Christmas Part II

I know I'm a few weeks behind, but better late than never; right? After putting poor Ramon through the ordeal of driving for 30 hours straight through to Reno and being such a good sport about it, I tool pity on him. We ended up splitting the drive back into a sensible 3 day long adventure. As part of that adventure we even stopped to do a little sight seeing.

We stayed with an old friend of his for a night in Sin City Las Vegas. It's been many years since I've been there, and I have to be honest I'm not really a big fan of Vegas. That being said, we ended up having a pleasant evening wandering around the bright lights of the strip. Of course we stopped for an all you can eat buffet at one of the casinos and then walked around the Caesar and Bellagio Hotels.

I'm always a fan of the free water show, and we caught about 3 different performances. Of course it was full of people there for the Christmas holiday and people coming in for the new year. I must say, Vegas does glow nicely in the dark. As always the time flew by and we didn't get as much sleep as we would have liked before continuing along on the journey home.

The next morning, I convinced Ramon to stop and see the Hover Dam just outside Vegas. I've never seen it and don't believe I've driven by it before this trip. We only stopped for about 20 minutes, but it was pretty cool. Even Ramon was impressed with the structure and glad I convinced him to stop. We didn't have time to go on a tour (which now I wish we would have just done it anyway) but that gives us an excuse to go back again some day.

Later that after noon, we  made a small detour to see the south rim of the Grand Canyon, a place Ramon had never been to. It was cold but clear and beautiful. We couldn't see the mighty Colorado River but that canyon is pretty incredible. Again, it seemed to be enough of a teaser glimpse to make us wish we could stay longer and do some exploring. This is another one of those things that will just have to get put on the shelf for a separate adventure some other time.

 I then had a brilliant idea to take the scenic route back to the main highway. According to the map it was also supposed to be shorter. It was a beautiful drive through the snowy mountains as the sun was setting, but the traffic was a bit out of this world. In the end I think we lost an additional 2 hours on our "scenic view shorcut." Who knew? As it was still about 4 hours to our hotel we drove as fast and as furious as we could in the dark to get some much needed rest.

The last leg of our trip was also the longest and least exciting. Other than the wind farms, there really isn't too much to sight see on the trek from Albuquerque to Austin. It was a looong drive, but we made it in one piece, still speaking to each other, and determined not to sit in a car for as long as possible. So that's our Christmas week in a nutshell. It was a busy week with a lot driving. I don't know if we'd do it again anytime soon, but someday . . . maybe. . . .