Clark County Wetlands Preserve

On Saturday Karen and I decided to scope out the eastern side of Vegas. I kind of also wanted to see if I could locate the C.C. Wetlands Preserve. I knew it was off of Tropicana, but I wasn't sure where. We eventually found it and decided that neither of us were ready to go hiking at that time as it was in the afternoon and very hot out. On the way though, we did discover something that we have not seen in Vegas before, a party store:

Karen asked the clerk about the lack of party stores in Vegas and she asked us what part of town we lived in. When Karen told her she laughed and said you wouldn't find any in that part of town.....

We continued on that day to Lake Las Vegas. Lake Las Vegas has recently filed for Bankruptcy with bedts estimated at between 500 million and 1 billion dollars.










Sunday I finally made it out the the Clark County Wetlands Preserve. I must say it is a pretty nice park. I spent about 2 hours out there. About 11AM it just became too hot!


As shown below the park is in the middle of renovation:


It somewhat reminded me of Crosswinds Marsh back in Michigan, albeit much smaller.


It is actually part of the Las Vegas Wash. It was created to help control and clean the water that comes through the wash:


This is a Great Egret flying and in the backgroud is what I believe to be a Snowy Egret:


Below is a Great Egret just about to land:


Here is a Blue Heron and the Great Egret.


Here are some Glossy Ibis landing in the mash area:


Here is a closer shot of the Blue Heron:


I really only explored about half of the park. There are quite a few trails available, most of which I missed this time.

I also spotted a hummmingbird, many swallows, and some sort of raptor/bird of prey that was greyish in color. I was un able to get pictures of any of them.

Hey there fella

IMG_8792, originally uploaded by rob_caughey.

Just testing

And then there was the coyote

While hanging at the beach today this guy showed up. Obviously not very offended by people. He was about 30-40 feet from us.
He mostly ingored us. That is until he heard Pooh and Tigger barking at him. Even then we only got a few glances. He then seemed to head into the lake to get a sip of water.
And then off to do whatever it is coyotes do. Scavenging moslty I guess.

A little Update...

It has been a while since I updated the blog, but its been a busy week.
Shortly after we arrived here we noticed that Tigger was limping badly. After giving it a day or two to clear up, it only got worse. We ended up taking him to Banfield Vets that is located in Petsmart. It is a very nice Vet office. I guess each Petsmart has one, or soon will. Anyway, some $300 later the vet removed several Foxtail grass seed from his right front foot. Here is a under electron microscope of it. He had several that were embedded in his foot. Apparently Foxtail is dangerous for dogs!


Soon after that, Karen became ill with what the doctor described as viral stomach flu. Needless to say by the time she got to the doctor she was severely dehydrated, her blood pressure was very low and had to be given I.V. fluids.



Thankfully, both Karen and Tigger are on the mend.


Then comes another big shock. We do not live in Las Vegas! Hell, the Las Vegas "Strip" is not even in Las Vegas! Although my mailing address is in Las Vegas we actually reside in the un-incorporated area of Clark County called Paradise Nevada, whatever that means. Paradise Nevada is also home of the famous "Las Vegas Strip".

In between Tigger's episode and Karen getting sick, we went to the Mojave National Preserve.





Here you can see the Gamble's Quail that were all over the place.
Although not a flightless bird, they very much preferred to try and escape on foot. It was quite funny to see 8-10 of them trying to run from the car as we drove down the Mojave Trail. They really didn't run, it was more of a waddle.





Although kind of difficult to tell, on the right is a Sparrow Hawk that is hanging out looking for food.











This is the Coyote we saw in the Mojave. This picture is actually a better picture of the bush in front of the coyote, than the coyote itself.







On the right is a big 'ole raven flying around very close to the ground. There is a great deal of mythology surrounding these birds, as anyone who has read Edgar Allen Poe's poem "The Raven" knows. It is claimed that ravens are the smartest of the birds.











The trip to the Mojave was a lot of fun. It is only about 1 hour from our house and I'm sure we will be visiting there often.

Yesterday we went to Echo Bay in Lake Mead National Recreation Area. Along the way we also stopped at Rattlesnake Canyon in the Recreation Area. We were primarily looking for big horn sheep, but never did spot any. We will try another day.

This is a picture of the mountains as the sun was setting on our way back home from the recreation area.








