On the road to Vegas

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Bella’s dad dropped her off at our house around 8 pm last night. She and Pops played, shooting rubber bands (actually hair ties) at each other. After work I had done last minute errands, grocery shopping, stopped at Henna’s to wish her a Happy Birthday. We will miss the party Nancy is having for Saturday. . I spent the evening packing up the rest of our stuff in the RV: food, clothes, shoes, etc. I said goodnight and went to bed…reading a bit first. I’m reading “Fortune’s Rock” by Anita Shreve. So far it’s OK, not the ‘page turner’ the reviews claim. Maybe after I get in to it. I set the alarm for one hour later than our normal time: 6:30 instead of 5:30. I really should leave it on 5:30, but can’t resist the luxury of sleeping an extra hour and not having to go to work.
I’m not sure what time everyone else retired; I didn’t wake up when Ken came to bed.
The alarm went off, two snoozes later, I got in the shower. Bella was still sleeping. She likes to sleep in our room on the floor. I guess it is pretty comfortable on the purple shag carpet. I have to be careful when I get up; she moves around so much in her sleep; I don’t want to step on her.
When I come out of the shower, Pops is trying to wake Bella up. She has set her alarm on her Nintendo ds and does not want to get up before that goes off. I totally relate to her! How awful it is when someone wakes you up before you have to get up!
We finish packing up; I make some egg/cheese burritos and bacon, wrap it in foil to keep it warm and we are ready to leave. Ken come in and says he has some bad news. I hate it when people say that. The few seconds before you actually find out what is the matter, are always horrible for me; my pulse immediately goes up and I get a bad feeling. Just tell me straight out what it is. Don’t preface it with the horrible warning. Anyway, he tells us the batteries for the RV are dead and won’t hold a charge. Probably has something to do with the fire we had last summer, but we have used the RV since then, with no problems. So, we have to go to Wal-Mart before we can leave. Fortunately, Wal-Mart has the correct kind. We are about an hour to an hour and a half behind schedule. No worries.
We are on Tangerine heading for I-10 and Bella asks, how long has it been? 
I pass out the bacon and burritos as we head north. We have plenty of gadgets and books and magazines to keep us busy: Bella has her Nintendo ds, another electronic game, I have my laptop, my IPod; Justen has his Iphone and his MacBook.
Bella falls asleep for 1 ½ hours and when she wakes up she is disappointed that we are not almost there. We stop for gas in Wickenburg. Bella’s dad gave her $10 spending money and she wants to get some candy. She picks out a Hershey’s bar. We all use the bathroom in the RV. There is some kind of metal shop/store next to the gas station. There are huge metal dinosaurs, horses, etc and I take a picture of Bella next to one.
Justen is watching Dexter, season one on his MacBook. He’s never watched it so we told him to catch up so when the next season comes out on DVD, we can watch it together.
After about another hour, we stopped for lunch; just parked in a large parking lot and went in to the RV to make sandwiches. Back on road, started to rain just outside of Kingman. It’s cold, rainy and dark. Bella and I played hangman for awhile. We are about 45 minutes from Hoover Dam. I hope it isn’t raining when we go over the dam. Bella and Justen have never seen it.
Security checks before the dam were very fast. The inspector spend less than one minute looking through the RV. There was slow moving traffic over the dam, but it wasn’t bad. Really, it gave you a chance to really look (and take pictures) at the dam. Bella wanted to get out and go down to the lake to look for minnows. 
We arrive at the Oasis RV Park around 5PM. We quickly set up and head to Jason and April’s. Lola greets us at the door. She is so excited to see everyone. She keeps wrapping her little arms around Bella’s waist and says “I missed you Bella”. It’s amazing how much she has changed in only 3 weeks. She is talking so much more. She tells me too, “I missed you GeeGee”. It makes my heart melt. Their house is so, so cute. It is so cozy. It is a two story with a wrap around staircase.
We chat for a while and now it’s time to go out to dinner. It is raining. We go to an Irish pub/restaurant. It’s so enjoyable to have everyone together. Lola warms up to Justen and Bella already thinks he is ‘so awesome’. It was a nice time. Justen decides to spend the night with them, so Ken and I go back to the RV. I’m so happy for Justen to be spending time with them.
It is still raining and my sore throat and cough are getting worse. Good thing I have Ken’s leftover cough medicine with codeine.

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Photos

Dinner
Bella, April, Lola, me and Jason