Just Call Me Suzy Homemaker

Now that life is back to normal I've been keeping myself busy doing things around the house, such as:

Cooking dinner every night, except one. This is Crockpot Brown Sugar Chicken from my new favorite website.




Planning our next weekend trip to Savannah, Ga. Trying to decide on a B&B or hotel.




And taking up a new hobby, Japanese Washi Beads (wrapping wood beads with washi paper and I made them into a bracelet). How long have I said I needed a hobby?



And I'm still working on that blasted scrapbook and travel journal.

Death Valley

I might get this vacation blog done within the year. Maybe. I've been working every other day since we got back. So time is limited for the next 1 days, then I'll be back to my normal schedule. Oh, and I've been busy planning our next vacation, a weekend get-a-way with my friend and her boyfriend to Savannah!

And now we move on to Death Valley. By this time we have crossed over into California. Death Valley looks a lot like Mars, or what I would imagine Mars to look like. Dry and gray. We could drive for miles without seeing anyone. There aren't any trees, nothing green, everything is a dusty brown or grey color. When we were there it was probably somewhere around 105 degrees. It's pretty unnerving to drive a couple hundred miles without seeing any water or shade. Once you're inside the park, you drive through the valley with 2 large mountain ranges on either side. The mountains are just piles of rock, no plants of any sort are growing on them. The valley is mostly salt, which gives of a bright white glow. We saw the mirages of water multiple times, I guess due to the heat.

The first landmark we stopped at was Badwater Basin. It's 282 feet below sea level. There is a small pond of water that's pretty nasty looking.

In the middle of this picture is the "Sea Level" sign.



This is all the water left in Death Valley.






We also did a 2 mile hike through some mountains in Death Valley. It was a cool idea to hike in Death Valley, but it ended up being pretty uneventful. We found out the hike doesn't actually take you to any place special. So what's the point of the hike? I want some kind of reward at the end, not just another mountain.

This is what we hiked through



This is Devil's Gold Course. It's salt piles that are hard as rocks. They constantly change in shape and size so if you google pictures of it it'll look totally different.



As we were driving along we saw a man jogging along the side of the road. No other vehicles around, no stores, no people, just a man jogging. It was so shocking it was almost like he was a mirage. After we had checked in to our hotel we drove to Ubehebe Crater. On the way there we saw the man STILL jogging. This is like 2 or 3 hours later in the day. Some people are in to strange sports.

On the way to Ubehebe Crater we drove through some small mountains that were black sand. We drove around and around, then all the sudden we peaked at the top of a hill and drove up on this:



A half mile wide, 500 foot deep crater. The parking lot is literally on the edge of this crater. And we have driven for about 45 minutes without seeing anything living. It was freaky.



These sand dunes were right by our hotel, our spider infested, very creepy, hotel. Jordan got some really good pictures of them the next morning at sunrise.



I think that concludes our Death Valley tour. Next stop is Manzanar Japanese relocation camp and Mt. Whitney.

Red Rock Exploration

Here's a video I took of the Bellagio fountains. It's 3 times this size, but I couldn't get the whole fountain without making video viewers motion sick. The water shoots up to 460 feet. You have to watch it to the finale! Oh, and I fell in love with this singer/song. I downloaded her whole album and am listening to it as I type.




During our stay in Vegas we took a day trip to Valley of Fire. It's red rock formations sitting in the middle of the desert. And again, amazing, incomprehensible creation that brings about no other words except "WOW". To get to Valley of Fire you drive about an hour through the desert, off on a winding desert country road, round a corner, then BAM! There are huge mountains of bright red rock. It was really neat to explore it. Every time I turned around Jordan was climbing up some rock he probably wasn't supposed to be on.


Petrified Log



Petroglyphs from Native Americans



Just imagine a whole park filled with these beauties!



Some rock I'm pretty sure Jordan wasn't supposed to be on.



This was taken on about a 1.5 mile hike we took through the rocks.

Dam Vegas!

-- Sorry it's kind long! I have a lot of memories I want to hold on to.

On our way back to Vegas from Grand Canyon we crossed over the Hoover Dam. Again, something you have to experience in person to get the full grandeur! Jordan did a little research about Lake Mead, which feeds HD, and found out the lake is at 48% capacity. It's predicted by 2020 Lake Mead will no longer exist, Vegas will not have any electricity (since it all comes from HD) or water and will cease to exist. So get there while you can, boys and girls, it'll be a thing of the past thanks to global warming!


This is the feeding side of the dam. They are building a bridge over it because right now it's just a very congested 2 lane road that drives over the top of the dam. You can kind of pick out a line of cars going across the top of the dam in this picture.



If you look waaaaaaaay down there, you will see cars lined up on the right side of the water.



The white on the rocks is where the water used to be.



Once we made it to Vegas we were exhausted (been up since 3:30, saw the GC and Hoover Dam, and drove 5 hours). It was quite a shell shock going from beautiful, serene GC to hustle and bustle Vegas. Let me just get this out in the open, make sure everyone is clear, Vegas is NOT kid friendly. That was apparent just driving down the strip, if you get my drift. It's incredibly crowded, like an adult version of Disney World really. We went to see one show, "O" by Cirque Du Soleil. It was pretty boring after the 18th time someone dove into the water. I prefer my La Nuba, 100%. Besides that we spent a lot of money on drinks and food (it's expensive out there and they get away with it, until previously said dam dries up) walked the strip and got lost in a couple upscale malls.


This is the Bellagio fountain. It was BEAUTIFUL! I got a great video that I will spend 8 days uploading eventually.



The money we won playing quarter slots. $1.50 in, 50 cents out.



This is a bistro in the hotel Paris. It's directly across from Bellagio water show. It was probably my favorite part of our whole Vegas trip. I ate a ham and cheese crepe with red wine and savored every moment with my husband. If we go back to Vegas, this is a must. Love it.



This is our hotel room. Treasure Island was a nice hotel, not as nice as Bellagio or Paris, and I absolutely loved the room. The bed was so comfortable (king size!) it spoiled us for the rest of the trip. All other beds were compared to this one. One day I'll make a headboard similar to this when we get a king size bed.

Grand Canyon

I had big plans for keeping a traveling journal on here when we were on vacation, but spotty internet connections and being too tired derailed that pretty horribly. I'll probably take a few posts to document some things about our trip that I want to remember.


I will start with day one. 6 hours of flying. 5 hours of driving. We landed in Las Vegas and drove to a town outside of Grand Canyon National Park. We ate at a charming diner for dinner and headed to our hotel early. It had been a long day and we planned on getting up at 3:30 the next day. The sun rises early out west. We had to drive an hour to GC from where we were staying and make it to GC by 5ish to see the sun rise. We got there at 5:15 and the sun had already come up over the canyon. It was a beautiful, amazing day. The Grand Canyon is the most visited natural site in the world, and once you've been, you can understand why. I'd encourage everyone to go. You just have to see it to believe it.




I love this picture. There is a person sitting on a rock in black in the middle of it. Gives some perspective of how large everything is.



We blazed our own trail and ended up here. Everything was so beautiful out there. And yes, he really is standing on the edge.



After driving 10 hours (I did all the driving on this trip, all 2100 miles) in the desert I was already tired of it. It's really strange not seeing trees or anything green (everything is a dusty brown color). Not to mention you'd go an hour without seeing any building except a trailer plopped down in middle of no where.

After GC we made a stop by Hoover Dam, which is on the way back to Las Vegas. Again, something you can't believe unless you see it with your own eyes.

This thing won't let me add more pictures. I'll save Las Vegas and Hoover Dam pictures until tomorrow.