You ever look through photos of your dearly departed and think to yourself, these are it. There will not be any more or any new photos. This is all there is.

It can’t just be me, right?

But it’s TRUE. I have a finite number of photos of Mario. There’s one actual photo album I have + 1 album of kid pictures that were saved from his mom’s house when she passed away. Then there’s a folder on my computer with 207 photos. Oh I’m sure that friends of his over the years have some photos too, but this all I’ve got.

And that doesn’t change the fact that there will never be another new photo.

The other night I was looking through photos on my computer of trips we took. Each photo brought back a flood of details not just about the photo itself, but the whole trip. The one where we got the courage to ask another tourist to take a photo of both of us in front of the railing in front of the Grand Canyon, for example. I remember the day well. We’d both seen the Grand Canyon before, but as kids on family vacations. Neither of us had visited the canyon as an adult.

We were on our way to Las Vegas after hanging out with a friend near Sedona and we decided to take the route that would go by the canyon. It was a long drive. By the time we got there, it was already later in the afternoon. We kind of rushed, which I regret in hindsight. If you’ve never been there before, it’s amazing. It’s so big that it kind of boggles your mind. Standing at the edge, behind the railing, your eyes take it all in, but your brain is stuck comprehending the vastness. It’s an experience.

We literally just kind of walked around for a bit and then left. I could have easily spent a lot more time there just taking it all in. It would have been optimal had we done more planning and we could have stayed somewhere near by. Coulda, woulda, shoulda.

But we left. At least I have the photo of the memory.

We rolled into Las Vegas that night and were both just exhausted from the drive.

Vegas used to be one of our favorite places. When we’d lived in L.A. or Orange County, it was basically just a 4 hour drive through the desert (or a quick flight, which we did do a couple times). It was our place to basically leave reality behind and just get fully immersed in a completely different fantasy land where to-do lists and bills and any other life problems could be set aside for the duration of the stay. We had always had a great time there every time we’d gone before, even though we’d typically just do the same things… a small amount of gambling, drinking, eating, relaxing, people watching.

Occasionally we’d stray off the strip and go to one of the smaller more “locals only” type of casinos. Night and day difference from the strip. But we enjoyed stuff like that .. going off the beaten path and doing whatever locals of an area did.

One time we went to the Liberace museum. That was fabulous, truly. It’s no longer there, which is sad. The location was not great and you really had to know about it and mean to go there. I’ve never seen so much glitz and glam in one location before.

We weren’t big on shows although did catch a few concerts there over the years.

Anyway, that night we rolled into Vegas was weird. Like I said, normally we were jazzed to go there. Something was just off. It had probably been about 8 years since we’d been there last and so much had changed, and not in the best way. We loved the cheesiness of Vegas… that schmaltz factor … the cheapness … the tackiness … all the overdone, loud decor and the spectacle of it all. We loved the people watching. It just seemed different when we rolled into town that night. Normally, even though we were tired, we would have at least gone down to the casino floor and maybe played a little bit or gotten a late night snack somewhere. I can’t even remember what hotel we stayed at now, but even that seemed boring. Everything just felt boring. It’s like someone went through the strip and took all the fun out of it.

The next day I got a call from the person who was looking after our cat saying that she was sick, so we basically raced home after that. Maybe our lack of enthusiasm the prior night was just foreshadowing that we weren’t going to have a good time and leave stressed out anyway?

That was 13 years ago now. Mario and I never did go back to Vegas and I haven’t been back on my own. Not sure I want to since for so many years it held a lot of good memories for us. I kind of want to preserve those, not replace them.

I’ll end this one with an appropriate quote that was always one of Mario’s favorites:

“All those moments will be lost in time… like tears… in rain…” – Roy Batty, Bladerunner