Re-Connect.... testing... testing... testicle...

Hey Folks!  

You don't know this, but you almost lost me there.  I had decided to put his blog on the back burner to start dedicating my time to pursuing other, more serious creative writing projects.  Maybe something that could one day make me some money, like writing a book or something.  But alas, too many friends have told me not to stop writing the blog, that they were reading and enjoying my writings, so I will continue.  Thanks for letting me know and keeping me motivated.  I do appreciate the little nudges.

I am going to change my tact a bit and open up the field to include all kinds of funny stories I've written over the years, not just my Vegas experiences.  I can only write so much about rocks and the desert and the money pits of the strip.  I'm starting to bore me.  So I have to branch out to keep this entertaining for us both.  We're still having lots of new Vegas experiences which I would like to share.  

I finally got to the strippers here!  Cheetah's was pretty expensive and amazing!  I know you don't want the details on that one but trust me, it was well worth it ;)

We've been to a few UNLV Rebels football games which are a lot of fun.  Two weeks ago the game was against our arch rivals the U'of Hawaii Rainbow Warriors and their fans were very well represented in the 30,000+ stadium.  We were about to leave early when the Rebels blew a 19 point lead in the last 6 minutes of the game which lit up the opposing bleachers.  The Rebels clawed their way back and it all came down to the final second of the game, a 45 yard field goal to secure a 39-37 victory for us.  Exciting, but way too close.  We've been getting into the College and NFL football this year too, absorbing the american culture.  Tanya was the one who actually initiated it, so we've adopted our teams and have started paying attention.  16 years in and we're still finding new levels to connect on.  Pretty cool!

We also got to see an exhibition NHL game between the LA Kings and Colorado Avalanche at the MGM Grande Arena.  It was awesome to be in the midst of all those Kings fans, a good rowdy bunch!  It was definitely a Kings' home game.  The most surprising thing at that game was all of the Quebec Nordiques' jerseys and hats.  Colorado fans never forgot where their franchise came from and still represent Quebec's legacy.  The Sakic and Forseberg jerseys really brought me back.  What a team they inherited!  It made me think of Eric Lindros refusing to go play in Quebec as their #1 draft choice in 1991.  He sat out an entire season to stick to his guns and was then traded to the Flyers.  Quebec acquired a few powerhouses in the deal.  The franchise then moved to Colorado in 1995-96 and in that first year, the Avalanche acquired Patrick Roy from the Montreal Canadiens and went on to win their first Stanley Cup.  Lindros must have regretted that decision.  Roy is now coaching the Avalanche, so I am now a dedicated anti-Avalanche fan.   

We also had our 10 year anniversary dinner at Picasso, an intimate poolside restaurant on a balcony overlooking the Bellagio fountains, which was an amazing experience but... I had a really, really hard time digesting that bill.  I bought a car for less back in the day.  Tanya said it was a dream date for her, so we'll stick with her story and I'll try to forget mine.  I've learned this about me, that I am not one for fancy dining.  I've had some very expensive bad meals, and I have yet to find a restaurant that doesn't RUIN fish with all the crap they dress it up with.  But the meal at Picasso was truly amazing, and so was our date night.  Easily a 10 out of 10.  Each of the 5 courses were introduced and touted with an explanation as they set it in front of us, and each course had its own wine paring with the sommelier introducing and explaining the wines.  At one point the server placed a bowl in front of me with three pumpkin seeds in the bottom and starting introducing the soup as... and I just started laughing like an idiot because, THERE WAS NO SOUP... seconds before another server came by with a trolley and ladled a layer of creamy soup into the bowl.  It truly was excellent, but spending that much money on a meal makes me ill, angry, and guilt stricken.  I don't see the value in it like Tanya does.  I know, its one of those once in a lifetime sorta things and it makes her happy, but I have to numb myself to it in order to keep my mouth shut and be happy.  At least I clean up well and can play the part, a raving mad desert dog in cufflinks and a smile.  

So to keep this blog fun and entertaining for myself I am going to start drawing from this big, foggy memory bank of mine to tell you some stories from the archives of the Mountain Man.  I've wanted to share my stories for years, so I will deviate a bit from the Las Vegas experiences and let 'er rip!

Stay tuned folks!  Thanks for reading!

TRJ

A Weekend in Bryce Canyon, Utah...

