Las Vegas

Finally getting around to adding the Las Vegas portion of our trip. We stayed at a campground 5 miles from the strip. We enjoyed the area, although, not the heat. It was in the mid 90's every day we were there.

We made several trips to the strip, one with the kids, the rest by ourselves. We saw most of the major hotels like the Bellagio, Caeser's, MGM, Luxor, Circus Circus, the Rio, Treasure Island, the Venetian, New York New York, and more. We enjoyed all the mini-shows and attractions and just seeing the strip all lit up at night.

We had several must-see's, one of which was the Luxor. DD is a Criss Angel fan and she really wanted to go there and see his hotel. She got to see some of his stuff displayed around the hotel and she got a replica of a necklace he often wears.

Our favorite, overall, was Circus-Circus. We all had a great time there. The kids really enjoyed the Midway and circus performers and the adults the tables we had pretty good luck there.

We went to downtown Las Vegas and the Fremont St. experience. The kids enjoyed this area much more than the strip. It was sort of enclosed with an LED screen on the ceiling where they show videos and such periodically. They also had street performers which we enjoyed watching.

We also made time to see some other things in the area. We made time to visit the Ethel M factory near-by and enjoyed sampling some delicious chocolate. We also did some shopping at an outlet mall with a Disney outlet store.

We really enjoyed our trip and I'm sure we'll visit again some time.

Happy Birthday Tim.

In the middle of all of our traveling we celebrated our son's 15th birthday. Where do the years go?
He is so tall now and he is changing all the time. He didn't want much of a fuss, so it was a small celebration at home with just the immediate family. His gift from Mom and Dad was the trip to LegoLand. He received gifts from Nana once we returned to GA and Grandma has contributed to a new laptop. So, overall, it was a nice time to be a 15 year old young man.

Hoover Dam

The second stop we made on our way to Las Vegas was at the Hoover Dam. It is on the border of Arizona and Nevada and is located 30 miles southeast of Las Vegas. It is currently the world's 35th-largest hydroelectric generating station and is named after Herbert Hoover, who played an instrumental role in its construction, first as the Secretary of Commerce and then later as the President of the USA.

The dam is 726.4 ft. tall, 1244 ft. long, 660 ft.thick, and 4.36 million yds. of concrete were used.

Lake Meade is the reservoir created behind the dam and is named after Elwood Meade who oversaw the construction of the dam.

We enjoyed seeing this massive structure and were really glad we stopped.

London Bridge

Once we departed CA we were making our way to Las Vegas. On the way we knew we wanted to make two stops, the first being Lake Havasu City in AZ to see the London Bridge.

The London Bridge, located in Lake Havasu City, was originally constructed in London in 1831. By 1962, the bridge was not structurally sound enough to support the increased load created by the level of modern traffic crossing it, and it was sold by the city of London to Robert McCulloch who was trying to build up the area of Lake Havasu City and wanted a focal point, a tourist attraction, for his city. He reportedly paid $2,460,000 for the bridge and another $7,000,000 to transport it from London to the USA.

It was a nice place to stop for the evening and there is a small English-style village at the base of the bridge where we spent some time walking around.

San Diego Zoo.

While in the area of course we had to visit the world famous San Diego Zoo. We really enjoyed this zoo. They had some really rare animals and the kids enjoyed sitting atop a double-decker bus for a tour of the whole zoo. It was quite a bit of walking up and down hills, but we didn't mind it too much. We were very fortunate to find many active animals this particular day. Grizzly bears were very playful, gorillas were funny, four tigers interacting with each other was a special treat as large cats often sleep much of the day. The kids especially enjoyed the activity of the meerkats.

There were several animals we have not seen in zoos before like Koalas, echidnas, rare birds, and some really cool reptiles. I think our favorite are, though, was the insect house. The kids really enjoyed getting and up close look at some of the rarest and deadliest insects in the world.

This trip rounded out our visit to San Diego nicely as it was our last day in CA. We enjoyed the area very much and hope to return again for another visit.

Hodads.

While in Ocean Beach we ate at tiny hamburger joint that was recommended by another RVer we know. It was blaring music, it had funny personalized license plates all over the walls, and a great mix of interesting people dining there. Best of all, the burgers were amazing. They were huge and loaded with every topping you can imagine. Their fries were pretty good, but the onion rings were phenomenal. We ate here twice while in town and if we are ever in the area, I know we will eat here again.

Ocean Beach/Sunset Cliffs.

While in the area we made time to visit Ocean Beach and stop at the Sunset Cliff overlook. It was a pacific coast, scenic overlook. We climbed on the rocks a bit and looked at tide pools, ocean caves, and the surf hitting the rocky coast. We stopped here twice ands unfortunately, both times it was overcast so we did not get a good view of the sunset, but stopping here was definitely worth it.

Legoland.

We knew we had to make the trip to Legoland. Timmy has been talking about going here for as long as I can remember. We were really happy to give this to Timmy as his birthday gift. He loved every minute of it. The kids specifically enjoyed a few of the rides they had there.

I think our favorite overall was Mini Land. They had miniature versions of all kinds of neat stuff like Washington D.C., Las Vegas, NYC, San Francisco, and much, much more.

It was a special day for Timmy and we enjoyed seeing him so happy.

San Diego.

After leaving the crater we made our way to western AZ to a small town, Ehrenberg one mile away from CA where we spent two nights just hanging out. Then we made our way to the San Diego area. We stayed in one of our membership parks for 5 nights and made the best use of our time.

On our first day there we went to Sea World, San Diego. This was a really nice park with lots of animal interaction and we were able to enjoy a special event they had going on called Viva La Musica. It was a Latin-themed event with music, dancers performing on a stage and, food.

We had a lovely day and enjoyed all Sea World had to offer.