crazy white girl with a kitchen

I really took my time getting around to editing my photos from this last trip to Vegas. Maybe because it will probably be the last one for a while, and our trip was really laid back, so I didn’t take many photos. Mike and I mostly went for one reason and one reason only: UFC 100. Everything else was just icing on that cake.

I did take the time to visit a place I have been meaning to for some time, the Springs Preserve. I did so with the idea that I might scope it out as a wedding venue, even though the likelihood of a Las Vegas wedding is virtually nil. Still, the place is beautiful, affordable and is Vegas without being, well, too Vegas.

"cactus alley" My tour guide said they held a wine tasting there once.

garden path leading to the arboretum

The Springs Preserve is 180 acres of natural landscape, trails, gardens and educational buildings that came into being a few years ago. It’s just a few miles off the Strip, on historic land. The vision was to preserve some of Las Vegas history, but also to move towards a sustainable future. Although the land has been recognized as a historical site for 30 years, it was only recently that it was shaped into a museum of sorts. There is an actual natural spring on the land, and it was the reason people started living in Las Vegas to begin with. Because what does a desert need more than water?

main rotunda. oh, the photo potentials!

I can’t say enough about the place. I would revisit it again in a heartbeat to fully explore the trails and exhibits. I only got a forty-five minute tour from one of the party planners, but she was so luminous and exuberant (as were all the other staff we met) I can only imagine what fun it is to work there or have an event there.

They hold lectures and classes on desert landscaping and xeric gardening, yoga classes, bird watching tour, outdoor movies, as well as huge (Cirque du Soleil launch parties) and small events (a four person vow renewal). There is Wolfgang Puck catering on site, and an array of gardens and indoor spaces to hold an event. All guests get access to all of the displays and gardens when they attend events as well.

Oh, and the thing that I thought was the coolest? The desert organism exhibits which displayed tarantulas, scorpions and other desert lifeforms. If that isn’t Kelly, I don’t know what is.