The first thing Amy would like me to point out was that the the drive to Vegas was @&$^&# hot! Well being we had to cross the Mohave desert, this was expected. However, Lou is a little weak on the air conditioning....and it did reach 118 according to the giant thermometer in Baker, California. And there sure isn't much to see though I found the desert driving kind of mesmorizing. Remember those B horror movies on Creature Feature. You know, the ones where the giant ants attack. it looked like that.

Once we reached Vegas...it was immediately off to the slots at the Golden Nugget, our hotel in downtown Vegas. We went old school. (And it was cheaper than the strip!) I immediately lost five dollars. So much for lady luck. Mmmm, wish I could say more about our first night in Vegas, but after the long, hot drive...well, nothing interesting happened in Vegas that needs to stay in Vegas unfortunately. We did do the all you can eat buffet and photographed some of the vintage neon. And tried our "luck" at the slot machines. I even rolled up a 666 at one point on the Wheel of Fortune game. Amy suggested I go with the maximum bet after that. I lost. Hell, not even the devil was with me that night.

The next day we drove towards the main strip stopping along the way so Amy could buy her beer cozy and photograph more vintage signs. We did check out the Venetian, where we took a gondola ride thru "Venice" where we were serenaded by our gondolier Christiano. So that was Vegas in a nutshell. On to the biggest ?*@!& hole in the world. But before we headed there...we made a two hour pit stop at Rosie's Cafe...somewhere between the Hoover Dam and Kingman, Arizona. This place is a classic desert cafe! Grease on the walls, wacky locals, bikers. All that we could ask for. So of course we had to stay for a couple beers with a side of cheeseburger and tuna mac. Amy made friendly with the "cute for a redneck" cook. He did have purty blue eyes. Alas, we had to leave our new friends to continue on to the Grand Canyon, which was still about 3 hours away. We arrived at around midnight so missed the car stopping, breathtaking view as you enter the park. As we were driving, we were wondering how close we were to the actual rim of the canyon. We found out the next day as we were leaving that we were driving right next to it. So we set up camp, had a couple beers around a successful campfire this time, got scared back into the van by an animal and called it a night.