Tan and I took advantage of a long weekend and headed out towards Mt. Zion National Park.  Zion is 2hrs from our house so we can get there again easily, so we elected to go further up to Bryce Canyon National Park and another amazing region we can get to within 4hrs.  Bryce Canyon is the eastern edge of the Paunsaugunt Plateau.  On one side the plateau rises and is densely forested, right up to the edge of the canyon where it drops off a thousand feet into a spectacular vista of massive, towering hoodoos that cling to every cliff.  Pretty freakin' cool!

Utah is a very wide open landscape, 'Big Sky Country'.  Indeed it is.  Wide open green farmlands punctuated by bright orange rocky outcrops, animals grazing, collections of villages and farmhouses.  We were in no big rush to get there, so we were able to play tourist and take it all in, stop for lots of photo stops, and even do a little rock shopping... yes, rock shopping (...buying rocks, eh Jones... 'uh hunh).

I remember many a day walking over the tumbly beaches of the Restigouche River thinking to myself, 'Y'know, if only there were a market for all these rocks!  We could be RICH!!'  But who would buy such a thing?  Money for rocks!  HA!  The FOOLS of course!  The FOOLS will buy ANYTHING!

So I have crossed the threshold.  I am an admitted rockhound, and perhaps foolishly so.  I love rocks.  The history of the world right there in your hand.  And Zion Rock & Gem had so many cool things that I had to have a piece to bring home with me.  They had all kinds of fossils, chunks of petrified wood, crystals and minerals, and big wooden tables filled with uncut chunks of cool rocks.  So it took us much longer than expected to arrive at our destination.  

We checked into Ruby's Inn and set out for a quick meal and a tour of the park before dark.  It was a chilly, damp night and we were pretty much the only ones out there on that road.  The full moon was rising over the canyon and the wind swept up at us from the depths below.  There were deer and antelope everywhere!

Saturday morning we booked a 2hr canyon tour on horseback for $60 apiece, which is a fantastic price for a trail ride.  Let me tell you, THAT's the way to see the canyon.  And this was only my 2nd time on a horse!  What a trip!  Strawberry was very good to me.  She seemed twitchy and anxious about me and kept looking at me, which made me think she might rear and bolt at any moment.  She was very attentive though and I did have a little control over her, which is a thrilling feeling.  Still, she was her own boss and I know she was on autopilot for most of the tour.  Tanya was on a mule named Tony.  He only had one speed and totally disregarded her.  Apparently, mules are the preferred mount for this type of terrain, the cadillac of horses.  A cadillac mule on auto-pilot... "Don't mind me, Mr. Mule, I'ma just gonna sit back here and pick me out a tune on the geeetar!"  

So apart from the strangeness of being on a horse for the second time, now we were heading down into  the canyon along some very steep switchbacks.  What an amazing view!!!  And doing it on a horse  made it so much more special.  I quickly overcame my apprehension about the horse knowing better and kept my eyes off the ground and a firm grip on my camera.  Strawberry never faultered.  There were a few teeth gritting moments... just trust in the horse.  I watched as Tanya's mule Tony mis-stepped right off the edge and his back foot sent rocks tumbling into the valley.  I urged Strawberry not to follow Tony and she listened.  

The hoodoo'd cliffs hovered all around us, they were spectacular as we descended the dusty trail to the canyon floor.  We were among great, gentle orange mounds all over, all that remained of ancient crumbled hoodoos.  At the very bottom we were amidst a forest of great Ponderosa pines.  The Ponderosa's were amazing too, some were burned black to a crisp yet still stood tall and defiant.  It is the iron in the ground that makes all the earth an orangy color and it also attracts lightning strikes.  So it is very common for fires to start here but it would take a massive fire to destroy a Ponderosa.  They are a super dense tree, so they may burn but they may not fall.  The natives thought this valley was cursed, and that the hoodoos were humans who had been turned to stone for trying to cross the valley.  Indeed, there was an eerie stillness to it all, with the blackened skeleton trees against the blue sky.  The trail wove around the forested area and then up and out along some more switchbacks.  What an experience to be out there in the desert on horseback!  Can't wait to do that again.

In the evening we went to the rodeo, which was pretty cool too.  It was a nice night for it, a cool breeze as the sun set, a very dry and drawl commentator set the scene from his booth over the PA.  Beer was relatively cheap so we had a couple rounds.  It was neat to see the mix of people in town to see the small rodeo too.  I got a sense that rodeo is a family affair, where former rodeo grandparents are sitting in the stands watching their son, who may be a bull ridin' cowboy, and their grandson is involved too but he's in the mutton (sheep) riding division.  And those crazy godamned cowboys and all that swagger, riding very agitated animals!  Most of 'em were limping and nursing wounds.  The broken bodies of adrenaline junkies.  And why????  That is the part that makes no sense to me.  But whatever, its not my thing but it was cool to see a grassroots competition firsthand and feel that strong sense of community.  I will never tire of standing and listening to the American national anthem, and here at the rodeo it felt even more profound.

