Nature Freak

So I have been becoming a little bit of a fanatic lately. I love to hike. It keeps me busy and it is fun to out and see the birds. This time I went out to Mt. Charleston on a Sunday when it was nice and populated so my mother and sister would feel safe. The hike was called Bristlecone Loop. It starts in the parking lot of Lee Canyon's ski slopes and ends in a lower lot in which to complete the circle you have to walk a mile up the road back to your car. it was a fairly beautiful hike. However I think that next time I will try to loop in the opposite direction. I went from the upper lot to the lower lot. The way I went started out amazing through forests and greenery.



the other half of the trail was a gravel road downhill the whole way.



I think I would have preferred to do the gravel stuff first and then get to the prettier stuff last. though since the pretty part was uphill I did tend to take a little bit more time whereas the downhill section i plowed right through. It was a 6 mile trail which was supposed to be 4 hours. I did it in 2. My legs hurt a lot. In fact so much that I put a hot water bottle on them last night. No pain no gain right? Anyway, the hike was awesome. I am glad that I did it.

Getting out

I have been living in Vegas for two months now and haven't had time to leave town. We had a forced week vacation last week in which I finally achieved freedom. My mother came out to visit and we drove my new car out of town. We went on a small adventure. Not really knowing our plan or final destination we headed out north on 15. We went through one hour of complete boredom which was Nevada and as we crossed the border into Arizona the atmosphere improved. We drove in a goregous canyon where the road was flanked by cliffs and some red rock mountains. We then headed out of Arizona and landed in St. George Utah. My new friend from my show in Vegas was lighting a production of Cats in an amphitheater there. The amphitheater was beautiful with amazing views of the red rock mountains behind the stage. I can see easily how Cats could fit into this lovely place. (peter pan-the production previous to Cats would be a little harder to convince). My mom and Joe got along and we all had some dinner. My mom and I decided at this point to head to Zion National Park and camp there for the night. We ended up going on 3 short hikes during the next day. I am soo glad that I live only 2 hours from this canyon. I can't wait to go back and hike some more. It was an amazing place where hikes range from easy to very difficult.



One hike includes treading through water for two days in which reguires special equipment to achieve! So cool! I can't wait to go on that one. i am sad that Winter is aproaching quickly and I don't have a lot of time to get on all the hikes before the cold sets in. Both my mother and I were sad to leave this park but we had other things to see. Next we decided, after a long deliberation, on heading out to Bryce Canyon where the rock formations were too tempting to pass up. I must say that the Canyon was beautiful but not as exciting as Zion. All of Bryce's hikes consisted on climping down into the canyon exploring down there and then having to climb up. Don't get me wrong, it was amazing. The formations were incredible and red rock was a definate see.




The tempature didn't help however. It was 47 degrees and rainy. of course I didn't plan since I have been in temperatures of over 100 for the last two moths! Both my mother and I had to buy sweatshirts from the gift store to keep warm!!! Funny.




After we went on a very cold and short hike to see the rock shaped like the Queen, we drank some hot coffee and headed home. What a great adventure! It was so nice to get away from the buzz of Vegas and to spend some good time out in nature visiting some of the amazing parks surrounding the area. I now have knowledge of where some great hiking adventures lie.

My Job

If anyone is curious this is my job:

Another Adventure in the woods

Went again today to Mt. Charleston to venture out and see what there was to see. Only this time, it is Monday and NO ONE was there. I hiked for about 45minutes without hearing a peep from another human being. Normally I would think that that was the ideal way to hike however, my mother, sister, and a few of my friends have got me thinking. Since I went on my last adventure hiking alone everyone has expressed concern over me getting killed or eaten by mountain lions. On my first hike, there were so many people on the trail that it wasn't really a concern. This time hiking uphill higher and higher without another soul in sight I started picturing a large cat charging at me and all the possible option to get away from them. This did not make my hike pleasant. I kept trying to calm down but couldn't. Eventually I turned around and started back down the hill. Overall, my hike was awesome and I took some pretty pictures. :) Not to mention no sign of any large cats.

