Hiking Las Madras at Red Rock Conservation Area (Morning of Day 1)

We spent UEA weekend camping in Red Rock Canyon near Las Vegas.  We went with my friend Annette and her four children.  Her parents, Dennis and Connie, met us there.  We left Wednesday around 1:30 and spent the day driving...and listening to a book on CD "Grounded:  The Adventures of Rapunzel."  We didn't finish the book during the trip...but we got more than half way through.  Hopefully we can find time to listen to the rest in the next week or two and finish it.

On Thursday morning, after having breakfast, we headed into the canyon area to do our first hike...Las Madras.

The sign for our campground.  Annette's parents got there early afternoon on Wednesday.  It was good that they did...they got the last two sites available.  The campground was full all weekend.
 

Our camping and hiking group!

It was really quite beautiful.  The sky was blue and the weather was perfect in the morning.  Not cold but not too warm.   It was a lovely hike.  We were hoping to see Desert Bighorn Sheep (or others animals) and while we saw lots of scat...we never saw any animals on this hike...or any big animals during our trip.

Both Michelle and Ella were so good with the little kids...they both carried them at times, helped them when they were hurt and were just great examples to them.

One of the allures of this hike was that it took you to a spring...but the spring ended up not being very impressive.  There was a small waterfall a bit further on...but the kids didn't go that far.  Annette's dad kept going when we stopped at the spring and so Annette and I left the kids at the spring with Connie and set off to find Annette's dad.  We found him resting just above the waterfall.

The small waterfall.

Playing inside the tent when we got back to camp.

We have a second dog!

 Our friends had a golden retriever that our friends decided we couldn't keep.  I didn't want to take the dog...it would mean a lot of work and I was worried about how our dog, Prince, would react.  But Alfredo said yes to our friends and so we got the golden retriever, Holly.  The girls were thrilled.  I was less than thrilled.  We are working on training her which takes work and I am already so busy.  But she does seem to be trainable and Prince seems to love her.  So I suppose in the long run, it will probably be a good thing. 

Cornbelly's 2016

On Friday night, we met my friend Polly and her family (Alli, Sophie, Finlay and Crosby) at Cornbelly's.  It was so great to see Polly. We worked together at Parkview for many years and for the last 5 years, we both taught 2nd grade.  Her oldest and my youngest are just about 6 months apart.  She is a dear friend and the hardest part of leaving Parkview was leaving friends...so I am always so happy when I get to see some of them again.

Michelle brought along her friend, Lillian.  Cornbelly's has a corn maze (which we went on after it was dark, without Polly's family).  It was kind of dumb because the corn wasn't very high so you could totally see over it.  There were fireworks at 8:30 PM.  They have a huge sandpit like area but instead of being filled with sand, it is filled with corn.  They have slides and pumpkin bowling and little shows.  The girls had a lot of fun. We also ate a lot of tasty treats.  It was a fun night!