Day 11 - Away In a Cloud of Dust

Ok, so, camping is dirty. In case you were under the illusion that 4 days in a windy, dry desert location was a neat and tidy experience, well, it's....not.

Everything we own was covered in a fine sheen of red desert dust. Hankering for a nice shower, we peeled out of the campground at Mormon Lake on Sunday morning and headed back into Flagstaff for some breakfast and route mapping to our next destination.

Viva Las Vegas babay!! We headed out across western Arizona - hot and desolate but very beautiful. North out of Kingman, up to the Nevada border which is also the location of the Hoover Dam. We pulled off and went over to that amazing spectacle of human ingenuity. Scary high views - the highway bridge that gets you across the gorge is almost the most impressive part of the whole area.

We got into Vegas around 6 and checked into the Riviera Hotel. Not one of the higher-end spots on the strip but totally great for our purposes. Really nice big pool in the middle courtyard. We washed the 8 pounds of dust off ourselves and hit the pool. It was still over 80 degrees outside and so balmy and nice.

We planned one night in Vegas and then moving on to a campground just outside of Lake Tahoe the next day. However, it took us about 38 seconds to decide on spending both those nights in Vegas. We admit it - we're poolside vacationers at heart. And we were looking at a 33 degree night in a just-opened-for-the-season campground, vs. a nice balmy night people-watching on the strip.

What would you have done, eh?