walking – Page 3 – Geeky Girl Engineer

Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge

Posted on August 9, 2013 by geek

Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge is lovely, but it really should just be called mosquito paradise. If you go here and want to walk on any of the trails, insect spray will be necessary. I hate bug spray, but the mosquitoes are so bad, even I resorted to using it. However, the walk around the swamp was nice except for the mosquitoes. There were more swamp rose mallowes (Hibiscus moscheutos) in bloom than I have ever seen. I saw a few birds, but not that many. I would guess however that this is a great area to bird during migration season.

Swamp

Swamp with swamp roses

Swamp Rose Mallow (Hibiscus moscheutos)

grass

ferns

Common Cattail (Typha latifolia)

Glossy Ibis (Plegadis falcinellus)

Greater Yellowlegs, Semipalmated Sandpiper, and another shorebird

Greater Yellowlegs (Tringa melanoleuca), Semipalmated Sandpiper (Calidris pusilla), and another shorebird

Fitness and the Fitbit

Posted on July 7, 2013 by geek

I’ve had a Fitbit for about nine months now, and I get asked enough questions about my thoughts on it that I thought it would be most efficient just to write a blog post on it. Let me say clearly, this is not a sales pitch for Fitbit. There are other personal activity trackers out there, and here is a good summary and review of them. I have never tried any other one, but if you decide you want a personal activity tracker, research all the different ones.

First, for those who don’t know what a Fitbit is, it is essentially a really high tech pedometer. It keeps track of the number of steps you take and how quickly you take them, so it can tell the difference between when you slowly walking, walking briskly, or running. I have a Fitbit One, which can also determine how many flights of stairs I have climbed with a very tiny, sensitive altimeter. It calculates how many total calories you have burned by how active you have been, your basal metabolic rate, and your weight. The Fitbit has a simple display that shows that days total steps, stairs, miles, and calories burned. It is its ability to sync to the Fitbit system via your computer or smart phone app that really makes it high tech though.

On the website and to a certain extent on the smart phone app, you can see not only the stats that the Fitbit displays but also much more detail. It has a graph showing you how active you have been throughout the day. You can see all your data ever collected. For example, I can see how active I was six months ago and at what time of day. If you enter your weight manually or you use their Aria scale, then you can see all your weight data. You can log activities like yoga, running, gardening, etc. The activity logging helps to better calculate calorie burning as Fitbit will not know how much you are using your arms or other activities than walking or running. I exercise regularly on my elliptical machine, and it doesn’t really record my movement on it all that well, and it also can’t tell what kind of resistance I am using. I use the activity timer on the Fitbit to record the time I am on the elliptical machine, and then I use that information to log the activity on the website. Fitbit has a large database of various activities and how many calories on average you burn doing them. It uses the information you log to calculate the calories burned during that activity and overrides what it had originally calculated based on your movements it recorded. The activity timer is also nice when you are running or walking because it will use it to calculate your pace for that time period.

The Fitbit website and smart phone app also lets you record everything you eat and drink to calculate the calories you have consumed. It has a large database of food and their nutritional information. It has information on raw ingredients like apples or skinless chicken breast, and it also has information on processed or prepared food from big name brands and large food chains. You can also enter information based on nutrition labels.

If you enter a weight loss goal, Fitbit will ask how fast you want to lose it or conversely what kind of weekly calorie deficit you would like to achieve it. That is, as most know, in theory, you will lose one pound of fat with a 3500-calorie burn to intake deficit. Thus, if you consume 3500 calories less than you burn each week or 500 calories a day, then you should lose a pound a week. I say “in theory” because as any dieter will tell you, it is really not that simple. If you gain muscle, you could lose fat but still gain weight. Also, there is water weight that comes and goes, and then there is simply the “I have no explanation why I haven’t lost weight or why I have lost weight.” As a chemical engineer, the seemingly laws-of-thermodynamics-defying energy balance on my body is very annoying. Anyway, back to Fitbit, if you set a weight loss goal, it uses the calorie burned data it calculates to let you know how many more calories you can eat that day if you also enter all the food you eat. This is updated each time it syncs with the Fitbit, so after you exercise, it will show you how many more extra calories you can eat with this new activity information. Conversely if you are incredibly sedentary one day, the how many more calorie you can eat information will continue to decrease through the day. For example, based on my weight, my desired weight loss rate, and presumably my average daily activity level, each morning it starts out tell me I can eat about 2100 calories that day. As the day continues, if I keep a normal activity rate, i.e. walking here and there, the 2100 calorie will hold steady. If I sit like a lump all day, or the data just hasn’t synced, it might go down to 1700 calories or so. If I am quite active and then workout on my elliptical machine, it might say I could have eaten 3300 calories that day.

