures of her during our travels.  This is the one I will show her.   I'm choosing to trust that she will remember all the gorgeous details without the photographs to remind her. 





Ivy spotted this rock from a distance and declared it to be a turtle rising from the water, mouth agape, ready to eat something.  I have to admit that it took several minutes of her coaxing me through it before I could see it.  Do you?

















We barely scratched the rusty surface of this canyon. At every bend, I was overcome with the reality that someone was fortunate enough to see all of this first.  Someone walked over a hill and was presented with this beauty without any advance notice. I can't even imagine what that would be like.  But the feel of the walls, the mystery of the bends, caves and crevices, the trio of coyote that bound across the path in front of us...all of these will mark it in my memory.  I have to say that we will be back, as I am certainly not done with this place yet. 





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