Getting "Stuck" in Las Vegas

Okay, so the title isn't that great but it's appropriate. Check it out.

You don't want to stumble into this one!

We really like cactus plants....something about them that is so unique...and there are so many varieties. Not sure you people on the east coast have ever seen them :)

Look how protective the thorns are for this plant.

Nicely laid out gardens with spacing between each one. In the desert, they're not always so spread out.

You got to love the symmetry of the thorns...so evenly spaced and each one similar to each other.

This is one of our favorites...Barrel Cactus.

Ice plant

Look....this flower is coming right out of the cactus! Tortoises love to eat them.

Some other flowers snuck in ! So pretty.

These guys look like a pack....

...that are all huddled together for protection.

We saw this Gopher Plant in different stages of blooming.

For you Latin lovers....

Loved the fragrance of the Purple Sage throughout the park.

Purple Sage

Here's a cute one for you....Pork and Beans.

Pork and Beans

Here are a number of photos from the Mountain Laurel (Mescal) tree. Wonderful colors. And it produces a mescalbean all over the tree.

The common name mescalbean has caused a lot of confusion with mescal, an alcoholic drink distilled from the baked and fermented hearts of agave. The best known type of mescal is tequila, which is made from cultivated "blue agave". By contrast, mescalbean is the seed of the mountain laurel, a small tree in the legume or bean family.

The tree produces a tough woody bean pod that houses bright red, hard, seeds commonly referred to as mescalbeans. Mescalbeans are poisonous, yet they were used by native socities for ritual purposes, because of its powerful psychoactive properties. The bright red beans were also used for ornamentation.

And finally, one HUGE cactus. (See the people in the lower left for scale.)

Oh, and just to prove we're in Vegas...check out this old photo of a floating craps game!

Very nice gardens. Of course, nothing is really in bloom yet but the cactus (cactii?) were well worth the trip.

See you next time! Oh, we also post periodically on Twitter @lastricks

Steve/Kim/Katie

...and one more....

...don't wake me yet...I'm napping.