This morning we left Lake Tahoe, we had prepared everything the evening before and hitched the trucks and trailers and packed everything up so that we wouldn't make a ton of noise for the other campers.

The plan was we would leave at 6 am and get going through the Nevada desert affectionately known as "Death Valley" before it got too hot. We got awesome directions from Dan and Lori, some fellow campers we had met at the Lake Tahoe KOA, they were from Vegas so they knew the most direct and easiest route to follow. But like usual when you have kids nothing ever works out the way you want, we didn't actually pull out of the KOA until 6:40 am and then had to stop for breakfast at McBarfs, all I have to say is BARF !!!

Initially there was some serious climbing but once we got over the top of the Sierra Nevada mountains we just followed the highway down down, down into the desert. How people actually manage to live and work there blows my mind the endless nothingness is amazing, flat, long and HOT!!! I like the heat but 46 C is quite extensive, we pulled off the highway and had some lunch at a Burger King and took off again, with highway speeds posted at 65 miles an hour (110kmh) and flat desert country keeping truck and trailer to the road isn't as easy as one might think, the gusts of wind hitting from the side kept me driving at a more controllable speed of 55 MPH.

At one point we were driving down the freeway doing 55mph and a gust of wind nearly knocked us off the road, it hit so hard and so fast that I blew into the other lane, to us it felt like we made air but Jeff, who was behind us, said we just drifted into the other lane, thank goodness there was no one driving next to me.

Brings me back to my Dad cursing at me to always drive with both hands on the wheel, thanks Dad LOL.

Approaching Las Vegas at about 4:00PM we were happy to for once be arriving in daylight, but WOW when we stepped out of the air conditioned truck onto the KOA parking lot (literally a parking lot behind Circus Circus Hotel and Casino) the heat punched you in the face like nothing you have ever felt, it made Mexico feel tame.

Preparing the set up of the trailer brought on the next headache, the slide wouldn't operate electrically, my thought is that something happened when that gust nailed us, either way after checking all the fuses and cursing and swearing a lot, I cranked it out by hand, easy enough but a pain in the ass!!!

Set up and ready to hit the strip, we got everything together and in the process of shutting the door to the trailer I snapped of the key in the lock. Well you can imagine the words coming out of my mouth. Not impressed I went to the KOA office and asked for a dealership nearby to have them have a look at it. Nearest dealer was 2 hours back from where we came, but there was another on the road to the Grand Canyon.

We walked the entire strip one way but bussed it back because the heat was overpowering and the kids were tired, intending on hitting Fremont street we got on the "Deuce" a double decker type bus and started on our way, by the time the bus made it back to the stop at Circus Circus the kids were asleep and everyone was quite tired. It was now almost midnight and we hadn't even eaten yet, a quick bite to eat at a pizza shop inside Circus Circus Casino and we were heading back to the KOA for a well deserved good nights sleep.