That’s a summary of what Fitbit does, and I would guess what other personal activity trackers do, so after using it for nine months, here’s what I think about it. I love it. Seriously, I love it. Granted, I am an unabashed data geek, so I love the data it gives me on myself. I think it is fairly accurate. In terms of tracking steps, it seems to need you to take at least five steps or so before it starts recording them. I have paced back and forth in a room with less than that, and it didn’t record anything. I am not sure of the exact number of steps it needs. It records flights of stairs accurately for the most part. It is supposed to record one flight of stairs for every ten feet climbed. In my two-story house, it is accurate, and in my office building, it records either one or two flights of stairs for every flight I climb because the floors are more than ten feet apart but less than twenty feet. When I notice that it is not recording stairs properly, I clean the Fitbit with some canned air. In terms of accuracy for calories burned, I have no idea how accurate it is. Based on my weight loss, I would say that it is probably fairly accurate.

As for whether wearing it everyday has changed my behavior, it definitely has. It is a reminder of how active or inactive I am. One of the reasons I first bought it was as I mentioned in a previous post, after moving to the DC area, I lost about 20 pounds without really trying because I adopted a pedestrian lifestyle. I bought the Fitbit to understand just how much walking I was doing. According to Fitbit and some other sources, you should try to take 10,000 steps and climb ten flights of stairs everyday. When I first started wearing the Fitbit, I found that I walked almost that much on a normal day without even exercising. I exercise almost everyday, so it became much more clear why I was losing weight. It was rather an eye opener when I went to Houston for Christmas a couple of months after getting my Fitbit. Even accounting for the fact that it was vacation, in Houston you drive everywhere. I had to make a very concerted effort to go for a walk in a park everyday to try to get 10,000 steps. Thus, it became clear just how much walking I do in DC relative to other places I have lived.

The constant count from my Fitbit has helped motivate me to keep increasing my activity level. If you are a competitive person, then friending people who also use Fitbit via the website may also help to motivate you, as on the website and app, how you rank in steps is shown in relation to your friends. Fitbit’s website also awards you daily and lifetime achievement badges for your steps, stairs, and weight loss. Each 5000 steps in a day gets you a higher badge and similar for the steps. This somewhat silly little badge icon on the website has managed to turn me into a 5 year old wanting another gold star, and I once found myself walking up and down my house’s staircase two times for no reason but for the sole purpose to get a higher badge. There is probably a bit of insanity or addiction that hits those of us who really get into the Fitbit. However the lifetime badges are a nice reminder of how much you have done. Because I also have Fitbit’s Aria scale, I get a badge for every five pounds that I lose, which is a rather nice reminder also.

My behavior has changed in very specific ways since I first got my Fitbit. About a month or so ago, I started going for walks during my lunch break at work. I actually really enjoy my walks now for various reasons, but it also gives me an extra half hour of brisk walking to add to my daily step count. At work, I also now regularly use the restroom on another floor to get a few extra steps and a flight of stairs. I now average about 18,000 steps per day, and I regularly climb over 25 flights of stairs per day. My pedestrian lifestyle has continued and increased. I enter everything I eat into the website, so it can tell me how many more calories I can consume. I have continued to lose weight.

Besides a continual reminder of your activity level, I think one way a personal activity tracker can help a person increase their fitness, is that it can help you figure out how you can achieve your goals whatever they are. There have been days when I have been pleasantly surprised that I have already accomplished quite a bit of steps, yet I haven’t gone for a walk or exercised. However, I was moving almost non-stop around the house doing housework, or I did several errands and parked at the back of the parking lots. Thus, the Fitbit helps me realize how small changes in behavior like parking at the far end of a parking lot can help to increase my fitness. Is that small action in itself going to cause me to lose a pound? No, but every little bit of lifestyle change can help.

A Fitbit is not a miracle cure for being overweight or a sedentary lifestyle. If you don’t care how inactive you are, then a constant reminder of your inactivity is not going to help. If you would like to become more active or figure out how much you can eat based on how active you are, then it can really help. It is a really nice tool, and like all tools, the usefulness and effectiveness of it, entirely depends on the user.

