vacation wrap-up

Back from the west. Still in recovery mode from my red-eye flight back, but at least able to put a list of thoughts up here. Not much more though, so a quick good and bad round-up of whatever I think of will have to suffice. These are in no particular order, just whatever comes to mind first.

The good...
-- All of my flights were free of screaming kids! That's easily the most amazing thing that's ever happened to me. Unfortunately I've now used up all of my alloted good flights for this life and every flight from now on will be full of screamers.
-- The parks were great. Words are useless here; go look at a picture book. Or maybe I'll post a photo or two here someday.
-- The hiking was awesome too--the best hiking of my life without question. The views are unmatched; some reminded me of looking down from an airplane.
-- The weather was good. Could have been better on some days but no rainouts/snowouts/windouts the whole trip. Can't ask for much more than that.
-- We didn't drown in any flash floods. It's always good to finish a trip alive and in some of the canyons we would have been climbing for life if a thunderstorm came in. And it was actually getting kinda cloudy when we were in the Narrows at Zion.
-- I fulfilled one of my pre-trip requirements by doing something stupid and illegal. The Tower Bridge at Bryce Canyon was up a bit from the trail, maybe 50 feet or so up a scree field (a steep pile of washed-out rocks that offers little or no footing and is next to impossible to climb, not to mention somewhat dangerous to be on since it's so unstable). But like heck I was leaving without a picture of me up there so up I went. That half-hour excursion took almost all of my energy and probably contributed about 40,000 years worth of erosion to the rocks due to my starting small avalanches with every step. Those are a couple reasons there are threats of fines posted for people who hike off the trails. You're welcome, NPS.
-- Actually I had come close before that--on the Angel's Landing trail at Zion I climbed up a rather steep off-trail set of rocks with at least a few hundred feet of air on a couple sides. I had intended to stand up at the top but it was too windy and I'm barely smarter than that. But I probably make it out to be more dangerous than it really was and I'm not sure if it was illegal or not. But it sure didn't have the erosion impact that climbing the scree field did.
-- I actually got enough sleep each night. Wish I could do that here at home.
-- I lost a mere $10 or so in Vegas--much better than the $60-80 I had marked off as donations to the casinos. I didn't do any high-stakes stuff but hung around the video poker machines. I even managed to walk upon a machine with $13 in it and the employee I asked insisted it was rightfully mine since someone had abandoned the machine. That was my biggest catch of the weekend.
-- We had near-perfect weather for the Wheeler Peak summit hike at Great Basin. Good thing because that was probably the most grueling of the hikes, with at 2,900-ft elevation climb to over 13,000 ft. And the last 500 ft or so was back and forth up a steep incline that brought out my fear of heights a bit. But that also provided some extra motivation to hurry up and get to the top.
-- The Lehman Caves were great. Smaller than others but the detail and intricacy of the formations was amazing. Tim claimed Great Basin could have been made a national park solely on the basis of the Caves with no regard to any of the other impressive stuff around it. And having been in a few caves he probably speaks with some authority.
-- Tim was a good travel partner and knew his stuff on hiking and such. Probably kept me from a few injuries, fines, or other unpleasant things. Managed to choose some good trails to hike too.
-- Overall our hotel in Vegas, Circus Circus, was a nice place. Good room with a good view, good food for low buffet prices, big casino with lots of machines. The location was a bit far from the upscale resort types but that'd be a bit much to ask from one of the cheapo places on the Strip.
-- The Stratosphere Tower was great. The observation deck was cool and the rides were stupid awesome. The first ride on the Big Shot (up-and-down tower with open-air seats on the sides so your legs can swing free at 1,000 ft or so above the Strip) is some kind of rush, something between max thrill and deathly fear. (Hey kids, did you know that's the same kind of S&S Sports tower as the one that fell over at Cedar Point some years back? And it gets windy up there atop the Strat. Good thing I never made that connection while riding.)
-- These Strat rides deserve a separate entry each. They're that good. The Insanity (spin in circles while hanging out over the edge) was cool and offered easily the best straight-down views, but I wish it could have been faster. It spun with about the speed of a good county fair ride, but had they spun it harder the seats would have swung out more and us riders would have been looking straight ahead at the ground below. Now THAT would have been the ride to end all rides.
-- The X-Scream (basically a coaster car that goes back and forth on a short track pivoted on one end) was the scariest. I managed to get a front seat, i.e., one with a nice view of the hundreds of feet of open air below, both times I rode and that made all the difference. The ride might not even be too great if one had to stare at the back of a seat instead of the ground below. It starts by lowering the far end so the car rolls out over the edge, but the catch is it brakes very hard at the end (throwing one forward in one's seat, just for that added element of terror I guess) instead of gradually and the front car even slides off the end of the track a bit. Yeah, that's intense. Overall it wasn't as thrilling as the Big Shot but the fear was all there and that's why it's the best flat ride on the planet so far.
-- Cirque de Soleil ruled. Almost two hours worth of high-flying circus acrobatics and cool music to boot. Even at $75 it was worth the price of admission. I should have bought a shirt...
-- I watched Jesse H. score big with a royal flush on a video poker machine. I'm sure that's the first and last time I'll see that in Vegas.
-- Not so related to the trip, but I missed the Bible study here. It's nice to be in a Bible study that actually matters enough that I notice when I don't attend. I wasn't at church any during the trip either but I didn't miss that as much. Just too busy with other stuff I guess? Or maybe I skip too many Sundays every now and then so it's not as unusual.
-- The bad stuff in Vegas wasn't as bad as I had expected. The card-handing people on sidewalks are easy to ignore and there weren't too many drunks when we were there (though they can be entertaining too). Yeah, there's plenty of bad stuff going on I'm sure, but it's not as out in the open as I had expected.

