I am excited as we prepare for our trip to the Grand Canyon as it is the beginning of the preparation for Doug and my adventure. For Doug his challenge is can he pace himself for the arduous and demanding journey riding a bicycle across America. I am blessed to be able to spend this time with Doug and to help him realize a dream. When he was at Grays Chapel he was the "Chief Dreamer". We were blessed that he shared his dreams with Lynn and me. We went places we never dreamed we would. We shared many great adventures with Doug. This trip is just a continuation of our adventures.

The challenge for me is to see if I can be dependent on my self and spend time to listen for God to speak to me. I also hope to meet people along the way and tell them about Jesus - have oil will pray!!! I want to further discern where God is calling me and who he is calling me to be!!! I am very happy with life now but, there are those looming decisions I have to make about my future and my mobility. I also want to see what happens if I take two weeks and focus on me.

We had a great flight to Las Vegas with Lynn's Dad and Step mom - Genna. What amazed me was the skies were clear and as I looked down I saw the vast expanse of America as I had never seen. I was looking at it with the perspective now that in less than a week We would be crossing that land in a pickup truck and on a bike. American looked much larger and less hospitable for that perspective.

We landed in Vegas and were staying about 10 miles south. We drove down the strip so we could pick up our son Matt who came several days earlier. It was interesting to watch the people. We had been through Las Vegas about 14 years ago with Lynn's parents and our son Christian. As I have matured and my life has changed I noticed that my perspective on the people we watched had changed. I am sure to some degree the people themselves had changed as society is different than it was years ago. I also think that because I have matured as I Christian and Minister that I see people differently. As I age with grace I think I see people more as God has created them to be and I have less biases of who I think they need to be. With having said that I am still perplexed by why and how people choose to dress and go out in public. We did make it to our hotel and we were starving because somewhere between the Eastern Standard Time and Pacific Standard time we lost three hours. We also have tickets with a great price from Southwest Airlines but the inexpensive tickets did not include a meal on the 5-hour flight. We were starving so we went to the Casino across the street and had a sumptuous meal at the Steak and Shake. They had some really nice restaurants at the casino but we were to tired and too hungry to pay $30 for a buffet that late at night. Dinner was very filling and when we returned to the room I fell asleep within 28 seconds of laying my head on my pillow.

On Sunday Matt took everyone on a whirlwind tour of the casinos downtown. I chauffeured them to the Mirage Casino and returned to the room to rest. They went to as many of the casinos as they could see in 4 hours, there is so much to see in the casinos and not just people gambling. Matt said they walked 3.5 miles. They rode the monorail to the MGM resort and I returned to pick them up there. The MGM Covered several blocks and I actually had trouble finding which entrance they were at. I took the opportunity to spend the day in the room and took a very long nap so I would be well rested for the driving that was ahead of us. (The trip to the Grand Canyon ended up being a 600 mile round trip) It felt really good to rest for the afternoon.