Pat and I were abducted by aliens... had to use their restrooms...

We went to Sedona yesterday to do some hiking. At the end of the day we ate at the Red Planet Diner, which is a cross between a 50's diner and an alien museum. Great burgers!!! Here's a shot of part of the interior.
Later,

Steve

Great Antelope Canyon slot tours in Page Arizona with Carol Bigthumb...

OK, I'm going to plug a tour business we used... Pat did some research of tour guides when she was setting up our slot canyon tour and had read some great things about her tours. We took it and it was great. Many of the slot canyon tours hit Upper Antelope canyon and call it a day, others have access to other specific canyons, but the access to the various canyons are typically controlled. Pat found Carol Bigthumb's Adventurous Antelope Canyon Photo Tours. Her company has access to Upper Antelope canyon and two additional slot canyons that her family, which grew up on the property, controls.
The slot canyons we toured are fascinating. They're formed by flash floods rushing through sandstone washes. Upper Antelope is probably the most photographed slot canyon in the Page area, it's large and accessible and numerous tours came through it while we were there. It has a sandy bottom and is easy to walk through. The canyon is quite deep, and while light can get in through the entire canyon, it has wonderful effects as the bright spots and shadows play off the reddish sandstone walls. There are numerous spots where patters resemble various animals or people, in a shot below the light pattern resembles a candlestick and flame.

We did Upper Antelope canyon first, walking to the gulch at the back of the canyon, when you get outside, you'd almost not know the slot canyon existed if you're further than 50-80 feet away. We took a bit of a break to wait for the light to get more overhead to show off the color better before taking a slow trip back through to take a lot of pictures. Taking pictures in the canyons is pretty easy, despite the low light. You'll do best with a tripod, but most of the point and shoot digital cameras will do just fine if you rest it against a canyon wall as you take the photo to help keep the camera still. . I found most of my handheld shots did OK, but the ones with the tripods did slightly better. The shots in this post with solid looking walls and blurry people were probably running about a 1-6 second exposure using a tripod. People moving can almost look ghostly at a slow exposure.

After we finished we all moved on to a canyon Carol calls "Mountain Sheep Canyon". Her son Woody lead this trip. Mountain Sheep canyon is a long canyon, quite different than Upper Antelope in spots, and quite similar in others. Overall it is narrower, I've got a photo that shows one of the narrowest spots. It's definitely a bit more challenging than Upper Antelope, requiring a bit of high stepping with 30-40 inch climbs at times and one ladder climb of about 8 feet or so, but for the most part it's not very difficult. Upper Antelope is easy enough for nearly anyone to walk, this on may not be for some but overall wasn't difficult for anyone in average health or condition.

After Montain Sheep Canyon, we moved on to "Rattlesnake Canyon", another canyon that only Carol's company offers at this point. This one was more like a mini-Upper Antelope canyon. It was definitely narrower and required two short ladder climbs and some more sliding and climbing than the previous canyon. Here's a shot of a spot where Pat had to hand up her tripod and pick a climbing spot... it looks more difficult than it really is... the climb was only a few feet. There are some gorgeous spots in this canyon. There was a small room where the canyon ends that has a "hole" up about 7 feet above the floor. Woody had a couple of the people on the tour climb up there for pictures. Pat thought she'd never be able to get there, but you don't climb straight up, it's more like climbing around the inside of a huge round toilet bowl... starting on one side and climbing around the bowl at a slight angle to reach the hole on the other side above the floor.... makes for a nice shot.

This adventure has been the highlight of the trip so far... almost as good as scuba diving! I'm starting to get antsy to get diving again. We get home in a couple days and I've got charters starting up again on Tuesday after a day or two break to get back to "Hawaiian Time" and catch up with some things. I'm hoping my e-mail is getting through, Pat and I hav been trying to keep up with mail but there's some issues when using hotel's wireless systems and trying to send mail through both it and our mailing hosts can involve jumping though some hoops... darned technology.

Later,

Steve

Ok, this was fun... Upper Antelope Canyon...

