Viva Las Vegas (and Los Carnales!)

          Before I give you the wrong impression, yes, technically we stayed in Vegas. But it was in a hotel a few miles from the strip, and we did no gambling, saw no shows, and witnessed no weddings. It was just a convenient place to stay on our way to Grand Canyon. Sorry. We are boring and cheap at heart. 

I would have liked to stop here, though.

    The drive to and from Vegas was interesting. It takes you through some truly sprawling agricultural land, endless groves of fruit and nut trees, not to mention a couple of legit mountain passes. The scenery is stunning, varied, and full of surprises. Oil drilling outside of Bakersfield was a new sight, and the Mojave desert all made the views outside our windows compelling.

 

 

     We had an unscheduled stop in that desert when a severe cross-wind swept across the sands and through the Joshua Trees and whipped into our camper. The road cover ballooned up like…a balloon (sorry, my interior thesaurus is off-line at the moment). As I struggled in the 100+ degree heat, hastily contriving some emergency tie-downs as the wind tried to whip every tool and piece of rope out of my hands, I couldn’t help but smile. This is a part of what this trip has been all about—overcoming obstacles and problems. And, for the most part, we’ve done just that. For whatever reason, I wasn’t fazed, even as I was being sandblasted.

 

    My only regret is that I didn’t get the family to recreate the famous U2 Joshua Tree album cover. But it’s a big ask to get people out of an air-conditioned car into a sandstorm to try and pose like a rock band from the late eighties.

      We crossed briefly in Utah and had our sites set on a taco truck for lunch, but the one we had in Google Maps was gone, replaced by, of all things, a corn dog truck. No bueno. We resigned ourselves to just hitting a grocery store and finding some yogurts and pre-made sandwiches, but what did we see when we pulled into the Albertson’s grocery store parking lot? A taco truck! Serendipity brought us to Los Carnales, and our greedy hands brought their delicious street tacos into our bellies. A happy ending for certain!