Ghosts in Las Vegas?

So a friend of mine and I decided that we were really bored. So we found a ghost tour of Las Vegas which sounded interesting enough. When we got there we were sat in a cheezy theater with a skull hanging from the procenium, a painted backdrop of brick and weeds, a fake tree, and small burts of fog clearly from a fogger. We were already two beers into the night so this was enough to get us giggling. The lights went out and the "scaryness" began. However when the lights came up an old man comes out and just starts talking about ghosts. He did some neat phycic tricks as he guessed the name of someone in the audiences relative who had died. Then some guy came out and lied down on a bed on nails with four large audience members stood on a piece of wood that lied across his stomach. It was impressive but I am not sure what that had to do with ghosts. Another old gentelman came out and read three peoples minds. He missed one so only got two out of three but still I am not sure how he did it. After the show in the theater we were brought out to a bus where we spent the rest of the time riding around the strip and hearing stories of ghost sightings in Vegas. We stoppped and got off the bus only twice, once at the Flamingo (my place of work-so not so pleasent for me), and the second was in a park where two boys were slain and are told haunt to this day. Someone, on the tour a year ago, caught them in a picture and that was passed around. I didn't catch anything on my camera. I took eerie pictures like the one above, but no ghosts, no orbs, nothing. On the tour we also drove many peoples houses like Redd Foxx's old place, Tupac's house (he was shot only two blocks from where I work-didn't know that!), Wayne Newton's house, and Liberachi's old place. Though the tour wasn't by any means scary or frightening I now know a lot about the town I live in (or at least I now know who died in what hotel and the best place to catch a glimpse of something supernaturaul). Wasn't worth the money that we spent but we got a free beer at the hotel when we got back so that made it at least tasty!

My first Las Vegas Adventure

Well I guess I can't really call it my first since this whole move has been one adventure after the next: finding a place to live, buying a car, working with TB, opening the show, adjusting to this weather. However, yesterday I finally did something fun. I went to Mt. Charleston where there is actually trees, and some greenery. It is also about 20 degrees cooler than in the valley. Though 80 degrees is still pretty warm for a hike. I decided to go on a smaller hike today to get adjusted to hiking again. (since living in NYC didn't allow me to hike much at all-except from 9ave to 5ave). the hike that I went on was called Cathedral Peak. It is about 3 miles round trip and it took me about 2 hours (including lunch at the top). It is a rather steep hike with an elevation of 1000 foot so many people are parked on the side to catch their breath. The sights were beautiful and it was a great first hike. The picture above is a view from the top. You can see the little road that I drove out to get the mountain. It was a great first adventure! And now that I know where the mountain is....I hope to get out there for a longer hike sometime soon!!

News Article #5

Friday December 16
USA Today

The Cat who rated an upgrade

Housecat Emily paddes way from her Appleton, Wis., home in September, wandered into a shipping center and ended up in a sea container that crossed the Atlantic. A month later, she turned up in Nancy, France. Emily wasn't carrying a passport, but the ID collar around her neck led finders to her owners. After a mandotory month in French quarantine, she was flown home in style. Continental Airlines offered a free business class seat from Paris, which proved to be the cat's meow. Emily looked like a happy traveler as she purred in her owners' arms during a December reunion at the Milwaukee airport.

Beating odds

I saw an amazing thing today walking down the street in the New York. It literally stopped me in my tracks. I saw a little boy, about 9. He was on crutches. He also only had one leg, his left jean pant leg was pinned up to the thigh. But the other foot wasn't in a shoe it was on a rollerblade! He was one-legged roller bladding down the street! He was having a tough time with it at the moment but his guardian was standing next to him slowly walking at his side. I would think it to be impossible for a one legged boy to rollerblade down the busy sidewalk of Times Square but not this boy. I was very impressed and I hope that soon he masters that quest.