You just never know what you see when walking

You just never know what you will see when you take a walk or who you will meet.

A couple of weeks a couple of my neighbors introduced me to Hualapai (pronounced Wall a pie) Canyon. It's about a mile from our house. It has a paved walking path about three quarters of a mile long.  It is a great place to see wildlife, plants and the mountains of Red Rock Canyon from a distance.  Las Vegas is in a valley surrounded by mountains. Here are a few shots from the canyon.

North View

South West View

East View

West view

Here are some of the plants we walk by: (Keep them in mind because we walked by some at night and they looked a little different)

Our favorite thing to do on the walk is look for critters.

Cottontail catching the morning sun.

Jackrabbit on the move.

You don't often see large birds of prey in Las Vegas so I was surprised to see one swoop down into Hualapai Canyon. I didn't see it fly back up. Humm? Then over to the left on the opposite side of the canyon we see a man run down the edge of the canyon in the direction the bird disappeared.  Here is the scene we came upon shortly. This was a Harris Hawk. She was on her third trip to the canyon. Three trips = three rabbits her trainer said. I asked if he was rehabbing her. He said no.

Harris Hawk

Dinner

 Friday night we headed east to Henderson. We hit a little traffic snafu but missed the huge one caused by the President's visit in the same area a few hours earlier. Our destination was the Ethel M Chocolate Factory and Cactus Garden. It was beautiful, a pretty amazing display of lights. About a million lights the guard said. 

Then a little tour of the chocolate factory. (I only bought a few chocolate coins!) Some of the chocolates were a dollar each!  48 for $48! 

Chocolate Cactus!

500 pounds of gourmet dark chocolate! 2,000 individual chocolate thorns! Speaking of thorns I have nightmares about stringing all of those cactus outside with lights!! Ouch!

Saturday after our canyon walk we headed back over the hump to Pahrump.  They were hosting a Social Powwow. Pahrump is home to Western Shoshone and Paiute tribes. There were many vendors there selling beautiful Native American items.  In the Grand Circle there were drummers and a few dancers while we were there.

Native vendor

Gourd dancer elder. 

Future drummer!

Dan bought me this beautiful native print shawl.

Other walking events for the past week. I was in a car that was rear-ended on our way back from a walk. No injuries thank goodness. The offending driver didn't have her expired license with her, no evidence of insurance on the car and it wasn't her car! I'm glad it wasn't my car that got hit.  I found a walk-in chiropractic clinic after the accident. Preventative medicine! Another day I was taking a short walk around my neighborhood and I was attacked and bit in the leg by what I called a rat-bastard small dog. He drew blood! Yikes. He had escaped from his owner.  Healing well. He had had his shots and I had had mine. (tetanus). I now carry a walking stick (dog beater).

Then just to prove it is a very small world I was out front and saw a guy was walking his dog. To make a long story short turns out his name is Rome Aja and he was a teacher in Montpelier.  And his nephew (I think) is Jim Aja who lives in Fairfax.  I went to college with Jim in Maine!

On a side note I saw a Cabot cheese commercial last night in Las Vegas! Go Vermont! 

cabotcheese.coop

So this week was all about the walk.  Next week will be all about our son, Jordan's visit. He arrives on Thanksgiving. Can't wait.

It's all about the journey!

Nancy and Dan