Sunshine !

The past few months have been historically dreary and wet in Seattle - while every winter is dark and gray, this year took things to a new level with a series of "atmospheric rivers" dumping high amounts of rain, and keeping the sky gray for long periods of time. 

John and Mary Jo decided somewhat spontaneously to get away and, checking the forecast for a few destinations, decided on Las Vegas for the weekend. We stayed a couple of blocks off the strip and spent most of our time hiking at two different parks - Valley of Fire, which is a beautiful state park, relatively small but with dramatic scenery on par with a national park; and Red Rocks Canyon, which is just west of Vegas and has some beautiful hiking as well.

Both parks have lots of relatively short trails, and we got to explore some canyons and along some multi-colored rocks. We had been to both parks when we were in Las Vegas with the kids for one of Jack's baseball tournaments way back in 2015.