October 26, 2013 Life Is Beautiful Festival

After a short night of sleep, we headed out for breakfast. This was an adventure everyday due to the long lines at most places. 

Geo trying the giant slot machine at the Golden Nugget. No breakfast here!

Here's the family that must have adopted me as a child posing on Fremont Street.

No breakfast here...

...or here...

...should have checked if breakfast was offered here...could have gotten eggs Danny Thomas style...

...not here either. Guess where we had breakfast? Denny's. OK, it seems lame but I was starving and this Denny's has a wedding chapel in it, so at least I only had breakfast here. I wonder how long a marriage that takes place at Denny's actually lasts?

Finally made it to the Life Is Beautiful Festival...so was the weather.

Here's the bands I saw today

Family of the Year - very good

Wallpaper - energetic and I thoroughly enjoyed their set

ZZ Ward - pretty good bluesy set

Goldboot - local band, they were OK

Dawes - love this band

Youngblood Hawke - OK

Alabama Shakes - fantastic band, amazing singer

Capital Cities - heard them while eating dinner at the amazing Culinary Village, fun songs, eclectic food choices, great idea to add this to festival

Earl Sweatshirt - good young rapper

Imagine Dragons - good live band, sorta like the Killers, very cool version of 'Radioactive' with Cirque du Soleil performers

Cults - good male/female singer band

Beck - been a fan for years, first time I saw him, blown away, great live

Kings of Leon - love this band, did not let me down

 

So on with a pictorial tour of my day

the host hotel of the festival, it was inside the festival grounds

love the old signs along Fremont Street

this was wrapped around a fence on an empty lot...what can I say I love dogs and thought the sayings were very cool

Now, I'm not sure what the bestiality laws are in Nevada. But if a guy shows up at a motel with a llama, I wouldn't rent him a room.

my cohorts for the weekend, my little brother George and my sister-in-law Marcy

this seemed strange sober, imagine how it looked ten hours and many beers later in the dark with flames shooting out of it's head.

a 3D mural with old fashioned 3D glasses available across the street

it was much easier to get pictures of the artwork than the bands

Family of the Year - catchy pop songs with a male/female singing combo, seems like lots of bands have that nowadays

there was always a line of people waiting to pose in front of the artwork, so I took a picture of this young couple instead of waiting.

This band, Wallpaper, was my favorite surprise of the weekend. Very energetic rock, rap with dual singers and dual drummers. check them out, I had a blast during their set. I caught singer Ricky Reed's DJ set later and was entertained a second time today by them. Check them out below..

 

 

I took this picture to use on Facebook. It seemed so perfect behind the barbed wire fence.

ZZ Ward

the local stage

Goldboot

Dawes

Brittany Howard of the Alabama Shakes...her singing sent chills down my spine three different times during their fifty minute set...

Alabama Shakes...great live act

Earl Sweatshirt

an artist booth, anyone could paint a brick and add it to The Wall...

...pretty cool idea for a music festival.

G&M feeling no pain while waiting for Beck to play.

After a great set by the Kings of Leon, we headed out for NYC pizza slices at Pizza Rock...

 ...then back to The Plaza at the end of Fremont Street.

November 3, 2013 The November Social Club Meeting - Sandhill Cranes at Jasper -Pulaski

This one is for the birds. Sandhill cranes to be exact. These birds stop at Jasper-Pulaski Fish & Wildlife Area while migrating south every fall. I've gone down there twice to photograph the birds. It really is amazing to see up to 10,000 sandhill cranes roosting in the marsh at J-P. I posted pictures on my blog, click here to see them. Click here for more info about Jasper-Pulaski Fish & Wildlife Area. Now you might be asking yourself, why would I want to see a bunch of birds on a cold November day? I thought the same thing the first time I drove down to see them. Trust me, when the flocks of sandhill cranes start floating out of the sky by the hundreds to land in a field with thousands of other cranes, you will be amazed too. The birds roost at the viewing area overnight, in the morning they take off to feed in the farm fields surrounding J-P. They return before dusk and socialize in the fields at the viewing area. I will be heading down to Jasper -Pulaski on Sunday November 17th about 1:30pm which is 2:30pm at Jasper-Pulaski. The plan will be to arrive about 1.5 hours before sunset which is at 5:30pm. I think this gives us the best chance to see the birds while the sun sets behind the fields at the viewing area. If you plan on joining me, please contact me. We could drive down together or meet at J-P. Afterwards we can grab dinner somewhere on the way back home. 

 

 

 

October 25, 2013 My First Day In Las Vegas...Really The First Time I Ever Set Foot In Vegas.

 

Here's a big surprise...it took a music festival to get me to visit Las Vegas. Last month while in Chicago, my little brother mentioned he was going to something called Life Is Beautiful in Las Vegas. I forgot about it until he posted on Facebook he was going to Vegas. I needed a break from my so called life....now I'm in Vegas. We are staying downtown so we can walk to the Life Is Beautiful Festival. After checking in, I walked down Fremont Street to check out the festival grounds before the streets were blocked off. Then I met up with my parents and my brother and sister-in-law for dinner at Triple George Grill. Damn good food at that place.

 

 

Dinner at Triple George...

...then a walk down the Fremont Street Experience...

...it's a digital screen canopy above Fremont St for about four blocks. The freaky images move to music playing...you provide the drugs for a special experience.

Then George, Marcy & I walked around the festival area as the streets were being blocked off. Several artists were finishing their murals by spotlight generators.

There's a leggy girl with a big heart...she needs it to make up for the lack of a heart in her husband.

A few more murals

 

Afterwards, we had a few drinks at Commonwealth with my friend Matt, who recently moved back to Las Vegas. I finally went to bed about 21 hours after I got up this morning in Chicago.

 



October 20, 2013 Our Day at Starved Rock State Park

Another beautiful fall day...another hike in the woods with our dogs. This time at Starved Rock State Park.

It's the girls leading the way...the guys trailing behind.

The fall colors are late arriving this year but some have changed already.

We hiked out along the river trail to Lover's Leap, Eagle Cliff and Beehive Overlooks.

This is the park's namesake rock.

The dam above and the locks below on the Illinois River.

Time for drink since the trail took us down to the river.

We hiked back through Wildcat Canyon and Pontiac Canyon.

While the dogs rested, we had lunch outside at the lodge.

Miss Chrissy waiting for her food.

Then we walked around the lodge and checked out the Art in the Park.

We stopped across the river at the Illinois Waterway Visitors Center. A boat was busy pushing several barges of coal through the locks.

Flocks of white pelicans were flying overhead. I just found out that they migrate through this area every spring and fall.

We also stopped at Buffalo Rock State Park for a short hike.

Strange sign on the parking lot bathrooms...this must have been a serious problem at one time.

We saw a guy playing guitar in the park...

...we figured this was probably his van.

I brought Oslo to see the bison. He freaked out at first but the bison wouldn't even look at him. So that was our day at Starved Rock. Wait, we did have huge ice cream sundaes at Tones Cones in Ottawa on the way home.