My Pedestrian Life

Posted on July 1, 2013 by geek

Over two years ago, I moved to the Washington, DC area, specifically Arlington, VA. I bought a house very close to many bus lines so that I wouldn’t have to use my car at all to get to work. I happily take public transportation, even if it takes a little longer, if it means I can avoid driving, especially during rush hour, especially in an area with awful traffic like Washington. In particular, I didn’t want to have to worry about driving in the snow that Washington sometimes gets. Four years of college in Colorado taught me that as a born and bred Southern, I don’t and shouldn’t drive in the snow. [To everyone in the Washington, DC metropolitan area: you’re welcome.]

The main goal was to not use my car to drive to work. My employer gives its employees a public transit subsidy, so not only do I save money not buying gas, but I also don’t have to pay the bus and subway fare. The buses run late enough that when I go to events in DC, I can just use public transit to get there and back. This is particularly nice as there is no parking in DC, and the streets are designed in some crazy way to confuse the British should they come invading again. Then as I started using public transportation, I found that it was just plain easier than dealing with driving and as importantly parking in the area. I started using public transportation on Sunday mornings as I explored churches. The church of which I am now a member is in DC and offers free valet parking. I still prefer public transit, even though it takes longer. Then I started using public transit more and more to do errands such as the grocery, especially when they could be done on my way home from work.

Funny thing happened as I used public transit more and more, my walking increased more and more. To a certain extent that should be obvious. Public transportation rarely drops you off at your exact destination or picks you up at your exact starting point so a little walking will be involved. However, I also started walking in lieu of public transportation. It is sometimes easier just to walk a certain distance than trying to figure out what bus will take you there, or particularly when the public transportation in question is Metro, it can be just plain faster to get there with your feet.

When I walk, I can explore. I can observe. When I drive, I can’t really explore anything other than the road. When I’m on the bus or the subway, I can explore a little bit but not to the degree when I am on foot. I am still new to the area, so exploration on foot helps me get to know the area. My office building is about 0.7 miles from my bus stop. There is a bus that runs between the two that I used to take. Sometime last year, I started walking the distance in the afternoon after work. Then I started walking it in the morning to the office also. Now I always walk it. There is no more exploring I can do on that route because I have walked it so many times, but now I people watch. As I try to arrive and leave work at the same time everyday, I have a regular time I normally walk to and from the office, and I have started to recognize other people who share some sort of routine during those same periods. Based on their uniforms, there is a uniformed federal police officer, a helicopter pilot, and another person, sometimes two, who have coffee together every morning in a fast food restaurant I pass. In the afternoon, there is a very serious looking federal agent in a suit (and his badge clipped to his belt) with a briefcase on wheels that I pass somewhere within a two block space if both of us are on schedule. I have fun finding people who have a routine and spotting them everyday. The area where I work has numerous military personal who work in nearby office buildings. I have started trying to learn what all the different insignia on their uniforms mean. This is even more complicated in this area as about once a week, I pass a non-US military person. Identifying their country and military branch is a challenge unto itself. Memorizing the uniform features so I can later try to identify it gives me a challenge to do on my walk.

Another really nice benefit of all my walking is it has made me a healthier person and caused me to lose weight. Last year by simply walking more and more and not bringing any more sweets home, I lost about 20 pounds. I didn’t change anything else, and I wasn’t really trying to lose weight. The weight loss was slow, over the course of about nine months. Don’t get me wrong, the weight loss was really nice, but every time I went to my physician, and she informed me I had lost more weight, it came as a nice surprise.

Now, I love my pedestrian life. I try to use my car as little as possible. I will always need it when I have to run an errand that is simply too inconvenient to walk or use public transit, or I need to transport something too big for either of those. However, whenever possible, I will try to go without it. Now it is like a challenge to see how I can gets things done without the car. A challenge that lets me explore and become a healthier person.

Run or Dye

Posted on June 8, 2013 by geek

I came. I ran. I dyed. [I did not die though.]