Pat had heard of Antelope Canyon and wanted to go there after our Vegas visit. I really wasn't aware of what it was, but it sounded interesting. This is, so far, the neatest thing we've done on our trip... beats seeing the Grand Canyon in my opinion. We signed up for a tour with a Navajo woman who grew up on the property and does half day tours through this and two other slot canyons... very fun trip. I'll post a more thorough report in the next day or two. Here's a shot of Pat and I in one of the more famous rooms in the canyon... we're standing under a bear... look hard and you might see it. Here's the same shot with a little help. The walls and lighting in the canyon form the pattern of a bear standing up, use a little imagination and you can clearly see it standing and facing left.

Later,

Steve

Bright Angel Lodge, Grand Canyon, Arizona room steakhouse...

Pat and I went from Vegas to the Grand Canyon. Neither of us had ever been there before and we figured this was our chance. We stayed at the Bright Angel Lodge, litterally a hundred feet or so away from the south rim of the canyon. The lodge is a rustic spot, primarily built of logs, and has a combination of private cottages and lodge rooms. We stayed in the lodge, the rooms there are a mix of 12X14 foot rooms with a private bath and rooms with just a bed and the bath and shower being down the hall... quite a change from the MGM Signature, but the rooms were clean and kept up.


That evening we ate at the Arizona Room steakhouse at the lodge. We were surprised to find a darned nice casual restaurant at a national park. Service was fantastic, the prime rib I had and the salmon Pat had were both very good, and the black bean soup was fantastic. Surprisingly, the food and beverage prices at the park resorts are reasonable, especially when you consider they more or less have a captive audience.

We were up at 6 am to catch the sunrise at the canyon and take photos. There was a fair amount of haze from a prescribed fire miles to the southwest and it took a while to figure out how to take decent shots... darned cameras, it's never easy.

We left mid morning to head to our next adventure.... which so far has been the neatest thing we've done on the trip... I'll post a bunch of photos from that experience when we get to our next location.

Aloha,

Steve

Jimmy Buffett and other stuff....

The Jimmy Buffett concert was great, getting free tickets was a bonus. Once we started to head towards the concert from our hotel (more on the hotel in a minute) we realized there's more going on at a Buffett concert than what's happening on the stage. There's a whole lot more paraphernalia, or should I say parrotphenalia, involved than any other concert I've been to. We stayed at the Signature at the MGM Grand, which is out back of the MGM where the concert was, and in the 6-7 minute walk to the concert we literally saw hundreds, maybe thousands, of people with parrot hats, shark hats, cheeseburger hats, grass skirts, men with water filled plastic bikini tops and such. The crowd was a sellout, which apparently is in the 15K-17K range at the MGM Gardem Arena, and probably half of the crowd had been to the bar before the show.... lots of atmosphere at the show... and I suspect most of them have been to a concert of his before.

On the MGM Signature: This is the nicest place I've ever stayed. We used VRBO.com to get a rate that was around half off rack rate. Be careful when you use this service as you'll be dealing with individual owners of the condos, we've always had great luck, but we had family members who rented from an individual who had his condo foreclosed, made for a sticky mess on arrival, luckily they paid by credit card and they'll get their money back. This place is 5-6 minutes from the MGM monorail station, and only minutes from the MGM concert venue. We went to see Earth, Wind and Fire up at the Waikaloa Queen's shops venue at home a couple months back and it took an hour and a half to get out of the parking lot, this show had at least triple the attendance and we were back to our room within 10 minutes or so.

I'm using Pat's computer tonight to post, so I have access to her photos... Here's a very nice pic of a Raccoon Butterfly she took on a dive earlier in the month.

Aloha,

Steve

The DEMA show just ended, now it's time to play... sort of...

We've kind of been playing all along when we could. Tonight's plans changed suddenly when I won a drawing at the show by one of the scuba training agencies I'm affiliated with (SDI)... Pat and I are going to see the sold out Jimmy Buffet concert!! I'm not a big parrothead, but that was a lucky score.

I pretty much accomplished what I wanted to do for the show. Target number one was to make a decision on what gear I'm going to pick up the next time I buy BCDs and regulators. We've got that figured out. The next plan was to get a handle on starting up a dive travel program... that one will be a work in progress, but we've got some ideas on how to get started at least. Pat's major goal was to try on wetsuits for a perfect fit and found one she liked that she was able to take away at the end of the show. The particular brand she found has something like 24 women's sizes rather than the typical 6-7, we'd been interested in this suit for a few years but this is her first time to do a fitting... found one that worked very well.

