A Scenic Drive West of Las Vegas
Ed and I flew into Las Vegas last weekend. It’ll be our base for a week (more on that later) as we plan a tour of the Great American West, or as much of it as we can manage. I’ve never been to this perhaps grandest part of this great country, and I’ve always wanted to. So this is the year that particular dream is being fulfilled.
That’s why my first post of this series of Twofisted Touristing chronicles will start with a desert park, not the glitz of Las Vegas lying just a few miles to the east of Red Rock Canyon.
It is natural wonders these posts will be mostly about after all.
Just a hop, skip, and a 20 minute drive from the part of Las Vegas where whatever happens happens to stay, is the scenic drive that takes you on an easy access loop past some of the main attractions of Red Canyon National Conservation Area. The view above is from the visitor center.
Below, a hiker on one of the many hiking trails through the desert and into the mountains.
The visitor center has humming bird feeders, which attracted this little fellow with the bright red neck:
The view of Las Vegas from the park.
First stop on the scenic route road: Calico I.
I would guess these are the rocks that give Red Rock Canyon its name.
This formation looks a bit like a giant turtle.
Let me see how well I remember what I learned at the visitor center. These rocks were formed from primordial sand dunes, which themselves formed after the primordial ocean, that once covered these parts with water, disappeared.
The darker red rock is from a more recent geological age, the lighter rock is older.
The lines in the rock are various levels of sand before they petrified into stone.
At the visitor center we were reminded to leave no trash (Ed found himself picking up glass and other items fellow travelers had discarded), and to “leave the park better than we found it.”
Which brings me to these four whimsical stone sculptures (peace sign, heart, smiley faces) previous visitors created. Is that leaving the place better than they found it?
The original Gloria Gaynor record reigns supreme. But my personal favorite cover is also the version that is the most different from the original. Recorded by the Danish trio Funky Nashville, it is very, well, funky and Nashville, replete with a spaghetti western electric guitar taking on the original’s famous string obligatos. It especially earns its Gay Pride of Place through its prominent inclusion in the German Gay soccer comedy “Männer Wie Wir” (“Guys and Balls”).
And while we’re listening to jazzy stylings, we better include Scott Bradlee’s Postmodern Jukebox take, with Sara Niemitz slaying the vocals and the brass section hot-jazzing those obligatos. Their studio recording is slick, but the live version is smokin’:
It is part of a longer section in the short story, where Poe allows the narrator to ruminate on terrors in the dark before describing the murder to come. The narration eerily extends that breathless moment before the protagonist 
Notes from a Composer 