On the Road (Again): Rocks (sometimes basketball shots), cacti, and more gaudy scenery

Hello evreyone,

It is the hours after the basketball game and we aren't terribly disappointed. ICYMI Purdue lost by 6 in what was mostly a closely contested game. We hope it wasn't our best effort (if it was, then it is going to be a long season). We had good seats --

I was complimented on the seats; we even were on the aisle! :)

The row to my left was empty. For game 2, Arizona vs. UCLAm, there was a group of Zona fans behind us who made my ears hurt. For one, it was clear the one woman had never seen an opponent miss a shot! :)

But it was all fun. Lots of Purdue fans there.

What did we do before that?

Well, yesterday morning we went to breakfast at this place called Craft Kitchen that had lots of good items.

The waiter, in a Joe Montana throwback (at this point, is there another kind?) jersey, forgot to bring the cinnamon roll till well into my eggs...I was "away from the table" when K paid, or he'd gotten half a tip. :)

Then we sojourned into California to see the Mojave desert. It is still amazing to see that you go from built-up city to absolutely, positively nothing in a heartbeat. There are two crossroads towns along I-15 on the way to the desert, but nothing else.

It rained off and on going to the desert. It had clearly rained enough recently to be a thing: there were warnings about debris and washouts.

Then back to town. Neither of us were hungry, so we wandered around, trying to find the route to the arena for today.

Step one was supposed to be to get on the free tram from the Mandalay Bay to the Excalibur -- two hotels (city blocks?) away. We never found it, but wandered across a pedestrian bridge to the Luxor, passing all these sites along the way: a Guinness shop (why?), an Irish Pub (next to the Guinness shop), multiple eateries, various vendors (hats, clothes, watches, ...you name it), and went through the Luxor casino. This time I asked and was pointed in the direction of the tram. I have one shot of the outside of the Luxor, if you. haven't seen pics

We then wandered through the casino at the Excalibur, only to find we didn't have to do that.

Then, across the street to the New York, New York (K took lots of pics, I thought it was large but not the real thing :)). Not sure the NY, NY wasn't bigger than the others. Ended up on the outside in the right direction and there was T-Mobile Arena -- our real destination for this trip.

K decided she wanted BBQ, so we ended up back at the House of Blues inside the Mandalay Bay. It's not great food porn, but it ain't nothing, either. I had my old "usual," though Swerve would tell you that his favorite part when I used to order it for lunch was the "hold the lettuce" part. :). I ate the lettuce tonight.

This morning we got up "early" and went to this pastry place called Tous du Jour, for a "light" breakfast.

As we went to breakfast, we saw what looked like a snow=covered mountain to the west. We took a picture and Gemini said it was Mount Charleston. Looking at it on the map, I saw a conservation area between us and it -- Red Rock Canyon. We headed there.

It was a good pickup. It had an 11 mile scenic loop, with all kinds of interesting rocks and foliage. And an annoying blue Lamborghini making a lot of noixe on a 35 mph road.

There was even a place where the recent rain drainage was running across the road.

But, despite multiple warnings, we saw no tortoises, nor any of the other possible wildlife ):

Back to the hotel to kill a few, and change from leisurewear, then off to lunch.

The culinary highlight of the trip (I can be somewhat accused of burying the lede here( was today at lunch. We went to a place called Esther's Kitchen, which is in old town Las Vegas (literally on Main St), and has a Michelin guide recommendation as quality food at a reasonable price.

Check, check.

Did I mention it was Italian?

It's set in an older building and has the now not-unseen industrial decor, with wood floors. It was not what you usually expect from an Italian place.

The lunch menu was maybe limited, with only half a dozen pasta offerings. WE found a couple good ones --

I had the radiatorre, which had black garlic, lemon and cream in the sauce. Funky pasta.

I don't know what they called K's but it was cacio de pepe by another name.

And we had chicken so we had a protein.

For dessert we hesitated but went for this, which was the hero of the meal -- it's their butterscotch badino (I think I got that right) and it's butterscotch custard with a caramel layer, with whipped cream with honeycomb crumbles on top. It would be worth going there JUST for this.

But K couldn't resist the Basque cheesecake with apple crumbles. So we took one back to the room and ate it after the basketball game.