Were off to Mesquite Nevada

Some time in early 2004 I got a call from Al Allison in Mesquite Nevada, Al works for the Oasis Resort there  and his job is to bring sports events to the resort. They host all kinds of events like base ball, soccer, golf tournaments, moto cross horseback riding and even shooting competitions. The Resort owns unbelievable properties and can cater to all sports. Al thinks a kite festival would be great and wanted to talk about it and show me around.
The time was right to go check it out when my friend  Sharon Musto from Canada was going to visit for a week before we headed to Washington for WISKIF. Sharon has never seen the desert or a casino and a lot of other sights we were about to encounter.
Can we STOP was the phrase of the week as we traveled toward Mesquite. Sharon wanted to get out and take a picture....often ..here is her first encounter with a Joshua tree and some wind-generators The Desert was HOT and dry at this time of the year, I was a bit worried that Vanna, my van, might not be up to the challenge, but the only problems we had were the soda cans exploding in the heat, and anything that could melt did! It was easily 120 degree's outside the car! It took a long time, with a few unscheduled detour's.. read lost in the desert! We were having fun after all!
We HAD to stop in Vegas and have a look around and spend  a few hours gawking at the sites and the Water fountains at the Bellagio,  turned out to be as hard to leave them as it was the last time  I enjoyed them... even tired and hungry AND HOT , yes it was 1am and it was around 100 degrees! We were still a few hours from Mesquite and eventually moved on. Even at night the desert is an interesting place with many huge gold mines that looked like little cities lighting up the darkness. Mesquite is right on the border's of Utah and Arizona, we found the Oasis easily.
We meet with Al Alison in the morning over breakfast. We exchanged ideas and made plans to go look at possible festival sites. We even managed to get in trouble flying miniature kites in the casino in a strong air conditioning breeze....didn't know you could NOT take photos inside a casino....good thing they didn't turn out eh!! Hate to have the photo police after us!
 I cant reiterate enough how HOT it is out there! HOT and DRY! The Oasis owns like 4 golf courses in the area and  the golf course just outside of town seems perfect for a Show kite kind of festival. I flew my white bird kite there. Al wanted to do a festival in July  because the course closed for  maintenance...... I think more like NO golfers are willing to stand in the July sun..... , I assured Al that NO kiters would  either...did I mention it was hotter than h**l out there, I told him i would help if we did it in November, thanksgiving week would be best I think.
We meet with Al once more and had a day to goof off in mesquite before we moved on......... but it was too hot to even go out so we stayed in our rooms, I played with my computer and Sharon continued working on a kite she had started before we left.
Al had mentioned that we might wanna try flying kites from the
parking structure across the street. When we got up there the 360 degree view was fantastic. The top level was curiously strewn with tv's tables  and computer stuff. As I was putting a kite together John law appeared riding his trusty stead, a golf cart. IT was on this roof that I learned another effect of the heat, the rods in the kite i was trying to assemble GREW in the heat and distorted the kite! it was also on that roof that 12 packs of sodas blew like little bombs and sprayed their contents al over the interior of the van. We scurried and took a few photos from the top of the garage before the guard lost his sense of humor , as I said the view of the mountains and surrounding mesa's was awesome.
We left Mesquite and headed north on our way to St George Utah. The hiway  pass's thru an incredible gorge to get there,  I took dozens of photos in there tho i'll spare ya and just include a few here.
Our goal was to fly a kite in Utah... neither of us having ever done so wanted to add another state to the "list". St George is a pretty place, nestled in a valley. We chose a spot on a ridge high above the town to launch a kite. Sharon flew her little Canadian Kite and I my new Gibian kite. Now I'm usually pretty aware but this one went right over my head, We weren't out there trying to fly kites in impossible winds, when Sharon said "don't cha think we should go back to the car"? "I think we left it unlocked"....Nawwww its ok. I can see it even, its ok. And I continued to struggle with the kite that just wanted to turn and crash into the sage brush. Well just a few minutes later she said I HAVE to go back to the car, that's when i noticed her face was the brightest red of any face Iv ever seen. The girl was over heated WAY over heated..... Im pretty sure her Hubby Julio wouldn't appreciate me mailing her back home broken so we gathered up the kites and hurried to the car and air conditioning. I headed to a grocery store where I purchased some relief for her... she spent the next 30 minutes hugging a 15 lb bag of ice!
We cooled of in a refrigerated restaurant and headed back towards Nevada and home. Sharon recovered fine and was right back to requesting photo stops along the way. We made it back to Vegas kinda late and only had a couple hours to ck out Fremont street and the Luxor  before the free shows ended for the night. We did leave our mark in Vegas. We stayed in prim that night. Prim is where the KTAI is held every other year at Buffalo Bills Casino. We went out on Roach dry lake   which is just east of the casino. We also stopped on the other side of Bills to look at Ivanpah dry lake, site of the annual buggy blasts.
Its been a busy 4 days and we headed westward and home . Out in the middle of the desert where there is nothing but rocks n weeds is a place called Baker.... you almost have to stop in Baker for gas unless you have a huge tank. we hit baker at 6  in the evening.. Baker is also known as one the hottest place on earth. I wont dispute, look at this thermometer!  The photo opportunities dropped with the sun and we finished the uneventful 6 or so hour ride home . We had 2 days to clean the car (remember the sodas) do the laundry and repack the car ..OH and finish a kite before we joined up with the caravan headed to Washington for the international festival. Watch for a kite event in Mesquite Nevada next November!