Intersession – weekend #2

Nothing much to report for the weekend as plans to go to Valley of Fire for a hike were cancelled due to weather. We had high winds in the valley starting Saturday at 11 a.m. ish and though I tried to beat it on my walk to the Wetlands Preserve, I had to abort the desert walk loop because the dust was already kicking up. I got home at 11 ish and measured my parking spot carefully to be away from the palm tree should it topple – the news had indicated that trees down and power outages were likely with wind gusts predicted up to 65 mph.

The forecast was right on, and by noon the mountains were not visible – by 3 p.m. the airport was barely visible for the dust though the planes continued to fly in and out; with their changed flight path they were audible for the first time. Amazingly the pool down below remained open and the noise from there was the loudest yet until it finally shut down at 4 pm ish as everything was flying around by then. Interestingly the windows let in enough breeze on the 19th floor to move the curtains inside…

Pretty obvious in those conditions how much trash there is discarded in this city – it was whipping around everywhere. Single use bags still abound, no charge at stores for these so between those and plastic bottles and cans that have no deposit, quite a mess…. I packed in the afternoon, counting down the hours until I could get off the strip…

Happily I was advised on Friday that I could move in anytime on Sunday to the apartment – previously the schedule had me doing a late checkout at 1 p.m. and then being orphaned until 3 p.m. checkin so that was great news! I was out of the Marriott after two loads by 8:30 a.m, (all that bread hanging in bags hanging off the luggage rack) and heading over to the new abode where I could finally unpack and call it home. Although the gate wasn’t working properly (storm electronic malfunction?) someone kindly let me into the complex and it was then a process of multiple trips up and down the stairs, the promised workout – unpacking and then shopping for provisons and mopping the floor which was filthy. As I didn’t find cleaning fluid inside I suspect they hadn’t been done properly for awhile, though the owner suggested that it was the dust storm that was the culprit… I’m not so sure, as it took three mops to get the dirt to a tolerable level.

Very nice to unpack – quite a quiet complex and some bike lanes close by; stumbled into a shopping centre with an REI store within 10 mins, that may be dangerous….