Today I ran in Run or Dye. It is the very definition of a fun run. After running two fun runs, I have come to the realization that I need some insane fun run clothes. I don’t know when tutus became a thing at fun runs, but many people were wearing them today and at the Turtle Trot. Some people are even more inventive. Most people wore some white because during and after the race, they throw dye on you, so the white really helps to show off the dye. On a side note, according the packets of dye, the dye is made of cornstarch, food dye, and flavoring. I unintentionally got some of the dye in my mouth, and I have to wonder if the flavoring is to make you NOT want to eat it, as opposed to for what flavoring is normally used. Also not that you want to know this, but probably like everyone, I inhaled some dye. I have being blowing out some extremely amusingly colored mucus.

I am not trying to be philosophical, but a common phrase people use goes something like “I don’t care if he is white, black, brown, purple, or green” or some variation of that. Generally it is used to indicate that the speaker or some program or whatever is not racially discriminatory. After the race, I was just observing all the people covered in varying degrees with all the bright dyes. It occurred to me that at that moment, for once there really was some purple and green people. Funny thing was, with many people, they really were pink, purple, green, or some other color. Some people were covered so thoroughly that it was really difficult to tell what their skin color was. I thought it was wonderful. It was just a bunch of happy, sweaty, insanely colored people having a marvelous time.

I have never seen this many fluorescent socks.

I have never seen so many fluorescent socks before.

Lined up, waiting to run. Look how clean everyone is. That will change.

The suspenders are holding up the hula skirt because how else are you going to keep a hula skirt on when you have no hips?

Tutus are now a thing at fun runs evidently.

I don’t know if they are actual medical professionals or if they just like to run in scrubs.

With a sailor’s hat, covered in dye

“I thought they said rum or dye”

Covered in dye and happy

Man in full body suit. I have no idea why.

I’m curious how the feathers stayed in while they ran

Some people really dressed for the occasion. The woman in the middle needs to up her game though. (It appeared to be a wedding dress.)

The dye party after the race with clouds of dye being thrown

The dye party after the race

Central Park in June

Posted on June 6, 2013 by geek

I love New York City’s Central Park. Then again, I suppose anyone who has ever been there loves it. I spent part of my recent trip to New York wandering around Central Park. Here are a few photos from my visit.

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir

The Lake

stone staircase

rock outcrop

metal bridge

ravine

rose

flame azalea

allium flower

Belvedere Castle

carved concrete column

My First Trip to Brooklyn

Posted on June 5, 2013 by geek

I’ve been to New York City numerous times, but for as many times as I’ve been, I’ve never ventured outside of Manhattan. My guess is I’m not the only tourist who has done this. On this past trip, I decided I need to explore a bit of Brooklyn, partially because I wanted to go to the New York Transit Museum. Brooklyn is huge, so I couldn’t see everything, but I walked around a bit of downtown, Brooklyn Heights, and DUMBO. Downtown Brooklyn has some nice office and municipal buildings and a nice little park.

Brooklyn Borough Hall

Cadman Plaza Park

Then I walked to the Brooklyn Promenade, which is just a lovely elevated park-like walk area with spectacular views of Upper New York Bay, downtown Manhattan, and the East River.

Brooklyn Promenade

view of downtown Manhattan from Brooklyn Promenade

view of Statue of Liberty from Brooklyn Promenade

view of East River from Brooklyn Promenade

Then I walked to the area around the Brooklyn Bridge tower.

Underneath the Brooklyn Bridge

Manhattan Bridge as seen from Brooklyn Bridge Park

I then walked to DUMBO (Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass). It has a nice waterfront area as well as some neat shops. Also, it has hipsters.

Manhattan Bridge Arch

Finally I walked around Brooklyn Heights. It is a lovely area with classic tree lined streets of row houses.

Brooklyn Heights

Those are the highlights of my first trip to Brooklyn. There is still more to explore. I shall return someday.

New York’s Highline Park in Bloom

Posted on May 31, 2013 by geek

Last January I visited New York’s Highline Park for the first time. I thought the park was wonderful even in winter when all the plants are dormant. On my next trip to New York, I had to go back. The park is even more beautiful in summer when all the plants are green and flowers are blooming. It is a wonderful oasis above the busy Manhattan streets. Below are a few photos from my most recent trip.

