Day 25 July 21

This is our last day in Las Vegas, another very hot place. This is a great condo--we have a back entrance on the ground floor, so we have lots of privacy and minimal noise. We are also not far from Las Vegas Blvd.--main street. It is a little far to walk, but extremely easy to drive to--all parking is free. The drive from St. George was only 3 hours, so we got here in the afternoon. I called Neda in Nenana and she found out that her birth father now lives in Seattle, with an uncle and cousin. We will look them up. We were given directions to the main mall on the strip, of course the kids loved it--another huge mall (with a very small food court--like 5th Avenue). I told the kids I would not be waking them up to hit the road, in the morning. Cody must have stayed up all night. We could not get him up until almost 4 pm. I bought some groceries, while I waited. The kids wanted to go back to the mall and purchase a couple of things. I bought tickets to see The Tournament of Kings the Sunday night. Cody really wanted to see Cirque de Soleil's Love, but for the 3 of us the price would have been $495. Sunday was overcast and we even got some rain. Cody loved it--the temperature was finally perfect. We spent Sunday looking for Renee's birth mother or her relatives. On the internet, we found a possible MySpace of hers (I sent a message to that person) and I found a possible relative, which I called and left a message for. We drove out to the address on the birth certificate. The new owners say the trailer had been vacant for about 3 years and that they did get mail, at first, for a Long. I tried to talk to the manager to see if they had a forwarding address, but they were not home. We gave up that search and went on another to find a CD of the book Eldest. We had found Eragon in a second had store in Hot Springs. The kids really got into it and wanted the next book. It makes the long drives more bearable for them. We found a copy with just enough time to get to Excalibur for our dinner show. The kids loved it--Renee, who told me she thought it was stupid, when I bought the tickets, got into the cheering and yelling and said the food was good. Today I'm doing laundry, so everything is clean. I'd like to sit by the pool and read. I would like to get them down to the strip to see Treasure Island's or Bellagio's street shows tonight. Tomorrow we leave the heat and head for the Pacific Ocean and Pismo Beach, CA.