It was amazing to see the horses in full action and riders in such control of their animals.  The barrel racing girls whipped those horses around those tight corners at full blast!  One of the wranglers in the ring had a really agitated young horse who just wanted to GO!  He worked all night just to keep the animal still and in control, and when it was time to wrangle a loose bull into its pen the cowboy let the horse go and he shot out like lightning, totally in tune with his rider and unafraid to shoulder up to a crazed bull twice his size and hem him in against the rails.  No fear, total confidence.  That's what I got from the cowboys and their mastery of the horses.  I would have LOVED the opportunity to learn how to ride and be that connected to a horse.  What a majestic animal.  I only learned about horses late in life but now I totally understand people's love affair with them.  I too, am hooked.

The next day we went for a hike down into the canyon.  It was a long hike and not too hot just yet.  So touristy though.  So many people.  These are the drawbacks of national parks.  There's miles of trails in the canyon and thousands of people out enjoying nature.  It takes a bit of it away for me.  I like to listen to the heat rising from the earth, to hear what kinds of birds and buzzers are out there.  But nothing could distract from the colors and scenery of Bryce Canyon.  It is purely spectacular.  On the way back  we walked on a path around the rim and viewed some of the oldest trees on the planet.  The Bristlecone Pines sit high on the edge of the rocky cliffs and live an extremely long time.  The oldest ones are almost 5000 years old!  They are eerie the way they sit on the edge of the cliffs, seemingly dead and twisted in grotesque, petrified stances.  But not dead.  It takes a thousands of years for a Bristlecone to die.

Bryce Canyon was pretty cool.  Thanks for reading.

TRJ

... 

Troy and Strawberry descending into Bryce Canyon

Spring Recap... Visitor Season... NHL Playoffs...

Howdy folks!

It has been a busy spring.  We are now getting into the heat of summer hear in Vegas with temperatures expected to hit in the 40's this week.  Early summer has arrived.  We have two seasons here, Summer and Fall.  There is no winter as I know winters to be.  We have a 4 month autumn, then early summer, then deep scorching summer, and late summer.

It was really neat watching the landscaping pop back to life in mid april.  I was really starting to wonder if some of my plants were going to make it.  But then all of a sudden, within two weeks the greenery just exploded everywhere!  And all my experimental trimming studies were fulfilled!  I love that, being outside and tending to the yard.  Cutting it all back to control nature and seeing it bounce back again.  I did yard work all year round this year.  Its a never ending mission to keep everything cut back and cleaned up so it doesn't fill up the pool.  I've also started a rock garden, bringing home some of the interesting specimens that I find in my travels.

April was the 'Month of Visitors', and we were fully booked with friends and family.  We love that.  We love that we are able to open our home to share this wonderful place with our friends and family.  I survived my first visit from a 9month old, and my first Vegas bachelor party with the Ottawa boys whom I hadn't seen in quite a few years.  It was great to see those guys again.  My overall memory of that expensive weekend was that we laughed for 3 days straight, fueled by the festive spirit, lack of sleep, and giant servings of booze.  Ahhhh, good times!  I miss those guys.  Such a great group.  You know how it is with old friends, you get together after 10-15yrs and you just pick up where you left off.  I am very fortunate to have such good, close friends, spread out all over the globe with whom time stands still.

But our most important company of the month was Tanya's mom and her stepdad, who I NEVER thought would come to Vegas.  First off, because Tan's mom is... sorry, WAS... terrified of flying.  But Tan and the whole crew at the Sackville Legion convinced her that it would all be OK, along with a little help from the good Doctor's magic flying pills.  They made the trip!  I NEVER thought they'd come here, so that was pretty special.  They were with us for 2.5 weeks and we took them everywhere.  Even down to San Diego for a few days, which may have been too long of a side-adventure for them but whatever.  We did it all, and we hope they come down again.

And the best thing that came out of their visit, besides seeing them of course, was that Tanya got cable so we could watch the NHL playoffs with them.  I soooo missed watching hockey.  And it was sweet to watch Ottawa dump the Habs as the only Sens fan in the room!  Watching hockey is great out here, because the games are on at 4pm, and the west coast games are in the evening.  So I am fully engaged in the playoffs this year and loving it!

