This morning Ry and I got up bright and early…well actually…he woke up before me and I had a dream that he was yelling at me to wake up and started taking down the tent around me while I was sleeping.  In actuality, I think he was brushing his teeth.  In any case, I decided to get up.

We got on the road and after overruling the GPS lady who was trying to take us on the scenic route out of the camp grounds, we made it to the highway.  It didn’t take long before we fully in the desert.  I am talking nothing-can-live-here desert….not even the trademark three pronged cactuses that Arizona likes to put all over their signs but don’t really exist in real life!  There weren’t even mobile homes here!  Which really means that there is nothing because almost everywhere else we have pasted, there are mobile homes….or huts.

We did however drive through this one town in the middle of the desert.  Kingston Arizona.  Never heard of it?  Neither had we….but its pretty big…and basically the only thing that exists out there.  So we stopped for gas, at a Cracker Barrel to return a book on tape, and the bank.  But we high tailed it out of there as soon as possible because it was about as red-neck as you can get…and not in a good way!  The desert was better.

Another funny thing that Ryan and I have forgotten to mention is the signs out here.  They are great!  In the west, they like to be specific about what animals might cross the road….if animals could actually live here. We have seen normal signs like “deer crossing” but we have also seen antelope and ram (or what we think may be an antelope or a ram) crossing as well as general “animal crossing”  But the funniest part is that they tell you for how many miles you should watch out for.  So it might be antelope crossing for 15 miles, then deer crossing for 10, then general animal crossing for 25.  Its great!  Also, like you can see from our new header picture, there are certain places where  cows roam free and cross the road!  These crazy westerners! 

Ok, so back to our adventures.  We stopped at the Hoover Dam on the way to Vegas.  It is really pretty amazing!  I really didn’t have any idea how it worked, but we got there and had a wonderful tour and now I feel a little smarter    But, again, a little bit of irony.  The Hoover Dam is renowned as a civil engineering wonder of the world and yet they have this road that runs over it that is a complete traffic nightmare!  But, after almost 70 years, they finally got smart and are building a bypass bridge that will route through traffic away from the dam.

As a side note, it was 117 degrees on top of the Hoover Dam. Im pretty sure that is the hottest temperature I have ever been in…and every hope to be in.

Now we are in Vegas.  Talk about a culture shock going from the Hoover Dam to Las Vegas!  We haven’t really explored much yet because we have wireless internet at the campsite and wanted to take advantage of it while we could!  Also, its like 110 degrees here so we are waiting for it to cool off a little bit.

So thats it for now!  I’ll write more when I have some crazy Vegas stories to tell!

~Natalie