Vegas/Grand Canyon

We have an ac power outlet hooked into the lighter in the car so I am writing this while travelling through Arizona. I find that once we get to our hotel it is hard to find the time to actually write anything.

So voila.. this works! Arizona sure is barren!!!! They don’t call it the ‘badlands’ for nothing.

At one point as we were driving Bob saw something yellow fly out of the kayak so we stopped, backed up and picked up the Bob’s kayak drybag. While on the side of the road Bob said, “hey hon, can you take my picture?’ They he proceeded to LAY down on the desert. “dying of thirst!” When I took this photo I was disappointed with the telephone pole in it but Bob laughed and said," HA! I love it.. it looks like an arrow in my back! It's them there Injuns!!" See the boy has read too many Louis L'Amours over the years.

All along the way he he talked about he hard it was for the pioneers to find water holes, manage their coaches over the desert, and ward off dangers. “there’s injuns in them there hills!”. But seriously it must have been awfully hard for the pioneers to settle in this land!! It makes me thankful to be doing this in an air conditioned car instead of on foot, horse or coach.

Anyways... here's a picture of our hotel in Vegas... sweet huh?

We spent the last two days in Vegas resting up, playing and trying to determine when it is the best time to leave to avoid the hurricane. I have to admit I had real inner issues with Vegas. It hit me deep in the pit of my gut… a kind of sadness that overtook me. One evening I was near tears and I said “Lord why is this bothering me so much?” “Because I am not here, but you can bring Me to them” That helped. But let me tell you, they don’t call it sin city for nothing. It was shockingly disturbing to walk along the strip and be constantly accosted by people who are soliciting ‘women in 20 minutes or less!” They have this cards with pictures of naked women on them that he click and try to pass out to people walking by. I took a photo of a card laying on the ground ... why? because I don't want to forget that the world isn't a pretty place and many people are trapped in lifestyles that are so awful that if we really thought about it we would cry, pray more and reach out more.

So needless to say, we spent most of our time at the hotel that our friends recommended about 3 miles away from downtown.

The pool was lovely!! But I couldn't get over 'fake grass'..only in Vegas!!! :-)

It was ‘affordable luxury’… no kidding!! I loved hanging out at the pool reading, resting, or having great meals with Bob. We met our friends for dinner last night and it was a great time. They are real estate agents in Vegas so had lots of stories and information about the city to share with us. They love it there. Said there is always something to do… a show to take in, or a great restaurant to visit. They used to live in New York and said that the Phantom of the Opera show in Vegas in way better then in New York. They spent something like 70 million dollars putting the show together. Can you believe that?!!! It blows me away. We didn’t go see it because the cost to go was exorbitant. We went to a show called “The Legends” (cheap but good). Aside from the seedy side it was a lot of fun to roam with the masses through the streets at night.

A highlight was the fountain of lights show outside the Bellagio Hotel. If you saw the movie Oceans 11 that was the final scene in the movie.

The thing that is amazing about Vegas is that it is situated in the ‘middle of nowhere’ and all the building materials, lights etc etc etc have to be shipped in. “Whoever thought to build such a city in the desert? “ says Debi

. Bob replied, “Well they build the Hoover dam and the workers there established Boulder city. With the electricity and power from the dam the mobsters came in and started opening big casinos. They must have brided the governor to make gambling legal back in the early days. “

We didn’t gamble at all. It was just a tad too sad for me to even walk through those places. We met a lady on the elevator who was complaining about losing over 300 bucks!! “They aren’t paying out at this casino!!” She got off the elevator in a huff and I thought to myself, “Well you shouldn’t pay out either…” Don’t get me wrong I am not anti-gambling but I know people who are suffering from addictions to it and it just seems like such a shame.

Today we are going to the Grand Canyon. I am really looking forward to that a lot! I will write more later.

It’s later.. almost too late.. but I will attempt to explain how wonderful the Grand Canyon really is. But Bob said that it is one of those thing you have to experience, you can’t really adequately describe the wonder and beauty of it. So I think I will let the pictures speak for themselves.

Bob loves cactii so when I saw this one that looks like a heart I had to take it for him!

So it is late now and I need to get to bed. From here on in we aren't really doing alot of sight seeing, we are just trusting that we will be able to get safely across the country ahead of the hurricane. Today we encountered some wind, rain and lightning in Arizona and New Mexico.

In the midst of the storm there were terrible dark ominous clouds on the left side of the car and then suddenly on the right the most wonderful rainbow!!!


Goodnight, keep looking up and trusting in the One who knows your name, and the very hairs on your head. xoxo