To the right is a picture of Echo Bay in Nevada.









Bye for now.....

Day 5 Part 2(Sunday)

Apparently everything in Utah is big. This is the second one of these we came across. The police were about 1 mile ahead of us coming down the center of the road. As they got closer to us, and we didnt see the semi yet, the police kept edging over into our lane. It quickly became apparent, as he got closer to us edging into our lane head on, that he wanted us off the road. The ifst one we passed was one a much smaller road and you could have almost touched it as it went by.

That Chow mix sent tingles down my spine. You could tell he would just assume have me for dinner.

We also came across some sheep. I'm not real sure which type they are though. Ido know that as we sat there and Pooh and Tigger were barking at them I heard more barking type sounds. I though, man those sheep sound an awful lot like dogs. Then about 5 dogs appeared out from munder the sheep, including some of the most evil looking dogs I've ever seen. While the rest of the sheep and dogs were running this way and that way, unsure what to make of us, the brown Chow mix kept comming right at me and starring at me. I'm glad there was a fence between me and him. I have no doubt that deciding to try and get one of those sheep would have been a life and death decision.

This is one of the "wild" horses we came across. There were about 10 of them all together including two babies.

Day 4(Saturday)

Its been 2 days since we had internet. I think my withdrawl symptoms are finally subsiding now. It is again late so this will be a short update. Tonight we are in Henderson Nevada which is about 10 miles south of Las Vegas. More on that later though. After leaving Monticello Utah, we found the snow storm that we thought missed us. About 2" of accumulation but none stuck to the roads so it wasn't too bad. It did prevent us from visiting Natural Bridges National Park because visibility was about 40 feet. http://www.nps.gov/nabr/

By the way, this is what greeted us upon arriving in Monticello Utah the day before. It was very ominous looking. Not being from Utah and realizing that up in the mountains it is closer to winter than summer, we began to worry. While getting gas we spoke to some locals who said not to worry about it, esp since we were headed down the mountain anyway.





As is often the case on "road trips" you often see some strange things like this. Actually I think he just couldn't afford the aviation fuel for it.










After leaving Monticello Utah we ended up staying at Cameron Trading Post in Cameron Arizona which is on the Navajo Indian Reservation. http://www.camerontradingpost.com/

On the way to Cameron we came across a fairly impressive sand storm:



It was about 100 feet tall and 25 or so feet wide I think. It crossed the road about 10 feet in front of us but it was dissipated over the road.










Thats it for now. Its 4:41 AM EST or 1:41 AM our time. Were going to bed now. On Monday I will add some more to fill in from Cameron Arizona to Las Vegas(Henderson). We will be here about 3-4 days as we scout around for places to live, and I plan on going to check out a few job prospects in that time also. Tomorrow will be a day of rest for us though. We need it and the dogs need it. We have driven over 2,200 miles since Wednesday and we are pooped.

Signing out...
Rob & Karen

Day 2-Part 2

Here is a couple of shots from Nebraska. Driving east-west through Nebraska makes for a long drive. Its a beautiful state though. Virtually all farmland. It rained for 2-3 hours this morning as we headed east towards Colorado. Karen was suprised at how desolate this part of the country is. She recalled driving to Florida where you were no more than a few miles from a city. Accorging to the GPS at one point we were over 90 miles from any city!

This is a "Modern Art" display at one of the Nebraska rest areas. Though nice, FREE wireless internet, like Iowa has at it's rest areas, is MUCH better! I almost got to meet another of my "clan" members today. He lives in Omaha, but the timing just didn't work out.

Colorado! Very beautiful state. Lots of varying scenery to look at. As we go through the mountains on Friday, I will try to get some good shots of them.

And it is a little windy out here in Colorado. So windy they put these wind socks in the median of the freeway to warn people. As you can see here it is almost maxed out! Very windy. Lots of tumbleweeds blowing over the road. A few of them hit our car.

I love this shot on the left of the train snaking its way up the mountain. I was luck to get it. Karen told me to look. I would have missed it.

This is a Colarado cowgirl out training a horse for something. Maybe breakingit in, I don't know. Hard to see it in this pic but she has another horse, just to her right, that she is leading.

Today we drove from 10AM until about 10PM. We are in Golden Colorado for the night. Time to sleep now........

Signing Out...

Rob & Karen