Monday

The Resort at Mt. Charleston

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(Fig. 01)
09/19/2011 Trip Notes: Connie and I made our second overnight trip to Mt. Charleston. Located at the intersection of Deer Creek Road and Kyle Canyon Road, the Resort at Mt. Charleston (Fig. 01) is nestled high in the Spring Mountain Range at an elevation of around 8,500 feet, and makes the perfect overnight stop for a visit to this scenic area. It has all the charm of a typical ski lodge with a large field-stone gas fireplace in the lobby, surrounded with half a dozen deeply cushioned leather chairs and couches (Fig. 02). The picture on the left shows the lounging areas in the lobby, the baby grand piano in the center and the fireplace at the rear. Yes, that’s Connie in the picture on the right, reading a book by the fireplace (Fig. 03).
                  
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(Fig. 02)
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(Fig. 03)
After a full afternoon of photographing the Wild Horses at Cold Creek, and stops at the Desert View Overlook and Deer Creek Picnic Area for lunch, we were glad to reach the resort and begin a “wind-down” for the day. Oh, by the way, the bees were so bad at Deer Creek, that we had to end up eating our picnic lunch in the car. After check-in, we uncorked a bottle of wine and sat out on our room deck (Fig. 04) reading our books, enjoying the fresh mountain air and taking in the ever changing scenery and the setting sun. The great thing about this daytrip was that the temperature was 77 degrees almost all day, a good 20 degrees cooler than Las Vegas.
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(Fig. 04)
Our room was on the third floor and was the second room from the left in (Fig. 04) above. The next view (Fig. 05) is actually looking south towards the back of the lodge. (Figs. 06-08) are some more views from our deck. The first is looking towards the west; the middle picture was directly across from the lodge looking north
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(Fig. 05)
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(Fig. 06)
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(Fig. 07)
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(Fig. 08)

We ate dinner at The Cut Above, their on premises restaurant. While our dinners were good, they were nothing to brag about. However, the real surprise was the “Fillet Tips” appetizer that we shared (Fig. 09). Fillet tips, sautéed with a port wine sauce topped with bleu cheese crumbs served with a creamy  horseradish sauce and a creamy wine mushroom sauce. It was so good that we both wished that we had just ordered two of them and skipped ordering a regular meal.   
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(Fig. 09)
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(Fig. 10)
There was a nice old rustic wooden bench swing for two located on the western end of the property where one could sit and  watch sparrows and humming birds flitter back and forth among the trees while gazing at the beautiful view in (Fig. 10). All-in-all, this stay made for a very pleasant respite from  our normal day to day city routine.
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