My First 5K Race

Posted on May 19, 2013 by geek

I ran my first 5K race yesterday. This was not the first time I have a 5K before, just the first time in an actual race. I have actually run more than a 5K non-stop. Thus far my maximum length running nonstop has been about 3.6 miles. My official time for this 5K was 40:51.3. There were many people walking or walking and running in the race, so I was not last. I was definitely one of the last nonstop runners though. I really don’t care how slow I was. Sure, I’d like to be faster, but running over three miles nonstop is a major personal achievement for me. I’m 40 years old, and for the first time in my life, I can run three miles nonstop. I have never been in good enough shape to do that. I exercise on my elliptical machine almost everyday for an hour. I’ve been exercising on my elliptical machine for years, although I have been getting more and more diligent about intensity and how often I exercise in recent years. However, road running is different from running on an elliptical machine. One of the reasons I like my elliptical machine is there is no impact. There is definitely impact with road running, and I have to be careful to not injure myself, especially my knees. However, for numerous reasons, a month or so ago, I realized I needed to increase and diversify my exercise routine, so I started road running once or twice a week. I started with short lengths: first a little over a mile, then next week, two miles, then the next week three miles. Since then I’ve been increasing it incrementally by adding a couple of tenths of mile. What was strange to me when I first started road running was realizing that my heart and lungs were perfectly fine during the run. Exercising on my elliptical machine had prepared my heart and lungs just fine for road running. It used to be that I could only run for short lengths before getting out of breath and have to switch to walking. Now as I have started running more what slows me down and to a certain extent hurts me is my legs not liking this whole impact thing. Therefore, I run slow, steadily, and within my capabilities. I run to improve my fitness, and I am slowly getting better at road running as I do it more.

I decided to enter a 5K race to have a goal and see how I compare with other runners. I also first decided to enter a 5K because it was Run or Dye, and it looks like a blast. That race is not until June though. Later I signed up for the race I ran yesterday, Arlington’s Turtle Trot, because it was within walking distance of my house, and it raises money for my local wildlife center’s turtle rehabilitation program. I had no delusions that I would win this or even be competitive. Again, I’m slow, and I am fine with that. What I learned today is that I am really slow, but I am slow and steady as I knew I was, and I am improving. I also learned that some runners and walkers have absolutely no knowledge of outdoor running etiquette.

The Turtle Trot was a very family friendly, small, community type race. There were many children running the race along with adults. There were some adults running with children in strollers and running with their also running children. There were adults running in a competitive manner and adults like me just running to say they did it. The race was on the Washington & Old Dominion (W&OD) trail, a very popular paved hike and bike trail that varies from about six to eight feet in width. This is where the problems arose (in my opinion). Participants just gathered at the start with little sorting. The people who were trying to be competitive did seem to gather more at the start, but the people who were planning to walk did not do that much sorting to stay at the back. I stood near the middle. I was trying to avoid the crush of real runners at the front. As the race started, I walked to the start line letting the pack get going first, and as the race was chip timed, it really didn’t matter that I was delayed in crossing the start line. For the first tenth of a mile or so, I tried to let real runners behind me easily pass, and I tried to quickly pass the walkers in front of me. Then after a few tenths of a mile as racers were still sorting themselves out, the race route went from Four Mile Run trail to the much more popular W&OD trail. As with any Saturday morning, the W&OD is populated with bikers, runners, walkers, and their dogs. This made for an even more crowded race route, and this is where my (and I would wager other participants’) problems really began.

