Lights and Sunshine in Vegas

We enjoyed the phony materialistic lights of Vegas . . .

. . . for one evening's walk. Then enough is enough and we drove around to see what else the area had to offer.

Hoover Dam and Lake Mead were both on my list to see, so we spent the day touristing those two areas. On another afternoon, we headed up toward Mt. Charleston, a nearby peak over 11,000 ft. As we gained elevation, the Joshua trees and other desert landscape were replaced with juniper, pinion, and ponderosa pine.

On our last afternoon, we toured Red Rock Canyon. Every day the high temperature was in the mid-60's and the low in the 40's. It was like our Alaskan summers. Then I remembered that we aren't blessed with that many days of sunshine in a row!
For more pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/jillcaho/VegasWebPictures