Day Five--The Home Stretch

Our flight isn't leaving until 1:15am on Monday (Yikes!), and with no more convention to attend, we decided to make the most of our last day in Vegas. And we did it by spending most of the day not in Vegas.

I started the day by waking up early and catching a shuttle to the airport to rent a car for the day. The price of the rental was fairly cheap. However the 43% airport tax really shot down the apparent deal we were getting. I drove back to the Flamingo to pick up Cindy and check us out. We made it to 8:00am mass at the Shrine of the Most Holy Redeemer. "Shrine" and "Las Vegas" are generally two words that aren't associated. But we were treated to a wonderful mass--a great way to get our day of freedom going.

We decided to make a trip out to Hoover Dam for the day. It was only about a 45-minute trip from Las Vegas. On the way there we saw more beautiful desertous mountain scenes--things you never see in South Louisiana.

We passed over the dam to park. The vista from the bridge is unbelievable. Again, things you never see in South Louisiana! We parked on the other side of the dam and realized we had to cross into Arizona to park.By doing this we broke one of the rental car company covenants "Thou Shall Not Drive the Car Outside of the State of Nevada". I wonder if 100 feet into Arizona, literally, constitutes taking the car outside the state of Nevada? Well, I won't tell if you won't tell.

We decided to take the "dam" tour. This was a common tongue-in-cheek saying by all of the tour guides. Cindy and I, of course, made light of it as well. On the tour, we learned many fascinating things like....there's enough concrete in Hoover Dam to wrap a 4 foot sidewalk around the equator......and......the dam was completed two years quicker than anticipated.....and.....the electricity generated by the dam sends power all the way up to Canada.

Then we got a view of it from top to bottom...

By the way, I don't know if you can tell from the pictures but it's REALLY HOT at Hoover Dam. Especially with that 100-degree heat (at 10:30am) radiat2ing off one of the largest concrete structures in the world. Advice: Wear a hat and bring LOTS OF WATER!

We finished our tour, hopped back in the car and had a wild idea....."Let's go to the Grand Canyon! It's only a couple of hours from here and we've got nothing but time to kill!" We decided this as we were heading in the opposite direction of where we finally got our GPS to tell us where to go. Going in the same direction to Hoover Dam, and eventually, the Grand Canyon, was over five miles of bumper-to-bumper traffic. There wasn't even a place for us to turn around. We took that as a sign that God did not want us to see the Grand Canyon, at least not yet. Who knows, we might be the two idiots that would actually fall into it.

So how else could we be spontaneous? Well, we decided to look for a place for lunch. We have been on a massive real-pit BBQ kick lately, so we agreed to look for a local joint. We GPS'd it and found several BBQ restaurants in Henderson, about 15 miles outside of Las Vegas. We looked for one--couldn't find it. Looked for another--couldn't find that one. I guess God was looking out for us because we ended up at Lucille's Smokehouse. Nothing like good BBQ when you're really hungry. It had a nice swanky decor. My favorite sign was a picture of an old man playing a guitar and it read "My Blues Got Better Since I Gave Up Hope!" Classic! Our waitress was excellent--she made us feel right at home. She kept bringing us refills of this peach tea--it was awesome. Then when we were done, we sat in a little sitting room in the restaurant to relax and let our food settle. We could have taken a nap; we had nothing else to do. What an unusual feeling! But, you know those days when you don't have your kids and any other immediate responsibilities and you think, "Gosh, what can we do? We've got to do something! We can't let an opportunity like this pass us by."

Bowling it is! Spontaneous bowling! With the help of our GPS, we located a bowling alley in Henderson. Attached to a casino, of course. We bowled a couple of games. We laughed. We cut up. We felt like teenagers. Our scores weren't great, but who cares? We celebrated our freedom!

What next? Starbucks! And boy do they have some Starbucks in southern Nevada! On the GPS there was one every 50 feet! We spent some time at Target, at bookstores, at bakeries. Just talking. Appreciating our day of independence. But, as always, our thoughts drift back home to how much we miss the kids. We love them and we can't wait to see them.

So with those yearns to return to our family we made our way back here to McCarran International Airport, to await our red-eye flight back home. And as I type now, watching my lovely wife lie asleep on the thinly-carpeted, but acceptably clean floor of the waiting area near gate D36, using her purse as a pillow and my long-sleeve red shirt as a blanket, I think about how blessed Cindy and I are. I love my wife and I love my life. I don't like Vegas that much, though. It was fun, but it's just not us. Home is where we need to be. See you soon, kids.

Oh, and thank you Grandma Dee, GiGi and Nanny Wanda for watching our kids!