Yummmmmm!

That's all for now.  I'll leave you with these fine birds, food for thought.

Thanks for reading.

TRJ

The Pursuit of Happiness

Music and Art, my two favorite things

As of April 10th, my 41st birthday, we have now been in Vegas for one year.  What a whirlwind of a year!  When all the dust finally settled, we find ourselves in a most wonderful place and we are very happy.  We have a great house which has been dubbed 'T & T's Paradise' because we are just off the Paradise Road here in the town formerly known as Paradise, now known as Las Vegas.  What a year!  And so far, we've had a lot of friends come to town and dropped in to see us which is great too.  We are finally happy, and true happiness is something that has eluded me for most of my adult lifetime.  I am very grateful for this opportunity.

Happiness should be such a simple thing, but I have never been able to allow myself to be completely happy.  I just think too damn'd much about things I cannot change.  How the world is and how it works.  These mad political games, fueled and fixed by the wealthy to maintain this lucrative, suicidal plunge of mankind.  I am not equipped to deal with it or accept that that's just how things are.  Watching the political madmen has caused me a great deal of personal unrest and I have truly lost my faith in the people's ability to see and understand what is happening around us.  Most people don't care and won't change unless it becomes absolutely necessary.  And those in control want to keep it all exactly the way it is.

I started fighting authority very early in my life and have never been able to be comfortable under any kind of leadership that I felt unworthy.  That is a wiring problem, my own personal agenda to be my own man and do my own thing.  But thinking like that has created much unhappiness for me, and I've decided I'm getting too old to continue doing anything that makes me feel less than happy.  While my wiring is something I will always struggle with, I fixed my 'heavy-world' syndrome by simply tuning out and shutting it off.  I have decided not to care, to recede into my little happy-bubble and live my life as carefree as possible.  Time will take care of itself without me trying to fix things or inform people of the consequences of our recklessness.  The Great Reckoning will come, but I won't be here to see it and I don't have kids so why do I care?  I don't.  Not anymore, and that is a world off my mind.  Let's just forget about all the shit so we can keep this toxic party going eh!  The kids will clean up after us... that is, if THEY are smart enough to appreciate this cesspool of a planet we've left for them.  But I reckon we're breeding a new kind of stupid these days and they won't see it either.  Not until we break the food chain or run out of clean air and water and are forced to scramble and salvage for whatever is left of this life.  The difference between this day and age and the age of our parents' generations, is that now we KNOW we're destroying the planet and choose to do nothing about it.  Shame, shame.

Tanya comes from the absolute other end of the spectrum, happiness is in her blood and she radiates it.  Our relationship has always been a tit-for-tat to meet somewhere in the middle.  She really helped me get over myself and I was left with no choice but to decide that she was exactly what I needed in order to live a happier life.  But that black hole burning in my soul is a tough little bastard and it takes some effort to keep him down and out.  He fuels my creativity and makes me a passionate person, but he is also very destructive and violent.  Tanya has helped me with that all along and I am indebted to her for her patience and understanding.  Moving here, happiness seems so much easier to achieve.  Tuning out on politics and shutting off from the world was a huge thing for me, and a decision to do more things that make me happy is another thing.  Like painting, writing songs and playing guitar every day.  But the weather, or more precisely the lack of bad weather, we've found has had a massive impact on our everyday state of mind.  I didn't realize how much the dreary weather affected us until now.  We awake, and its another beautiful sunny day and we are happy to get at it.  Its sunny EVERY DAY here.  Such a simple thing.

But money has been the root of all unhappiness for people all over the world since its inception.  We never had money in Canada... EVER.  And we are still considered to be in the top 5% of the richest people on the planet.  We never wanted for much mind you, we were comfortable, but we could never get ahead to build any sort of savings either.  It was just the daily grind and at the end of two weeks you were totally broke and dependent on that next cheque to come in.  We always lived in fear of something big, bad, and expensive happening that would take our financial legs out from under us.  Its a terrible thing to live in fear.  And not real 'fear' as fear is known, just a constant ache in the mind.  A knowledge that you're sitting on the edge, blindfolded, and fate is pacing in circles behind you.  The edge was ever-present in all our days in Canada.  But now, that great blanket of doubt has been cast aside.  Our move here was a money-making adventure of course, so we are making more and taxed waaaay less.  And we don't have that same Canadian anxiety that our roof might give way under the deep snow, or having to fix a leaking basement, or having to buy 4 new winter tires, or having to shovel the driveway for the 5th time this week.  For the first time in our lives we are finally able to save money and it is a very liberating feeling.  Down here our major financial concern is healthcare, and having that savings in case we ever need to go to the hospital.  But somehow, saving that is less concerning, less of a mental ache than worrying about your house collapsing or worrying about when your old car might die on you.  Living without the fear of financial collapse is the single biggest relief of stress there is.