On the W&OD, you need to be courteous and allow others to pass you when they are faster, stick to the right if possible especially when you are slow, and politely and quickly pass others being cognizant that someone else may want to pass you as you pass others. I walk (with and without my dog), run, and bike on the W&OD often. I’m used to these rules of shared space courtesy and happily accept it because I enjoy using this trail. Some of the participants in the Turtle Trot either do not accept these rules of common courtesy or are really obtuse. There were some participants and some people simply using the trail who made it difficult to pass them, especially some who were participating in groups of more than two and thus taking up the entire side and then some of the trail. There were two female participants who absolutely drove me crazy for the first half of the race. They were walking/running along side each other. They would run faster than me for a bit and pass me. Then they would walk, and I would have to pass them. As they were taking up the entire right side of the trail, I would have to pass them on the left side, which often meant waiting until it was free from opposing cyclist/pedestrian traffic. Then shortly after I pass them, evidently because I was running so slow, they would start running again, pass me, then start walking again. This nonsense went on every five or ten minutes or so, for almost the entire first half of the race, until finally, thankfully, they either stopped their running sprints or I as a steady, slow runner had gotten far enough ahead of them to avoid them. To be clear, I have absolutely no problem with walkers who do running sprints. I used to exercise like this before I was able to run nonstop. I think it is a great way to get your heart rate up while walking if you can’t yet run for extended periods. I wouldn’t even have a problem with them doing this in the race if they were not walking along side each other and had courtesy of others around them. If they were walking single file, it would have been much easier to pass them. There were others who did similar type things, which also got annoying, but they seem to pass me less, or it was one person not in a group, who could thus then pass me or allow me to pass him/her more easily. There were also children in the race, some not running alongside adults. Many of them were also walking then sprinting with some of them doing this in an unpredictable manner such that it became difficult to know if a child was going simply stop right in front of me causing me to have to quickly swerve around them. Some of the children also passed on the right or left in groups and just plain ran in unpredictable ways. I can forgive the children a lot easier. They’re children; they may not know better, and well, they were acting like children. All of this made for some serious frustrations during the race. I’m sure it doesn’t sound like it, but I actually like the diversity of people in the race. I like that there were children, walkers, and noncompetitive runners. Exercise is so important, and I think it’s great that people of all ages are out there exercising. Also, having other people in the race who had no anticipation of winning the race gives me as a slow runner encouragement to enter races to improve my personal time and to have fun, as fun runs should be.

Overall I enjoyed my first 5K. I am glad I did it, and I hope many turtles will be helped by my entry fee. I hope to keep improving in my fitness and running and perhaps run a few more races in the future simply as a goal to improve my time, especially when the entry fees help a cause I support. I just hope my future race organizers will better communicate to participants about race courtesy and most importantly that my future fellow participants will practice race and shared space courtesy.

New York’s High Line Park

Posted on January 6, 2013 by geek

New York is a city so dense that they actually created a park elevated above the street. The High Line is a park created on an abandon, historic freight rail line that is elevated above the streets of Manhattan’s west side. The elevated structure was threatened with demolition, but community residents formed the Friends of the High Line and successfully fought for its preservation and transformation into the lovely park it is today. The first part opened in 2009, and a second portion opened in 2011. They are currently working on transforming a third and final section. The entire length of the structure has a paved trail, and there are plants almost the entire length of the trail. There is also public art along the park. The designers did a nice job of preserving the structure and accentuating that the park is built on an historic rail line.

In many places the rail tracks were left in place, and plants were planted in and around them.

It has a lawn area.

It goes under buildings that straddle the old tracks. There is an amphitheater of sorts that allows you to view the street below.

There are seating areas all along the park. This area has some nice lounging chairs.

The lounging chairs are really cool. Some of them are on wheels that roll on the railroad track, although they were locked, so they can’t be moved by the general public.

The benches are nicely designed to look like they have just been lifted out of the ground material.

It even has a movie theater. There is a projector above the seating area on the left of this photo.

At one location, it has a great view of the Statue of Liberty.Zoomed-in photo.Cool street views.

There is public art along the park. This cool installation is on the side of a building and is called Broken Bridge II and is by El Anatsui.

Las Vegas Wash

Posted on December 3, 2012 by geek

I don’t know about anyone else, but when I think of Las Vegas, I think of the Strip, casinos, shows, and desert. The only wildlife I think of is that of the human variety, generally in an inebriated form. Thus, on my recent trip to Las Vegas, I was surprised to learn about the Las Vegas Wash. It is the lowest part of the valley in which the Las Vegas metropolitan area sits. All storm water and urban runoff in the area drains to it, and it eventually drains to Lake Mead. The Wash has been increasingly eroded due to the increased flow into it from the increased Las Vegas metropolitan area urban runoff. In the past decade or so, the LVWCC has constructed numerous structures to reduce erosion in the Wash and increase the wetlands in it. Structures such as this.

And this weir.

They have also been removing non-native plants and planting native plants. None of which I can identify in the photos below.

Plants that can amazingly grow in the desert that is Las Vegas.

All of this has created a very pretty area, which is really nice to hike along, assuming the weather is nice. It has some lovely views of the nearby mountains.

And beautiful sunsets.

In some places, it allows some nice views of the Las Vegas Strip.

Next time you are in Las Vegas, if you like the outdoors and want to get away from the Strip, I highly recommend checking the Las Vegas Wash out. In a later post, I will be posting photos of the wildlife I saw on it.