The bad (or not as good)...
-- The Virgin River was a not-so-warm 52 F when we hiked the Narrows. Not exactly great for swimming. And we had no choice but to wade through chest-high water at the beginning to keep going. I fell in a couple times (once while trying to pose like I was falling in; worked I guess) on accident and stupidly went under on purpose for no reason at all toward the end of the hike. My teeth were chattering most of the way back to the trailhead after that.
-- The first day of hiking at Bryce was a bit cold and very windy. Still probably the best full hiking day of the trip but I could have done without having to add and remove layers throughout the day.
-- I finally clawed and scratched my way to the Tower Bridge only to see that the other side (hidden from the trail) offered a shorter climb with much more solid footing. D'oh! At least I climbed back down easily.
-- Great Basin is out in the middle of nowhere. That part of Nevada reminded me of bus trips in Egypt through miles of barren, deserted land. Even the nearest hotel is almost 70 miles from the park, and on the t/f trips we'd pass maybe five cars. It's like another country out there or something. The bumper stickers that claim US-50 in Nevada is the loneliest highway in the country are probably accurate.
- I didn't do as much in Vegas as I had hoped. Part of that was due to a wacky sleep schedule that had us staying up until 3 am or later each night. And we seemed to have a lot of down time there too. So I only saw the streetside cool stuff at Treasure Island (pirate battle that was impressive but a little risque) and the Mirage (volcano that could be better). Plenty of such attractions to see next time.
-- The only casino drinks I had sucked. I was actually looking forward to getting free hard stuff just for being in the right place but I didn't even get any of those. (I was busy playing poker each time it was offered and didn't want to drink too much while spending money. Could have been bad on the bank account.) The cheap margaritas we bought were nothing more than lemon-lime slushes. Or so they tasted, and I even watched the guy put alcohol in one of mine. Or so I thought...now that I think of it, there's no telling what that stuff was. I guess the rule here is to get good drinks one must play in the good casinos.
-- Circus Circus was too far north on the strip. We did a lot of walking and never even made it to south-end casinos like Luxor and Excalibur. And the hike to the Stratosphere Tower on the north end was even a bit far, but that's Stratosphere's fault for building so freakin' far from any other casino. Fools.
-- The High Roller, Strat's coaster that I hoped would be one of the world's greatest, was perhaps the lamest non-kiddie ride I've ever been on. No speed, G's, or heights (it's too far in on the building so you're never close to the edge while riding) to provide any thrill. Heck, the indoor observation deck with its slanted windows one could lean on was scarier than that pile of twisted metal. Terrible, easily the biggest disappointment in Vegas.
-- Dropped $75 on a Cirque de Soleil ticket. A great show, but...seventy-five dollars. Smack. Could have been worse though.
-- Brian didn't make the trip. At least one of Jesse's and Teri's friends came along to give us an even number of people, but come on. Play poker and freefall from the side of the Strat, or stare at a computer screen? Loser!
-- Twelve freakin' dollars for a half hour of internet time at the Circus Circus business center? Cut me a break. That alone pissed me off enough to perhaps prevent me from staying there again on my next trip out.
-- Trails here in the east and in Arkansas might suck now. It's like riding a world-class coaster and then riding what would have been a good one had you not ridden one that's so much better. So for really good hiking I may have to fly across the states.
-- I never played the Cash for Life machines at Bally's. The payout on those is a grand a week for the rest of one's life. I could handle that. So what if the odds are about infinity to one?
-- Some of the outfits, especially those of the casino waitresses, didn't leave much to the imagination. I expected this though. Wait, shouldn't this be in the good list? Just kidding.

The lessons learned...
-- Traveling out west rocks. Outdoors vacations seem to be my thing so I need to do that more often.
-- Stay in Vegas during the week, not on weekends. Hotel prices are too high and crowds are too heavy.
-- Plan trips as much as possible ahead of time. They're less stressful that way and more time is allowed for just chilling out that would otherwise be spent on organizing the next activity.
-- Travel with someone who knows enough and does all the planning!
-- Get a Vegas hotel closer to the middle of the Strip.
-- Play in the high-dollar casinos where the payouts, drinks and surroundings are better.
-- Play the longer odds for bigger money. Playing it safe only guarantees one will lose, just that much slower. Playing big at least allows a chance to get something.
-- Position oneself better to get free drinks.

I'm sure there's more but that should do for now. Perhaps I'll add more later on. Maybe some pictures too. Overall a good trip that I'd do again regardless of how much it ends up costing. Time to plan some more of these things...