We're leaving Vegas in the morning for parts unknown (OK we know where we're going to be for 2-3 days, but beyond that we're wingin' it). Between spending time with family and the dive show we almost could use another day or two in Vegas just to loaf around and take in the pool and bars and restaurants, but we'll do that again in another couple of years, for now we're excited to go where we're headed next (to be discussed in a future post).

I originally thought I'd do a huge DEMA show report, but I didn't bother taking pictures and really don't need to get into it much other than saying it was a pretty good show, attendance was not bad, and it was fun as usual.

One interesting thing, I did have someone approach me today to tell me they enjoy reading my blog... sort of the you don't know me but I know you thing... it was nice.

Here's a night shot of the New York New York hotel and casino. I like night shots.

Later.... Jimmy starts in 2 hours and I've got a buffet (now isn't that a coincidence... Jimmy Buffet, dinner buffet) to go to first. I've recovered from my trip to Texas de Brazil (mentioned in the previous post) - I wasn't hungry 'til the next evening, so it's time for another big meal.



Steve

Texas de Brazil Las Vegas report/review.... Meat Meat Meat!!!!!

Tonight Pat, I and our families (we're meeting with both our parents and an aunt and uncle on the front end of the trip) went out to Texas de Brazil, a newly opened churrascaria just to the south of the strip, for dinner. Churrascaria might be one of my favorite kind of meals... "Gauchos" stab a bunch of meat and then carve it off onto your plate (in 1-3 ounce serving portions) and you just keep eating 'til you can't eat any more.

Tonight's meal, for me anyway, was black beans, sauteed mushrooms, spicy cold shrimp, a salad (they have a 60 item salad bar at this place), assorted sliced meats and cheeses (the previous were all in the salad bar area)... then the real stuff... In order I had... roasted pork loin, top sirloin, parmesan pork, parmesan chicken, garlic sirloin, bacon wrapped filet mignon, flank steak, another garlic sirloin, another bacon wrapped filet mignon, 2 bone lamb chop, another 2 bone lamb chop, smoked sausage, another parmesan pork, another flank steak, and finished it all off with a couple of slices of roast lamb....Yum Yum.

Ok, now that sounds like a lot of meat, and it was. Yesterday we went to the Spice Market Buffet at Planet Hollywood (my favorite buffet so far in Vegas) and I was rather disappointed in the fact that I can't eat anywhere near as much as I could in years past.... but I felt more like my old (or should I say younger) self today... I even had room for a double chocolate mousse slice afterward tonight. Luckily the place we're staying has a a pretty good workout facility, and I'm trying to use it every other day or so.

Anyway, Texas de Brazil just opened their Vegas location this last month. Service was very good, the meats were very good (a couple items were on the well cooked side but they generally strive for medium rare), as was the salad bar selection. Price for the meal is $44.95 but they'll nickel and dime (more like 3-5 buck) you like mad on beverages... they'll push their "bottled water service", if you don't want to pay for water just ask for ice water. Still, it's a better price than you'll pay for a high end meal on the strip in most places. I'd say everyone gave it a big enthusiastic thumbs up for the evening.

Here's a picture of a "gaucho" with a skewer of top sirloins.

Las Vegas and the DEMA scuba show will be the blog topic for the next few days....

I'm in Vegas to attend the '08 DEMA show. It starts up tomorrow morning. At the show I'll be attending seminars and the show floor which will be loaded with scuba related manufacturers and dive resorts displaying their services and products. It's a pretty big show, typically having 11K plus attendees, it'll be interesting to see if the numbers are down this year as they held the show in Orlando the last two years and you never know if the east coast stores might take a year off visiting. I'll be posting pictures and reports of the show the next few days.

Here's a shot of the Bellagio hotel, one of the many mega-resorts here. It has fabulous fountains out front and they do a show a couple of times an hour. I'm wanting to get some video of it at night one of these evenings.

Later,

Steve