TajLV

We Las Vegans tend to think there’s nothing noteworthy in Nature nearby besides Mt. Charleston and Red Rock. Well, head up US-93 through Caliente just past Panaca and get an eyeful of the some truly amazing geological formations. The park has been open since 1935 and it is virtually a secret. Go figure. Better still… go visit!

At the Robinson’s Knotty Pine Restaurant & Casino; good food, reasonable prices, cold beer. The historic Union Pacific Railroad Station is a nice piece of architecture, too. It now houses Lincoln County offices.

Rivers, lakes, forests, reservoirs, fishing, camping, hiking, hunting … its got it all.

May-October campsites are open, $12/night. Trout fishing in the reservoir. Good hiking. Lots of wildlife; we saw deer along the entry road.

But it was 36 miles in the wrong direction, so I did not get to go there this trip. Next time, for sure!

than the original Disneyland. I enjoyed the water theme. The Twenty Thousand Leagues ride and Temple of Doom were amazing. My younger daughter got a thrill out of the Little Mermaid show. So much to do. It deserves a full day… or two!

And growing quickly. The Thomas & Mack center is a superb venue for indoor sports, concerts and conferences. Lots of nice landscaping. Superb library. Wonderful performing arts. One complaint: The bookstore is only so-so.

In 1972, we saw the Sound and Light Show here. Wow! What a taste of history.

My grandparents lived there in the 1950s and we went to visit them from our home in Sunnyvale. I was so impressed by Stanford University, I decided at the age of six that I would someday go to college there.

Even though we moved away from California to Indiana in 1958, I held onto my dream. I applied to Stanford when I was a high school senior and was accepted, but I didn’t receive enough financial aid to afford the out-of-state tuition. Instead, I did my undergraduate work at DePauw.

Then, in 1998, I had an opportunity to attend a graduate course in professional publishing at Stanford. I jumped at the chance. We lived in a dorm, ate in the cafeteria, studied in the classrooms and library, and shopped in the bookstore. I even got to walk on the turf of the old football stadium, swim in the outdoor pool and bicycle the streets of Palo Alto, so different from four decades earlier.

There will always be a special place in my heart for Stanford and Palo Alto, a location very much worth visiting.

Every Tuesday, qualified members of Ellis Island Casino Players Club get a free slice and drink here. Since I am over 50, I also get a $1 discount on my second slice, so you can guess where I have dinner just about every Tuesday evening after work. Viva Metro Pizza!