Zuma's terrible haircut

Tanya always used to tell me, 'Happiness is in your head.  Its a choice you make whether to be happy or not'.  I'm not sure I agree with that.  The downtrodden will always be a pessimistic crowd and the system itself is set up so that you won't be able to get ahead of the game.  Life is tough and happiness can be a difficult thing to achieve if your perspective is mired in its stress.  But I'm happy to report that from this perspective, there has been a huge shift in the paradigm of happiness for Tanya and I and at least for now, we have truly found it!

Thanks for reading.

TRJ

Adventures in the Desert... Mountains, Rocks, Fossils, and Horses!

Some good friends passed through Las Vegas this past week and brought me on their crazy adventure tour around the city.  They thought, as many folks do, that Vegas is this one thing but came to learn that it is much different than what you think if you are willing to get out of the city and into the wild.  Las Vegas is an island city in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by vast stretches of desert in all directions.  Within half an hour we can be out to Red Rock conservation area which has many hiking trails and is unfortunately swarming with tourists.  But, its good that so many people are getting out and exploring, there's lots of room for everyone.  Lots to see and do.  My guests were floored by the beauty of the land and how many different adventures were within an hour or two of our home.

We spent a good day of hiking out at Red Rock, and another day we went out to tour Mount Charleston area.  Colin and Desiree are horse people, so we were on the lookout for the elusive wild mustangs that roam the desert.  That whole day out at Mt. Charleston was pretty magical.  Colin likes to go off the beaten path, as does Desiree, as do I.  And on our way down the mountain we kept passing these offroads leading off into the desert.  Colin finally decided that THAT was the road we were gonna take, and off roadin' we went in the rental SUV!  We drove til we couldn't drive no more, then we parked the truck and got out to walk.   Up and up, to see what was over the hill.  It turned out to be miles and miles of more hills and desert, so remote... so still... the joshua trees were all around us.  Evidence of the wildlife in the area was everywhere but we saw nothing.  Zuma, my adventure pom, was right on my heels the whole trip.  What a dog!  The rocks in that area are amazing.  Here we were, 7000feet above sea level, and the ground was littered with fossils from an ancient seabed!  My dad was the one who infected me with this nose-to-the-earth, always on the lookout for fossils but hardly ever finding any.  Indeed, the geology of this area is an amazing story and the rocks are sooo interesting.  The workings of Mother Nature's great cauldron and a wonderland for a nature geek like me.

Further along the highway I spotted them on a hillside, the mustangs!  Three of them.  We were able to stalk in quite close to them to get a really good look and some great photos.  For Colin and Desiree, it was an incredible experience to see how the wild horses compared to their own horses back home.  How they looked, how they moved over the rough terrain, their personalities.  Its really cool that wild horses still exist here.  We spent a good hour watching them, capturing a couple hundred photos.  They weren't too put off by us being there, but of course Colin and Des knew how to move in unthreateningly so as not to spook them.  The mom and the young one were edgy, and the old one didn't care at all.

That really made our day, but had we known we'd find the motherload of the herd on the other side of the mountain, we might have spent less time there.  We went up the Cold Creek road and there they were, probably 40 to 50 of them, spread out across the desert right to the base of the mountain.  Wow!  What a sight!  We got out and roamed among them, they were a little twitchy and wouldn't let us get too close, but we still got another couple hundred photos.  And what a collection of photos!  A grey day, perfect lighting and a surreal landscape.  There was a mare, a matriarch, who never moved from her spot close to the car (within earshot of yappy Zuma who was quite upset at being left out of this adventure), she just kept an eye on us the whole time.  We were all quite a distance from one another, off on our own walkabouts when something amazing happened.  Desiree had worn out the batteries on her camera (it was a pretty cold day) and put it away in her pocket and was just standing there watching when she heard the cloppity clop of hooves over rocks coming up behind her.  Not knowing what the horse was up to, she stayed still as the mare came up beside her and nuzzled its nose in against her arm, took a few good whiffs up and down her sleeve, decided that Desiree was not a threat and casually strode along on her way.  Too friggin' cool!

