Flashback Friday: Nevada (Early)

Well, since we are driving to Nevada tomorrow for a trip to see John's family and attend his middle brother Brian's graduation, I decided to post my Flashback Friday post early.  If you would like to participate in this awesome weekly event or visit the equally awesome host, then go on over to Christopher & Tia. 

Appropriately, my Flashback Friday this week is about our last trip to Nevada.  The trip was in December 2006 and it was my first trip to Nevada, while John had been there many times before and had lived in Nevada when he was a young kid.  We had only been married for a few months and I was nearing the end of my first trimester when we went on a week long trip to Nevada with John's family right before Christmas (we got home on Christmas Eve day).  We flew to Las Vegas and stayed in Circus Circus on the strip (seriously, the strip is one of the most disgusting places I have ever been).  While in Nevada we saw places on the Las Vegas strip, went hiking in the Valley of Fire, took a trip to Death Valley in California (my first trip to California), and drove to Hoover Dam (when we crossed over the dam, it was my first time in Arizona as well).  

I was super sick for the trip, because I had morning sickness 24/7 for the first four months of my pregnancy.  Flying, traveling, hiking, and eating vacation food all didn't help with that sickness either.  Neither did my father-in-law and brothers-in-law eating cans of tuna inside the rental mini van we shared.  Yeeaaahhh.  I like to think I was actually pretty successful at only vomiting when outside the vehicle, but there was one time on the freeway in Las Vegas when I ended up puking in my hands.  It wasn't a pleasant experience.  Luckily we were in Nevada during December, so it was actually really cool (not cold).  Unfortunately for us, when we go to Nevada this weekend for our second trip there, it will be between 102 and 106 degrees F.  Can I just say that it sounds like hell? 

The vacation to Nevada was nice because we got to get away from the cold in Washington and see something new.  It definitely isn't my favorite place to vacation.  In fact the Las Vegas area is probably one of the worst places, in my opinion.  I have no idea why anyone would want to live there.  But of course, since I hate it so much there, it is only natural that the in-laws would move there about a year and a half later (they love it there for some crazy reason).  I will give some of the places there credit...like Valley of Fire.  Valley of Fire was really pretty with all the red rocks and arches, but it is one of those pretty things you see every decade and you're good.  Not like the northwest with all of its beauty.  And I wouldn't move there for that one place.  But a good place to visit now and then.  Valley of Fire was definitely my favorite part of the trip!  It was also really awesome seeing our good friend Phil (one of our best friends from high school and he was the photographer at our wedding) - he was in Las Vegas staying with his family for Christmas (they had moved there semi-recently when we were there).  Death Valley was cool to see just to say we saw it, but I honestly didn't think it was all that pretty.  The sand dunes were pretty cool to hike on, but it was a pretty ugly sparse place.  Perhaps that is why it is called Death Valley?  Because it is dead? We'll see what sorts of things we see this weekend while we're there.  

The following are some of the pictures from that vacation - they were all done on disposable cameras because this was a couple of months before we received our digital camera as a gift.  It is crazy looking at some of these pictures because we are so young looking and Johnny was only an itty bitty baby in my womb at this point (though we did feel him move for the first time while we were in our hotel room in Las Vegas! Exciting!  And we didn't know he was a boy yet at that time).  Enjoy!

Valley of Fire

 

Death Valley

Scotty's Castle 

The sand dunes

I had to take a break from all the hiking because I almost passed out

See the farthest sand dune (the really tall one)?  We hiked all the way to the top of that...and this picture was taken halfway through out hike.  We hike a couple of miles across really big sand dunes and I almost didn't make it.  It was crazy.

See the mountains in the distance?  Well, there is a really faint line right underneath them and very very tiny little dots...those dots are cars.  One of those was our car.  See the tiny people in the foreground of the picture hiking?  They are quite a bit away from me (I'm on the tallest peak).  We had a really looonnng hike back to our car and the sun was setting.  Wonderful when you're pregnant, let me tell you.

The Devil's golf course

Badwater Basin - the lowest point in North America

Las Vegas - Paris hotel

(we went up in the eiffel tower with our friend Phil) 

Hoover Dam

Las Vegas - the Venetian

I have one more blog post to do while I'm finishing up with the cleaning and packing before we leave for our trip tomorrow.  Twelve hours in the car tomorrow, then the weekend with the in-laws (including John's grandparents from Oregon who I love! We're excited to see them because it has been over a year since we last saw them!), and driving back to Colorado on Monday.  I will post photos either in the hotel at night or once we get back from Nevada on Monday or Tuesday.  :)  Hope you all have a great weekend!