Surprises III

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 I am rushing through the Western tour.  I think once we got to San Diego and started hanging our with Summer and Drew, Megan and Kevin we were "at home" and we took less pictures and just chilled.  The water was much warmer in the Pacific than I expected as I hadn't been there in late summer for a long time.








We drove from San Diego to Las Vegas, I thing about 5 hours.  We went from 80b degrees to ea117 at Death Valley to around 100 degrees in Las Vegas.  We were at the south end of the strip.  We did a hotwire and stayed at the Luxor.  It was fine, but not the greatest.  We went to New York, New York and MGM also. We loved the piano bar in NY/NY.











 It was short, but fun.









I think the biggest surprise of the trip was
southern Utah.  I was thinking, "Okay, a straight shot from Las Vega to Denver"  a long trip, but we needed to get back to Iowa for a family wedding.  But wait, southern Utah was beautiful.
We were skirting the Grand Canyon and the canyonlands that we drove though were amazing.

On top of the natural beauty we had a storm system that was coming through so part of the sky was sunny and the other part was stormy.  The pictures do not do it justice, it is a place I would like to return to.  Of course, there are signs that say there is no gas (or anything else for the next 110 miles.)

 We got back to Denver in time for the New West Festival in Fort Collins.  We enjoyed it, but not as much as Ayla and Leo.

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