Trip to Vegas July '09

Waking up at 4am was not fun but, as soon as the sleep wore off, we were all pretty excited to head out on the road for our 9 hour drive to Las Vegas. After showering, loading up, and dropping the dogs off at my mom's house, I started the trip off driving since I was a little more awake than Rick was. 2 and a half hours later - we were in Salt lake. I got the best of the deal since that was the last time I drove til we headed back home. Along the way I had to snap some photos of the pretty mountains just past St. George. St. George has the most beautifully colored landscape but it is so cluttered with people and houses that it ruins any chance of taking a decent photo.

Yes! 10 hours later including an hour lunch break and 1 pee stop, Vegas was within our sights!

The first thing on Kolten's agenda was swimming in the 80 degree pool in the 103 degree weather. We were lucky to have gone when we did. The temperature dropped the days we were down there from 110 degrees to around 103 when we got there and the next two days were slightly cloudy with a few rain drops, believe it or not, with temps around 97. The day we left was a scorcher though - I think it was 113 degrees.

Pictured below is RyLee (Matt's daughter), Kolten and Jodus (Kara's son).

While the kids were out having fun in the pool, the boys were in enjoying their own way of cooling off - TV and popcycles...

We planned this trip around the first of this year because Rick had some friends at the station that were going to be competing in the Enduro Cross Motorcycle Racing. It was a blast to see those guys compete. Although, we forgot to bring the camera in to snap photos of our friends so right after their race, I made Rick go grab the camera from the car. Take a look at the track...

If you look at the bottom of this next photo you will see some stairs, right at the bottom of those stairs and to the left along the railing is where our seats were. Freakin Awesome!
Our two friends in the middle of the photo - Mike (in the red shirt) and Dave (sipping on the pepsi cup) after their race was over. We got better seats than they did. Ha...Ha...
And the race was on.

Guys were falling down all over the track. The track helper that was helping this guy get his bike up almost got ran over and pushed off the rocks backwards by a guy that later needed his help getting his bike off of himself.

There was constantly a big pile up on this rock mess you see below.

This guy almost went over his handbars.

Lights off for this race.

Then it was time for the pros to come out and play.

Even they tipped over constantly.

These guys wrecked because they were competing around this corner and the one still up on his bike tried running the other guys bike over to get through. Didn't work though, he ended up pulling his bike off to make it around.

Bike number 111 ended up winning but just barely. It was a photo finish. Sooooo crazy!

After a lot of shopping, eating and swimming we were ready to head home from this dirty city. I got some funny photos on the drive home of a trailer court all by it's loansome self in the middle of the 110 degree dessert. I just have one question: Who would live there????????

No wait - I have another question... You can't see it very well but toward the bottom right hand corner of this next photo is a For Sale sign. My question is: Who in their right mind would buy this chunk of ground???????

This was the wierdest location for a half built house that I think someone actually lived in. Talk about seclusion - minus the interstate.

At least it wasn't a boring drive like a trip to Boise is.

We also went to a Las Vegas version of The Price Is Right. Rick said that they didn't allow you to bring your cameras in because they wanted you to buy their video taping of it. So we couldn't snap any photos while inside but, I did snap one photo that my mom and dad and anyone who has been to the car auction with us might think is funny. I'll have to download it from my phone and post it in the next post for you to see. Obviously, we didn't get picked to go up on stage or that probably would have been the first thing I talked about on the blog. We are losers!