Vacation

I just got back from Las Vegas today...I am bushed! We got to Vegas on Tuesday, June 21st around 8:30 pm. We stayed at this casino called Silverton. It was nice. They have updated it since I last went. They have a huge Bass Pro Shop in there now, and they had some of the Orange County Chopper bikes on display (the guys that do that American Choppers show on tv). They also had a boat customized by West Coast Customs...you know...the guys that do the Pimp My Ride show on MTV. It was pretty cool to see the bikes and boat in person like that. I got a pair of hiking boots and a sleeping bag at the pro shop. It is a nice store...huge too.

We left for the Grand Canyon at around 4:30 am on Wednesday. It is about 280 or so miles to the park from Vegas, so it took a while to get there. All in all, it wasn't a bad drive (but that is probably cuz my brother and my mom did all the driving - hehe). The Canyon was awesome! It is huge! It is easy to see why it is one of the 7 wonders of the world. When you stand there on the edge and look down, it is dizzying. It is sooooo far down. At first, it was cloudy, and I thought the sun wasn't even going to come out. But it eventually did. When the sun is out, you can see all the different colors of the rock layers. It really is a breathtaking sight. I took lots of pictures...I only posted 2 on here...the rest are in my Yahoo photo album. We left around 1 or so. It was starting to cloud up and by the time we started driving out of the park, it had started to rain. We hit a few heavy downpours along the way back to Vegas, and there was lightning galore. I love to watch the lightning. My mom, however, is not too keen on it. She hates it.

We got back to Vegas around 4:30 pm. It was raining there, too, and some lightning strikes had started a few brushfires in Nevada and in Arizona. The sky was full of smoke in some areas, including Red Rock Canyon. I wanted to go there, too, but with all the smoke, it would not have been very scenic. Maybe next time.

Thursday was a day of shopping. I think we left the hotel room around 9 am and didn't get back til almost 10 pm. I was exhausted by the time we got back to the room and was ready to go to bed, but my brother wanted to gamble a bit, so I went down with him. I lost about $7 - lol. I am not much of a gambler (as you can tell).

We left Vegas around 8 am this morning. We stopped in Barstow around 10:30 am for IN-N-Out burgers. My brother decided he wanted to drive through Big Bear on the way home, so my dad almost reluctantly agreed to go. It was really beautiful up there in the San Bernadino National Forest. Big Bear Lake was huge, and the sky was clear so the water was really blue and pretty. The road getting there was steep as heck though. When we left, we opted to go the other route...the route to Los Angeles, instead of going back to Barstow. It was a nice detour, going through Big Bear, even if it did make the trip home take longer.

So now, I am back home, freshly showered and feeling sleepy already at 9:30 pm. But, I had a lot of fun. And now I have 2 more days to sleep in - hehe.