Kazi Aziz has the rumpled, scholarly look of someone who spends more time among dusty books than kitchen appliances and utensils. Ah, but first impressions can be slippery.

Q: What should I pack for summer road trips? A: While the dewdrops of spring still glisten across much of the country, Southern Nevada heads directly into summer. Triple-digit temperatures can be daunting, but a little preparation is all it takes to enjoy hot-weather road trips.

Bishop If a Memorial Day road trip is on your bucket list, consider a trek through the White Mountains to the charming hamlet of Bishop, Calif. This route would be splendid enough the last week in May if it only offered mountain views and blooming wildflowers.

From mild to wild, here are nine trips to ‘wet’ your appetite for adventure, relaxation and family fun A (worthwhile) trek to Eden in the desert Baker Lake, Nevada Get wet: If you’re looking to evade not only heat, but also neighbors and civilization in general, get out a Nevada map and circle Great Basin National Park, 286 miles from Las Vegas, near the Utah border. The 77,100-acre park is often overlooked because of its distance, but Great Basin offers something many nearer parks don’t: water.

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Bon Breads’ master baker Carlos Pereira gives Vegas the best thing since, well, sliced bread Carlos Pereira is poking a baton of raw dough, brows furrowed. This is his umpteenth attempt at perfecting the French baguette, but with a single motion of his forefinger, he can detect a problem.

I was later told it looked like I was doing some sort of bizarre, avant-garde dance: Whipping and whirling and hands flapping wildly as my legs bent at completely unnatural angles, scrobbling and pedaling cartoonlike for purchase on the water-slicked rocks. We were hiking up Boy Scout Canyon — just one stop on our daylong kayaking trip down Black Canyon — and I’d clearly met my nemesis in the form of this rocky keyhole waterfall.

Oscar Goodman once glibly proposed imploding the Union Plaza to pave a better prospect to what would later become Symphony Park. Today, the former mayor’s name is stamped on a restaurant in the resort that’s now slicking and primping for maximum swank in the New Downtown.

Take the plunge — and rediscover the lake you thought you knew Psst. Here’s a secret: You’re missing out on Lake Mead.

Get away — without going too far — on these one-tank trips Southern Utah jaunt Wild West kitsch and pink sand dunes Don’t use up all your camera memory on the Virgin River Gorge — it’s just the warm-up on this road trip of photogenic delights. Pause at the Virgin Trading Post in Fort Zion to check out the Old West Village.