(I'll post more horse pics at the end of this post)

There were wild horses all the way up to Cold Creek.  One band of youngsters were hanging out by the road.  Its obvious that people have been feeding these guys from their vehicles because they were pretty brazen about checking us out.  One came right up and stuck his nose right in Desiree's window while another one circled the front of the truck and decided to bite into the hood to see what it was made of!

But the best adventure was our trip to Death Valley, California.  Death Valley... I've always loved that name.  It evokes a chill, especially when you're talking about one of the hottest places on the planet.  It set out as a simple day trip, 2hours from home, seeking out a few ghost towns.  There really wasn't much to speak of in the ghost towns, mostly all of the buildings having been reclaimed by time and the desert.  Certainly not the old west ghost towns that Hollywood had imprinted on my brain.  Rhyolite's train station was the only intact-condemned structure with no visible rail lines anywhere to be found.   But the search got us into some remote areas.  I don't think we knew exactly what we headed for when we entered Red Pass to find the second ghost town on our agenda, Leadfield, right dead in the middle of the Grapevine Mountain range.

We bombed across the open desert on a one-way lane with the tires rattling over the rocks and great clouds of dust billowing out behind us.  We reached the small rise of the trailhead and the road narrowed and led us into a series of quick turns around thick vegetation and rocks, then a steep decent into the valley.  Nature closed in all around us, and that's when it struck us, that we were going mountain climbing!  The road was rough, a one-way pass not intended for cars.  It was well maintained, grated regularly, and very intense.  Climbing, decending, on the very edge of the mountain, every turn revealing a new and breathtaking vista of the valley.

Up and up we went, the rented SUV spitting rocks out behind us, then down, down, into the valley below, only to climb again.  We could see the roadway zigzagging up the up over the next series of mountains, and we marvelled at the rugged, twisting roadway.  

Leadfield itself turned out to be nothing more than a group of small buildings like woodsheds in various states of disrepair.  Those early settlers didn't last long here.  Its so remote, it must have been so difficult.  Desperate even.  I mean, even now, that mine is a long friggin' way from anything that could have resembled civilization at the time.  It was all for money, a wild goose chase for riches in mountains that all went down the tubes in three months.

The decent from Leadfield brought us through Titus Canyon, a mind boggling drive right through the very heart of the mountain itself.  Humongous rock walls closed in tight around us as we decended through a very deep crevice which some ancient river had decided was its natural course and spend the next couple billion years carving out.  It was amazing!  The colors, the textures, around each and every corner a new angle to the mountain until the eyes and mind were boggled by the sensational imagery.  The sun began to beam in the closer we got to the exit, but the canyon just kept closing in tighter and tighter until we thought it would never end.  Finally we exited and were in the wide open desert again and then back onto the highway.  That whole drive is something Tanya and I would have never done on our own, so we were glad to be along for that one.

That whole day in Death Valley was amazing.  Further along the highway we came to Mesquite Flats sand dunes... I mean, REAL sand dunes, as high as buildings and stretching far out into the desert... like something you'd see in the Sahara.  This is a place I need to go back to visit and spend some time walking around because those dunes are really cool!  It is also on record as one of the hottest places on the planet.  We didn't have time to explore the dunes fully.  Red Pass had eaten up a lot of time, so we were on the clock to try and get in as much as possible before the sun went down.

Further along the highway we visited Painter's Palette, where the mountains are colored with intense reds, greens, pinks, and oranges.  The greens were so intense, it really looked like it was painted on the hillside.  From there we visited the Devils' Golf Course, which just blew my mind all over again.

I'll try to describe this for you...  if you know what an ice-jam looks like in the spring, all those chunks of ice pushed up together and the dirty water just underneath, this is what it reminded me of.  It is a massive salt deposit with jagged chunks of salt are propped up out of the ground, solid as rock.

Our last stop was at Badwater Basin, the lowest point in the western hemisphere at 282feet below sea level.  Here again, the eye was tricked because in the fading light, it looked EXACTLY like a frozen, windswept New Brunswick winter.  Salt swept, with a glass-like layer of salt underneath.  It stretched out across the basin and you could smell the sea in the air.

With darkness setting in it was time to head home.  We stopped on the desert highway to do some stargazing, and though it was a black night without any light whatsoever, I think there was a lot of airborne particles in the sky because it wasn't as spectacular as I'd hoped it would be.  Definitely a wider sky, but not nearly as crystal clear as the black, densely populated star filled sky up home.

