Week Three in Las Vegas

I began my third week in Las Vegas by attending church at the United Church of Christ Community Church in Henderson. It’s not a large church and it seats about 150 and was about half full for the service. The pastor came and greeted me right after I sat down and I learned he grew up in southeast Ohio and his brother had played football and graduated from Mount Union University in Alliance. So, he was familiar with Northeast Ohio.

It was a warm, sunny day so I went back to my casita and sat in the sun on the patio. I worked a little on an outline for my next writing project.

The Super Bowl was due to start at about 3:30 local time and the game was actually pretty good. I really didn’t have a favorite, although the Chiefs are from the Midwest and I was thrilled by their fourth quarter comeback to win the game. Even more thrilling was the halftime show featuring (or should I say “ft.”?) Jennifer Lopez and Shakira. These two Latina women are dynamic and accomplished performers who put on a memorable halftime show.  Also, they were a lot more interesting for me to look at than last year’s performers, Maroon 5.

Than evening, the wind really started to howl and the temperature dropped about 40 degrees overnight. The noise from the wind and the change in weather made it hard to sleep.

The next morning, I went to the Black Mountain Recreation Center and rode the Exercycle. I decided to try the Public Works coffee shop in downtown Henderson for lunch, but they had sold out all of their sandwiches when I arrived in early afternoon. So, I tried a Cruffin, a croissant rolled into a muffin shape and baked. It was actually pretty good.

On Tuesday, I woke up a little early and read the Akron Beacon Journal online. Then I headed toward downtown Las Vegas for my first day of classes at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at UNLV. I arrived a little more than an hour before my first class and found the lounge area where there was free coffee or tea and some snacks. I was able to sign up for a guest account on my computer to use UNLV’s Wi-Fi and I talked with several other students

My first class was “The American West” and I was amazed that the classroom, which had about 100 seats, was full. The instructor said he was a retired railroad manager. Most of the class consisted of two videos from a series called “Great Courses.” Actually, they were pretty good videos and the instructor summarized the main points after each.

During the lunch period, I went to an orientation session about OLLI and heard about the origins of the program. They showed a video with brief classroom scenes of students waving from various campuses that offered OLLI. There was even a brief shot of OLLI students at UTEP.

The second class was Nevada History and it was a little more engaging. The instructor concentrated on the geography and environment of the state while making the point that Nevada’s growth and development was a product of its natural resources. He finished about 20 minutes early and I was pretty tired after about three hours of class time. One good thing, he provided free maps of Nevada as a reference tool for the class.

On the way home, I stopped at Von’s supermarket and bought a large bottle of Evan Williams bourbon. It was too cool to sit on the patio, so I watched some news until the Kentucky-Mississippi State game came on at 6PM. I cooked a frozen pizza for dinner and watched the last few episodes of “Grace and Frankie” on Netflix.

On Wednesday, I only had one OLLI class but I think it will be my favorite and it is called “Comedy: What’s the Point?” Each week we will watch a comedy feature film and then discuss the film in the remaining time. The instructor is a graduate of the University of Southern California film school with a masters from Indiana University. I had a very nice conversation with her in the OLLI lounge before the class started and I think this course will be a lot of fun.

Pam will be visiting me in Vegas the third week of March and I’m looking forward to taking her to class to watch “The Producers” that week. We have seen the film numerous times and it cracks both of us up every time. What can you say about a film that has a stage musical song called “Springtime for Hitler” with young women dancers in SS uniform jackets and dance shorts performing a routine like the June Taylor dancers who were regulars on Jackie Gleason’s TV variety show in the 50s and 60s.

In the first class, we watched Mae West in “She Done Him Wrong” from 1930 and it was so much fun. The film featured her at her man-baiting best and was full of double entendres that the class laughed at heartily. After the film, we discussed the beginnings of the Motion Picture Code that was established in 1930 and how this film might have been fared with the code committee.

The weather the next three days was sunny and warmer and I decided to put some miles on the rental car and explore the area around Las Vegas. On Thursday, I drove about an hour west of the Las Vegas area to Red Rock Canyon Park. I took the 13-mile Scenic Drive loop and was not disappointed. The colors of the layers of rock making up the hills surrounding the canyon are spectacular. The red color of layers is caused by iron that leached into the limestone as the whole area emerged from the the bottom of the sea 180 million years ago.

The speed limit on the one-way road was 35 mph, but I went a lot slower than that to take in the scenery. Fortunately, the road was wide enough that mostly younger drivers wanting to go faster could pass me. Every two or three miles, there was a small parking area where I could get out and take pictures. I highly recommend this drive when you visit Las Vegas.

About an hour after I left Red Rock, I was driving up towards the summit of Mt. Charleston, a peak of over 11,000 feet about an hour northwest of Vegas. As I passed the 6,000-foot level, the ground was covered with snow and the road ended at about 7,600 feet. The Mt. Charleston lodge has a couple of dozen cabins for rent and a large restaurant at this spot. I decided to have lunch and was able to look at the mountainous terrain out the large windows on three sides of the restaurant. By the way, my lunch of Quiche Lorraine and broccoli cheese soup was very good.

After lunch, I drove back down the mountain and went north on U.S. 95 for about a half hour. The land was very much a desert with mountains off in the distance on all sides.

The next day, I worked out fairly early in the morning (for me!) at about 9:30AM and then decided to explore the area south of Las Vegas. I took U.S. 95 to Searchlight, NV, and then went east towards Cottonwood Cove, a small village on the Colorado River downstream from Hoover Dam. On the way, there was a National Park Service toll both, but it was not staffed and a row of orange cones directed drivers around it. The desert landscape was full of Yucca plants that were beginning to sprout yellow blossoms, a sign that spring was coming to the desert.

When I arrived at the town, it was virtually deserted even though there were dozens of boats docked at the marina. I thought about stopping at the snack bar, but it was only the size of a small trailer.

There were dozens of house trailers and manufactured homes lining the only road in and out of town, but most of these looked unoccupied. Later, my landlord Ernie explained that this is off season and that area would be packed during the summer. After I reached Searchlight, I headed east for about 30 miles and picked up U.S. 93 heading back north towards Henderson, where I am staying.

As I approached Hoover Dam, the late afternoon sun provided wonderful shadows and colors on the hills. The last part of the drive, I was driving directly into the sun and that made the final few miles of the drive somewhat difficult. But I arrived home in time to relax on the patio with a couple of bourbons before dinner.

After a couple of days of sightseeing, I decided to take it easy on Saturday. Las Vegas is on Pacific Time and I am adjusting to the early start time for some sporting events. So, I watched Kentucky play Tennessee at 10AM. That afternoon, I spent a lot of time on the patio getting some sun and working on a couple of projects. In my three weeks here, it has been sunny just about every day and the low humidity is helping my allergies and breathing.

I will have more next week. See you then.