Apr 16th to 18th - Las Vegas

Apr 16th – Sat - back to Las Vegas
We had a short drive today so we went for breakfast at the casino after saying farewell to Bill & Georgia. It is hard to beat $2.99 for bacon, eggs & pancakes. My player card was upgraded to “silver” which included $10 free slot play which I had to use. Then we redeemed points for baseball caps.
As I mentioned, Bill &Lauri went to Las Vegas so we went to the park where they said they were going to stay. When we were checking in, we asked if we could be close to them and found out that they weren’t here. When we called them, Bill said there was no room when they got here and they were down the road at a “marginal” park with very reasonable rates. We decided we would like to be with them so we drove there, drove through the park and came back to the original park – Road Runner RV park.
After we set up and had a late, light lunch, we went to a flea market that Lauri mentioned. It is inside which was good as the weather was very warm. We stopped at a grocery store on the way back. After dinner, we went to Boulder Station Casino for a while. It is huge! We went out the wrong door when we left, walked halfway around the building, went back in and found the right door so we could find the truck!

Apr 17th – Sun – Las Vegas
We were lazy this morning and did laundry when we finally finished coffee & breakfast and got moving. After more “being lazy”, I made a late lunch and we headed to Sam’s Town Casino. It is another huge place with 3 parking garages, several restaurants, shops and a waterfall park in the center. Neither one of us did well on the slot machines. We stopped at a Big Lots – surprise!- on the way back and then had an evening of TV and reading.

Apr 18th – Mon – Las Vegas
At 9, Billy & Lauri picked us up for a trip to Red Rock Canyon which is about 20 miles west of Las Vegas. We drove into an “old west” town but there was nothing going on so we drove right back out. We did see burros – including a cute baby – on the way.
The visitor center at Red Rock Canyon state park is wonderful. We watched a 30 minute movie about the area and discovered that some of the red hills are sand dunes that fossilized and oxidized (rusted!). There are several informative areas outside the visitor center and a tortoise exhibit. Next up was a 13 mile scenic drive that ends up back at the main road. The 2 lane road has one-way traffic so you don’t have to worry about cars coming at you. We stopped at several look-outs to “ooh & aah” and take pictures. We enjoyed a picnic lunch at a stop with picnic tables. The weather was windy and much cooler than we expected so we didn’t go on any hikes. We made a large loop for the entire trip so we saw different areas of Las Vegas.
Claude & Val arrived at this park to stay for 3 days. Terry greeted them, supervised the parking and told them to come over when they were set up. I decided to make dinner for all of us and sent Terry to the store for a couple of grocery items. We had a lovely evening catching up and then watching DWTS.