It was great to see Colin and Desiree again, and we thank them for being so adventurous and getting us out into the wilds to experience some of the wonders so close to home!

Here's some more pictures.  Enjoy!

Thanks for reading.  

TRJ

Lost keys and the universal push...

Have you ever thought about your universe, and how you can influence the way it responds to you?  That YOU are controlling IT instead of IT controlling YOU, and that you can make it do what you need it to do for you?  Its a crazy concept, but these last few weeks I've needed it.  I've needed to use that power to bring back something very dear to me, my lost keys.  Stupid Jones... how did that personal commandment go again??  Thou shall not ride drunken'd bicycle in the dark of night, somethin', somethin' about helmets... something like that.  I always forget the second part of that, usually after a couple beers it changes to something like "Get up fatty!  Let's go for a ride!"

I'll admit it folks, my bike and I have been in many stupid accidents.  Silly things like my last post, running headfirst into a construction sign.  Now that's just stupid.  Those ones are fine enough on their own, but then there are all those rumm'd up collision courses that are totally avoidable but yet... I buy the ticket, an' I take the ride.  Oh man!  I love it!  I've often relied on my bike to get around at the end of the night, and I always wear my helmet because I know by now, I'm just one of those guys.  And on this one fateful friday night somewhere around midnight, I was havin' a few, home alone, and just got a real bad hankerin' for a cigar..... a cigar??!!  WTF Jones???  Really, it was only half the cigar, and half the ride.  Off I went on my merry way, and somewhere along that ride back from the gas station, my keys... unbeknownst to me, fell out of my jacket pocket.  I had the garage door opener to get back in, so I had no idea my keys were even gone until a couple days later when I really couldn't find them and started thinking, then worrying, and having to retrace the memories of that evening.  I searched everywhere and scoured my brain, what did I DO that night when I got home?  I know what I did.  I smoked that horrible fucking $2 kiddie cigar is what I did!  The gas station didn't have REAL cigars, just the ones that "all the kids are smoking", is what the cashier said.  Two thinnies in a sealed plastic baggie that tasted like they'd been dipped in cough syrup and hung out to dry with the cod.  Fucking disgusting shit.  I was disgusted with myself.  But not as disgusted as I would be, when I'd given up hope of finding my keys and made an appointment at Volkswagen to go in and get a new key floppy and found out that a replacement would cost me FOUR-HUNDRED DOLLARS!!!

Ooooh, so many regretful drunken'd nights in my lifetime.  And this one was so damn'd stupid.  Its not even a good story, one that you'd want to tell your friends.  I reckoned that I would not get a replacement until I had gone the full distance in trying to find my lost keys, and use the emergency 3rd key for the truck in the meantime.  The emergency key is like a dunce-cap key, oversized and not exactly user friendly.  The VW's keyhole is actually hidden underneath a small pop-off panel just behind the streamlined doorhandle, not convenient at all.  I tore the house apart and searched desperately for those keys but they weren't anywhere to be found.  I put an ad up on Craigslist and retraced my route several times, went back to the gas station a couple times just in case, but nothing.  Then I began trying to mentally pull them back to me, to push the universe to give me something and I got several bubbles of reaction.  The first was from a guy who suggested a website where lost things get posted.  And then, I was scouring the same route again and all of a sudden, there they were!!!  They were sticking out of a pile of dirt on the sidewalk.  I picked them up, and it was a set of keys for an Acura, complete with the house and mail and another key, just like my set but all chewed up from traffic.  Oh well, the universe had responded.  I couldn't complain about that.

My last and final step was to put flyers up along the route with a $100 reward for their safe return.  I figured, if nothing else, that reward money would get the kids to dig up dirt for me and leave no stone unturned, or hopefully connect me with the people that might have found them.  The posters went up last thursday night and just last night, a guy emailed me to let me know he had my keys!  Actually, he emailed me on behalf of his neighbor, who had my keys.  She had found them the saturday after I lost them and held onto them.  I picked them up from her tonight on my way home and happily gave her the $100 reward.  It has been just short of a month, and I finally got my keys back!

I'm so friggin' happy about that.  It all worked out.  Besides the ridiculously expensive floppy replacement, I have a precious aluminum fish as a keychain, given to me by a good friend at a very good time in my life that is invaluable to me.  That fish hasn't left my side for 15yrs so above all else, its good to have my fish back.

