Location, Location, Location

This is what I see in the morning before I go to work.

Just beyond the end of our street is a fabulous view of the Vegas Valley (its really an alluvial plane, but that's not so catchy...). The lights really sparkle at night - this photo was about a half hour after sun-up. Sometimes it is cloudy where we are, but at the same time, we can see the sun reflecting off the tall shiny buildings on the strip in the distance.

The valley is like a saucer and our neighborhood is up on the rim of the saucer, so we can see all the way across the metro area.

I call our new neighborhood the Shady Rest. There are real trees instead of palm trees and much more interaction amongst the neighbors, since everyone is kind of 'cheek by jowl', (although, I think we have more yard than some of the new construction going up, these days).

It is a very modest neighborhood, but friendly. There is quite a list of rules, but not all of them seem to be enforced.

One that is enforced, quite vigorously, however, is 'no working on cars'. Apparently some time back, the EPA paid a visit and found that not everyone was careful about disposing of fluids, so the ban was put in place to avoid 'chronic infraction' status. That is a deep disappointment to The Mister, as he was looking forward to puttering with the Falcon, since it has been out of the paint shop for a very short time. We are researching alternatives for him, since there is not so much to keep him busy with our small space.

One of the rules that seems to be less important is 'no clutter in the yard' and 'only lawn furniture on the patio'.

This is a neighbor across the street:

You can't see in the photo that the 'destination' sign on the motor home says "Twilight Zone". It is kind of a hippie bus with ALL kinds of things in the yard. You can just see the refrigerator to the left of the bus. I don't want to be rude and stare, but if there was a roof over it all, I think it could be on "Hoarders"!

Most of the other neighbors are very tidy, although there are quite a few that have gone a bit overboard with plastic flowers as landscaping.

Since clutter is not against the law, we enjoy the eccentricity aspect.

At least there is no HOA!

Life in the desert...

We live in a very eclectic neighborhood.

I call this house and example of "old desert". I imagine that it was built 40 or 50 years ago and was 'out in the county' at the time. It has an Airstream travel trailer and an old VW bug parked out back. We are just down the street, in the middle of 'Lego-land' - stucco houses with tile roofs and palm trees, that look so much alike that I had to count the houses from the corner to be sure that I didn't walk into the neighbor's house on my walk home from work when we first moved here.

It reminds me that we live in the desert, no matter how much we have air conditioned it.

This reminds me that we live in Desert Crazy Town:

This house is a few blocks away from us (note the stucco and tile roof!). It has a full size trapeze in the back yard. Circus people live there. Three generations. I wish they were our neighbors!