Henderson (It's a small world)

I started the day with a visit to Red Rock Canyon State Park . This park is very well set up with a 13 mile scenic drive with a number of parking lots from which short hikes can be taken. For better or worse, that day was clear and practically warm. So no scenic clouds, but a very comfortable morning. The stops are set up for maximum scenic value, so many shots can be captured literally from the parking lots.

Fortunately, I did one short hike to Lost Creek. Fortunate because I ran into Ken Osgood, whose brother-in-law is Lenny Siegel, one-time Mountain View City Council member. As my Rex Manor friends will remember, Lenny was instrumental (along with MAK) in helping us resolve the pesky Hetch-Hetchy community garden issue, which we were able to redirect to open space landscaping. Ken was hiking with the Thursday hikers, a group that has been in existence for almost 25 years. These apparently random connections are not that unusual. I have experienced this weird sort of confluence when traveling literally all over the world.

By midday I had driven the 13 mile loop and the light had gotten just too harsh. I had decided anyway to skip Las Vegas proper, including the Strip. The over-the-top vibe is just too obvious and not that interesting. Instead I headed over the Las Vegas Arts district . One could easily spend an entire day in the multi-block area. I had about an hour, so I went into one of the warehouses turned artists studios and explored a few studios.

I first found Gail, of Forever Flowers by Gigi . Gail makes beautiful artificial flowers of various woods. She is posing below with her infamous Brew-quet - flowers in a glass with a straw to extricate the contents. Gail took me up to meet Mary Mullin . Mary works not only in acrylic, but a number of multimedia techniques, in particular encaustic, which uses pigmented hot wax. Not surprisingly, I was drawn to her abstracts. Mary shared that she has been creating art for only a couple of years. Her previous profession was - criminal defense attorney - in Santa Barbara. It is only surprising that we had not run into each other previously. Finally, I stopped in at Diamond Sutra books - because who can pass up a book store, especially as independent book stores, really brick and mortar book stores, are a dying breed. Diamond Sutra specializes in specializing in vintage, antique, 1st edition, and rare books. They also have vinyl and other cool stuff. Jasmin was working the register today. My eye caught a book of M.C. Escher prints. Escher is one of my favorite artists, in part because he intertwined math and art to make pieces that are far more than the sum of their parts.

After that I hit up the local Whole Foods (no one needs a link, right?) for supplies and headed back to edit and write and pack up for my drive to The South Rim of the Grand Canyon in Arizona tomorrow. As a heads up, I have found that it is very difficult to upload and post when the internet is slow. I don’t know what the situation will be at the lodge. If you don’t immediately see posts the next few days, that will be the reason.

A few additional images will be found in the Gallery.