Day 6

Paris, Las Vegas

Wednesday, June 28th

Woke up early packed everything up, made the trek back to the car with everything and checked out. I had decided to take the Tioga Pass road through to the eastern entrance to the park. It was a great drive, but would have been much better had it not rained most of the way! There was still snow in the higher parts of the road. I think that part of the park is probably the most pretty, and I’d love to see it again sometime when it’s not raining. At Tioga Pass you are at almost 10,000 feet, which is the highest mountain pass by paved road in the country. It was pretty neat (and fun to drive those roads!) I left the park and stopped for gas at Lee Vining and saw Mono Lake a bit, which was kind of pretty (again, I’m sure much nicer in the sunshine). I had pretty much had it with cold and rainy so I decided to head for the desert. I decided to head towards Las Vegas and see where to go from there.

Finally I drove out of the cold and rainy into the hot and dry. Crossed into Nevada and into the beautiful Great Basin. A lot of people don’t like this area ‘cause it is dry and barren, but there’s something about the desert mountains that I really like. Stopped in Tonopah, NV for a little lunch then kept on towards Vegas. Stopped again just outside of Death Valley for gas. Once in the suburbs of Vegas there was horrible traffic and road construction and so I thought I would just get the heck out of town, maybe head towards Laughlin. Somewhere on the South Side of Vegas I saw a sign for a Taco Time-which in Utah I loved (way better than Taco Bell!) so I thought Id get a snack. (It was in a crappy truckstop and it wasn’t as good as before, but still good). There were some big outlet malls nearby so I decided to stop in there and get some gifts for Ethan and Eli. Found many cute outfits.

While there I decided I was going to find a Smith’s store to get their famous pumpkin chocolate chip cookies, which are pretty much my favorite cookie in the world. Nobody does them quite like they do. One time I was in Las Vegas with my friend Holly I knew we had found a Smiths and got some, but couldn’t remember if it was on Tropicana or Flamingo. Drove all the way down Tropicana and didn’t find it. By this time I was tired, hungry and really needed a shower. I was debating between rooms at the Tropicana, Sahara, or the Motel 6 just down from the Tropicana. In the end Motel 6 won out, because with them I’d just park outside my room and wouldn’t have to drag all my stuff through miles of casino to get to my room. If any of you are in Vegas and want a cheap place to stay, I’d recommend it. It’s clean, its just off the strip (easily in walking distance) and safe.

Got to my room, took a shower, checked out the yellow pages and found out the Smiths was on Flamingo, not Tropicana. Decided I’d just stop there on the way out of town the next morning. I was hungry so I decided to walk the strip in search of a good meal. Pretty much walked up the entire length of the strip, finally just settled on Tony Romas. Tony Roma’s is in the Stardust and I had heard the Stardust is the next to get imploded and turned into something else so I felt I had to pay my respects. I always liked the Stardust. Not as flashy as the newer “themed” properties, but nice. And they probably have one of the top 3 or 4 sports/race books on the Strip.

From the Stardust I walked over to the Sahara to catch the new monorail back to the MGM and then back to my room to crash! I ended up having walked the entire length of the strip- which is a really long way!