Day 4

What happens in Vegas….today we went from parents of the year to you might want to call CPS in just a few short hours😂  For starters we’re grateful. Friday 6,000 flights were canceled or delayed in the US. Both legs of Brad’s flight were a go and on time so he made it safely to join us. We started our day on the road by 7am to head to the Grand Canyon …with many grumbles. We drove straight into the park with no wait and parked right up front. We kinda had the place to ourselves for the first hour…very worth it! We got so many amazing pics I can only give you a snapshot. I gave everyone strict instructions to always stay behind the railings and don’t do dumb teenage stuff…people have died this year already. I turn my back and Brad has the boys at an edge😳. I gave up the fight and they chose places that had a ledge underneath and not a straight to the bottom to get the pics. We must have 1,000 pics between us😂 By 10:30 the place was so overrun with tourists we were done. Good tip to go early if you ever go. On the road again to Vegas. A bit of an adjustment with an extra person in the car, but welcome because Brad loves to drive.  We stopped at a little town that was the inspiration for Radiator Springs in the movie Cars. Oh man how the Hoover Dam has changed! We wanted to go see the actual dam rather than just cruise over the new bridge…what a fiasco. You now have to go through a checkpoint like a border crossing …they even were pulling people over and searching cars. You have to pay to park in a ramp and it has turned into a moneymaker. There are tours but we just went out on the dam to check it out. The heat was miserable and it was so windy I couldn’t hold my phone. The pics are all on our good camera. Very sad about the water levels …crazy low😳 We finally made it to Vegas…and here’s another tip…make sure it falls on a weekday. It was a zoo! This is my 8th time in Vegas and I’m not exaggerating to say there were 10 times more people than I’ve ever seen. We stayed in the pyramid at the Luxor…every room was booked in the pyramid  and the towers…insanity! We got settled and ate dinner, then we were ready to walk the strip and show the boys Vegas. It was dusk so the lights were firing up. I had all the fun hotels lined up to show them…we were shoulder to shoulder on the sidewalks on the entire strip😳 At one point Brad mentioned wanting to crawl up on the side and suck his thumb😂 It took a few hours to get up and down the strip and we were fried and done. It took so long the boys saw the seedy side come out…the hookers started their shifts scantily clad shouting ‘Hey Baby!!’, falling down drunks that could barely walk, the crazy costumed visitors trying to get people to pay for pictures with them, a deranged homeless man shouting at them that he ‘needed a dick in his butthole!’ As we walked by, and to top it off a man robbed CVS in a grab and go…he ran out of the store with an armload in front of the boys as the workers were shouting at him.  Logan looked at me at one point and said, the things I’ve seen in the last 6 hours… They certainly got an education 😂 I asked a worker what was going on that so many people were in town. He was confused …this is what it’s been like post Covid. He said everyone got their Covid money and came here. We fell into bed and are looking forward to low key hanging out in San Diego with Pat the next few days.