Yosemite to Las Vegas

Today was a long driving day.  We left the Yosemite Cedar Lodge around 8:30 this morning and began our drive to Las Vegas.  Sometime around 10 am we had breakfast in a roadside breakfast place in a town who's name I can't remember. I had biscuits and gravy while Carol was a bit more responsible with pancakes.  Sometime later we stopped in Kingsburg CA, a town of all Swedish decent and it is also the home of SunMaid Raisins.

SunMaid Raisins Company Store... good stuff but a very small store.  We purchased several varieties of figs and raisins. Carol's comment was that this is the other use for grapes. I had to shoot a panorama in such a scenic place...???

Windmills on Route 58 East.  We were amazed at the sheer number of windmills and i am afraid that this VR doesn't do them justice as they are a bit far off.  But we were also amazed at the color in the desert - everything was green.

Valley Wells Rest Area on route 15.  This is later in the day, I would guess a couple of hours from Las Vegas.  The wind was really whipping it up out here and was it ever hot and dry.

Las Vegas at last.  We arrived here right as the GPS said we would, at the front door of Treasure Island at 5:49. This is my first shot on the strip just after sunset and I think likely the best of the strip as the color in the sky was fantastic.  It was still very hot and windy here.

In the shopping area at the Bellagio.  I wanted to get a shot of the water show they put on at the Bellagio for my son-in-law Dan who highly recommended the show... we walked the 800 or so miles down here to find that it had been cancelled because of the high winds, but I got his shot of the inside of the shopping area.

The Venetian - Walking back along the strip I took several more shots, and thought this one turned out pretty well.

So that is about it for the photography from today.  I put away my camera and Carol and I had a genuine Las Vegas buffet at Treasure Island (yum - I forgot my diet for a while), where we are staying, and then went to see Mystere a Cirque du Soleil performance.  WOW what a fantastic extravaganza. I would highly recommend this show to anyone visiting Las Vegas. So now it is about 1:30 am and I am trying to finish this up -- tomorrow off to Sedona AZ for a couple of days.