Tombstone

 Today we woke up and got to see our campsite in the light for the first time.  I is a pretty nice campsite.  We even have a covered picnic table.  I made us all breakfast and after we cleaned up we headed down to old Tombstone.  The whole town is set up like an old west town, dirt streets and the road are lined in old fashioned buildings.  We found a parking spot on the edge of town and walked to the main street.  We got there a little early, and most of the shops were still closed.  We window shopped a bit till they opened.  Once we could get in, Dad got the two little kids cool red cowboy hats.  Evvie has been wanting her own cowboy hat since our old west pictures over in Bryce Canyon so she was thrilled.  She decided that it was an "andy hat" since andy from toy story wears a red hat.  After getting the hats, dad bought me and the kids a ride on the stagecoach.  We got to ride all around town and our driver told us about the history of the place.  It was really neat, I don't think I have ridden in a stage coach before.  The kids all enjoyed themselves, I had to stop them from hanging out the windows though!

After our ride we got tickets to see a comedy shoot out show.  It was done by 3 actors in an old saloon.  It was a history of the town and they loosely reenacted events that had happened in Tombstone. It was a fun and funny show, the actors were great and the stunts were pretty good.  I was impressed.  

After the show we walked over to the silver mine tour and got tickets on the next tour.  We had some time to kill, so we went and grabbed a small lunch.  They had a tiny little new york pizza place in town and we got some amazing pizza and a canolli.  It was some of the best pizza I have ever had!  After lunch it was time for our tour.  Although tombstone is famous for the shootout at the OK corral, it was actually a mining town.  They had a HUGE silver mine there and most of the people who lived there were involved in that.  When the price of silver dropped so low, the mine was shut down and the town pretty much died and became the tourist town it is today.  The mine was nice and cool after the heat of the town and it was interesting to learn how they mined silver.  

After the mine we had pretty much seen most of the town, so we headed back to camp to take advantage of the swimming pool they had there.  We all had a really nice swim.  It was so nice to have a place to cool off.   We all enjoyed a couple of hours in the pool before dinner.

Good Bye Kuglers

 Today we leave Vegas and head to Tombstone AZ, but we are also leaving the Kuglers behind. This is where they leave us and head back to UT while we finish our trip.  We are all sad to see them go.  

After we got all packed up it was time to go.  The Kuglers drove off north and we went south.  We drove all day, and into the night.  It was about a 12-or 13 hour drive down to tombstone AZ.  We had to set up our camp in the dark, so we just did the bare minimum.  No pictures today really, just a picture of the lake made by the Hover damn and some flowers we saw in the drive through.

Exploring Vegas

Today we started our adventure at the Venetian hotel.  We walked through their indoor mall that is styled to look like the streets of venice.  They have a fake sky, the shops look like old european buildings and they have a canal that goes through the whole thing.  They even have a mini st. Marco's square. The kids were very impressed with the outside illusion.  Dad bought us all tickets to ride the gondola's that cruise the canal.  It was super cool.  All of the kids loved riding the boats.  Evvie didn't want to keep her seatbelt on and every time she unclicked it our gondolier would rock the boat and sing a silly song about falling in and not being able to swim.  At two different spots on the ride, there were gondoliers on the edge of the canal that sang to us.  It was really cool. 

 After our ride we walked down the strip to the Bellagio.  I wanted to show the kids the glass sculpture ceiling.  Along the way we ran into vin diesel at the wax museum and passed by the flamingo hotel. 

The Bellagio was great.  The glass ceiling was beautiful as always, and they had a little garden exhibit with beautiful topiaries.  

After our long walk down the strip, we were all ready to head home.  we trudged back to our car in the super hot weather.  We stopped at the flamingo to check out their bird exhibit, and then went home to relax for a few hours and have dinner before heading back in the evening to see the fountain shows. We wanted to see the volcano at the Mirage erupt, and it was supposed to but evidently they cancled the show just a day or two before because of Covid.  So we hoofed it back down to the belagio to see the water fountain show.  The show was great, we ended up seeing the show about 4 times and each time was different.  After the first show, Dad and Kristy decided to walk all the way back down to the car themselves, then drive back and fetch us.  So that is why we got to see the show so many times.  Once we got home, it was time for bed, and then we leave Las Vegas tomorrow!!