Nevada 2015

I got a chance to teach in Carson City this year and talk about a good location! Thirty minutes from Reno and Thirty from Lake Tahoe. Lots of things to see. Looking at the plane schedules and cost it was actually cheaper to fly into Reno a day early. I got in pretty late it was during the zombie crawl downtown but I had a bad headache from the jet lag and decided not to go this year though I did see many of the costumes at the hotel.

 Reno was cool and all that but my plane just got in too late and I was wore out. Maybe next time I'll get in earlier and check out some of the killer hotels there. I know several had clubs with swimming pools and one hotel had a mall in it on the bottom floor in addition to the casino. You can see the Grand Sierra Resort over to the right in this picture.

 I wanted to get to Carson City and get settled into the Plaza because I had to teach the next day. Carson ended up being a nice little city with alot of fun things to do. Having never been to Nevada I didn't really no what to plan but I will definitely no next time and like New Mexico there will be alot more pictures. The next two pictures were taken on a break from the back door of the training room. Even the view from there was pretty awesome.

After teaching in Carson City and wrapping it up on Wednesday I decided to drive up to Lake Tahoe. I'd always heard about it so I definitely didn't want to miss it and it didn't disappoint. It was like 3 different places in a short area. You had of course the Sierra Mountains and that type of setup, but then a block or so away there's this huge lake at a 7,000 foot elevation in the mountains. Then in different direction all within walking distance are two huge casinos...Harvey's and Harrahs. When I got to the Lake and got checked into the motel it had been raining and there were storm clouds over the lake. I got rained on a little walking down to it but honestly didn't care.

I was hungry after walking down to the lake so I walked back up to Harvey's Casino because I figured all these places have nice buffet's. They told me they didn't have a buffet but they did at the Harrah's site which was across the road. I was told however I didn't have to go outside that there was an underground tunnel that connected the two that went under the road. I thought that was pretty cool.When I got over to Harrah's the buffet which by the way, had prim rib on it was on the 18th floor and was also an observation deck. I was able to get some cool pictures of the town from the window

The next morning I wanted to walk back down to the lake and take some pictures when the sun was out and the weather was better.
   

The area I believe is called Stateline because the lake is in both California and Nevada. My motel had a California address so every time I walked to the casino I literally walked from California to Nevada which was at the most I'm guessing 300 feet, but the idea of that is a trip.

Now when I was driving up the mountain from Carson City I was in a hurry to get to my room. Coming down the same way I had some time before I had to get the rental car back at the Reno Airport. Not alot of time but enough time to pull over and take some of these pictures coming back down the mountain through Carson City.

New Mexico 2015

After teaching a class in Las Cruces I had an extra day a little time before having to drive back to El Paso to catch the plane home. I figured since the White Sands Missile Range was so close and wasn't closed for blasting I'd drive over and check out the park. New Mexico is such a beautiful place I didn't even make it to the park before I wanted to stop and take pictures of the landscapes.

After I finally stopped pulling over on side of the road to take pictures I made it to the White Sands National Monument

Looks like snow but trust me it's all sand. I liked how you could just walk through it everything was open.

One of the cool things about the park you can buy these discs that you can sit in. You can buy a block of wax at the gift shop to wax up the bottom of the discs and ride them down the dunes. The dunes aren't all that high but it seems to be more of a fun thing for the kids. Since I'm a big kid I said to hell with it and did it anyway.

In all New Mexico was a great place I had a blast teaching there and looking forward to going back next year and working in more cities. Down around Las Cruces the food was amazing with all the green chili. Best enchiladas I've ever had anywhere. No matter if it's Si Senor's in Las Cruces or La Posta in the old western town of Mesilla where Billy the Kid once stood trial you can't go wrong there.