Saturday, we decided (for multiple reasons) to meet up with friends back in Las Vegas. Mike and Georgina graciously offered to host us (again), for which we are always grateful. We took a last look around their new property (offer accepted!) and snapped some casual pix.

All the way at the corner is some infrastructural stuff. Water service is very local, and needless to say, cell service is 5 bars of 4G 24/7. Pretty sweet. The structures don’t really affect the esthetic value of the property, being well back from the ridgeline and easily obscured in the trees. Plans for a mural on the water tank are already under way.

Pulling up stakes and south-bound on I-15, we decided to lengthen the brief journey with a side trip past Lake Mead.

Off to the east of the busy, bustling I-15, the tiny SR169 makes its way through some very pleasant country, downright scenic in some places. For anyone not in much of a hurry, this is definitely a great alternate route. It also exits down at the southeastern portion of Las Vegas (Henderson area), which can either be a delightful traffic-miss, or a long detour back to the northern part of town. In our case, the pleasant travel more than made up for an extra hour on the road.

Coming past the Rec Area entrance station, we asked about camping (even though we were just passing through; always interesting to get a bit of info along the way). Turns out that even though Valley of Fire (state park) was full-full-full, all the other Rec Area campgrounds had plenty of room. Nice to know for future travels.

In fact, the several dry-camp areas we saw were still thinly populated, even on this Easter weekend.

The road unfolded before us past craggy cliffs, deep drainages, and lovely spring-blossom desert plants. Occasional glimpses of the Lake were punctuated by the thin silver-gray stripe of the road taking us magic-carpet-style across the rugged terrain.

All-in-all, a very pleasant afternoon on the way to Las Vegas.

Saturday evening, our hosts turned down the lights in their impressive home theater, and we watched some really tough guys try to best each other in the Octagon for some UFC championships.

Yeah, watching a 120-inch projection screen is definitely not a typical travel experience – – but we’ll take it.