A big shout out to Jennifer and William who brought it all back to me.  Hey universe, do something nice for those folks would'ja!

Thanks for reading.

TRJ

PS ... I've been told that my 'comments' section for this blog was inactive.  I'm going to fix that for any of you who want to leave comments.  The best way to reach me is my email address (trjonz@gmail.com), as I probably won't come back to the same post to comment on somebody's comment.  Maybe I will, I dunno.  I appreciate the readership immensely, but these posts are a mark in time designed for your entertainment and tomorrow we'll be onto the next chapter.  Keep moving forward, the new motto.  But, if you wanna drop a line, please do so.  I'll get it.  Once again, I thank you for reading.  Sincerely, Troy.

Random monday blatherings... Golfing... Criss Angel...

Just random blatherings today.  Its monday night, and I feel like writing.

I've started this online challenge called 'Songfight' (songfight.org).  What happens is, they give you the title of the tune and you have 2weeks to write and record your tune.  I nailed the first week challenge in a night, but this week's challenge has been difficult.  This weeks title is, 'Canadian Girlfriend'.  Its due thursday and I'm going to do my damnedest to get a submission in.  Runnin' to the wire though.  If ou want you can still go and check out my last recording, its still up there on the site.

I got sick yesterday and it walloped me today.  I went to work but I regretted doing that afterwards.  I also regretted biking in today in freezing temperatures.  I checked the temperature and it was 7degreesC but the windchill made it a minus celcius day.  I had to decide whether to wear my touque or my helmet, and I chose the helmet.  Both of those were the right decision.  What I needed was a snowsuit.   I only wore a sweater and a pair of cotton pants and froze myself stupid going in.  The helmet saved my head when I slammed into a road construction sign.  I just didn't see it, I was bent into the wind giving it everything I had to try and get there.  It spit rain on me, then snow, and eventually the icy wind took all my strength away and got deep into my bones.  My muscles gave up and the fever set in to stay with me all day.  Its been a pretty miserable monday.

So yeah, I'm workin!  I had my eye on this print shop pretty much from the beginning.  I dropped Tanya off to work one day and noticed it.  Then we moved to where we are and it became an even better prospect.  Its right across from Tanya's office, a 40min walk to home or 15mins on bike.  I'm pretty lucky, jobs have always materialized right when I needed it to happen, and I dropped off a resume at exactly the same time another fellow was leaving.  Being able to walk to and from work is a huge bonus with me cause I like to walk.  Its a pre-press position, back to what I was doing in Ottawa 12 years ago.  Lots to learn.  Here's a kicker too, I'm making the same amount of money as I was in Moncton, except I'm taking home about 30% more money.  This was one of the reasons we wanted to move here, the taxes are low.  I mean, we were making decent money in Canada, but it was utterly impossible to build any kind of savings.  Me personally, I have never had or have been able to save any of my own money.  As long as I've been working I've been poor as hell, just barely surviving.  If not for Tanya, I think I'd live a pretty down and out, mean existence.  I don't know how families do it.  And it kills me to see all that money being so carelessly thrown away on the machines and tables here in Vegas in the name of fun... I just don't understand it.

Tanya's dad was here all last week so we visited quite a few casinos.  We also got out golfing which was our first outing here.  It was a nice little community course called Desert Willow in Henderson.  It was a beautiful day and I shot as well as I always do, on the green in two, plus 3 or 4 putts.  The greens were pretty horrid.  The beer cart came around the 10th hole and Tan and I each got one, and then we learned a hard lesson about golfing on a community course in the desert.  Its not like back home where you can run off to the woods!  There was absolutely nowhere to piss!  I lost my first and only ball of the day on the 18th hole into a water trap that had a big fountain spurting water.  That was it, I just couldn't finish the game in that state of mind so I left the cart and Tan and her dad and ran to the clubhouse.

We also went to see Criss Angel's show at the Luxor.  I didn't really know who he was, or that he had a TV show all those years.  But his show and the supporting cast was pretty good.  I could use less of the rockstar screaming and crowd pumping stuff, but he seemed like a genuine guy who loves his craft so he sold me on it.  And he IS a rockstar.  He did some pretty cool tricks that I'm still trying to unravel in my mind, so I'd go back to see him again just to focus a keener eye on things.  He has an amazing collection of custom motorcycles as you walk into his theatre.  It wasnt' a full house for a friday night either.  I've heard that his show isn't doing too well.  No matter, I liked it and I'd recommend it.

Tha's all for tonight folks.  Thanks for reading.

TRJ