Laura and Sasha's Excellent Adventure - Hiking in January 2011

A descriptive look at traveling and full-timing with our second RV, a fifth wheel toyhauler.
Laura and Sasha started this adventure in April of 2005
for a two week vacation in a truck camper.

January 2011: Hiking At Lake Mead National Recreation Area

January 6th: Srechan Budna Veche!! :-) Or Happy Christmas Eve for all those who are Serbian Orthodox. We tried to Skype with the folks back east, but it did not work. Oh well, we will try again another time.

We also went on a hike, a long hike. Much longer than we thought it would be. We brought our GPS with us to get an idea on how long it really took. The sign is wrong as well. We did this while we were volunteering. There was also some cool Geology and the sunset was gorgous.

Pictures of the Arizona Hot Springs Hike
Picture	Explanation	Options
	Cool Rocks, see how there are lines - might have to enlarge it to see.... What is weird (probably because this is over 6 months ago,) but this picture was taken on January 6th, while the other pictures were taken on January 9th. So I think we only went a little ways down the trail then headed back. So the pictures that you see below are from January 9th.
		Check out both pictures in Info:
	Colorado River!

	Yes, it was bright and in the sun, but still, look at that water!
	We have started to head into this slot area, into the springs. Lots of water here.
	I'm not really into ladders all that much, and just thought that Sasha might want to go up and take a picture or two.
	Interesting to see, the water has to be held back with sand bags and look how low it is!
	Good thing we brought our other glasses as the sun is starting to set. I do love these sunsets!
	Please click on this picture to see the distance and then click on our map button to see the true distance. We did get lost for ~ 0.5 miles, but we were able to get back on track. Sure seems a bit of a difference.

January 7th: Srechan Bozic!! :-) - Merry Christmas!

January 9th: My Thighs are Burning! After a 9.3 mile hike in five hours; on and in an igneous rock / gravel wash. First going down 4.5 miles, got lost for .5 miles trying to find a trail to hot springs, then a steady and gradual walk through the gravel/sand wash coming back up (4.5 miles UP!) Sasha will explain all when he gets the GPS coordinates on FB. The bottoms of my feet are also burning, saying Stay OFF of ME for at least 8 hours...Too bad it is not bedtime yet. "So this commentary is for the pictures above..."

- note to self, We have a link for the coordinates, but it would be really cool if I could put the information on the page that has the picture and the Exif data, but I have not figured out how to do that yet.

January 13th: now my feet are saying when are we going hiking again? Tonight! Going out for a walk in the half moonlight. I will be giving a full moon hike next Wednesday along the Historic Railroad Trail at Lake Mead NRA. It will be about a 2.5 mile hike. I want to see if we can use the red lights or if we need regular flashlights.

Got back from the hike, we are now going to have dinner, improvisation dinner and watch a movie on our new TV. Hike was nice, saw Orion, the half moon and Cassiopeia. Lots of Light Pollution, but this is close to Vegas after all. Going through the tunnels was quite interesting - very very dark, until someone turned on his headlamp!

January 15th: Off to go hiking - we will see how many miles this one is - Liberty Bell Arch, here we come! This time it was a shorter hike of only 5.61 miles round trip. But we saw the arch, and the Colorado river AND the new bridge, just not all at the same time.

Here are some pictures from that hike:

Pictures of the Liberty Bell Arch Hike
Picture	Explanation	Options
	We were again hiking while volunteering, really loving this gig, and I also am training to become a Dark Sky Ranger through Astronomy From the Ground Up. It is an online program that I would start in mid January and go for 9 weeks. So here is Sasha near a piece of mining equipment. Beautiful blue skies. We really love this hike, we have a picture of ourselves from last year that we put on our business cards.
	We met someone else on the trail (January is a great time to hike, and so there were some people on the trail) and they took our picture.
	Looking down on a Barrel Cactus
	I might have had some uneven footing here, otherwise, I would be smiling like crazy. We had gotten up to the top, past the view of the bell. We would see it on the way down.
	The New Bridge, like you had seen before, but here is a link to the Hoover Dam Bypass.
	And there she is, the Liberty Bell Arch with BLUE skies!