Back to Reality

We’ve heard crickets about our house all week. We didn’t really expect to hear from anyone while on vacation, though.

We spent the week hanging out in Las Vegas with family and friends. I did enough gambling to remember why I don’t. I enjoyed the area in a way I haven’t since I lived here in the late 1970s, though. While First Reader went casino-hopping with family, I took a hike up the Bristlecone Trail with a friend from high school.

Our last full day was Thursday, so we decided to head to the Las Vegas Strip and take advantage of the comp tickets we got to the High Roller roller coaster at The Linq. Unfortunately, that afternoon and evening proved way too windy for us to be comfortable in a gondola 550 feet off the ground. Instead, we spent the evening covering one corner of the Strip.

When we finished at the Tropicana Las Vegas, we walked across the overpass walkway to the MGM Grand Las Vegas and played a little video poker. I held my own. Then we crossed over to the New York-New York Hotel and Casino and smelled the smoke there. When we needed air, we went to the Excaliber Hotel and Casino before finally having enough and catching the shuttle back to the condo to pack for the trip home.

The drive home was … windy. And, of course, most of it was a headwind. On Saturday afternoon, we caught a break when the winds died down east of the Continental Divide. The high-profile rigs were a bit scary to pass in the gusts, but we tried to stay away from those as we traveled. Traffic wasn’t as bad as it’s been known to be along our route as we closed in on Denver. All in all, it was a mellow drive home for all that it was on the interstate.

Now that our vacation is done, it’s time to pull ourselves back to reality. Tomorrow we need to make a gazillion phone calls to arrange our closing and start leaning on our contractor to get the foundation started. We should have a house soon. Stay tuned. I’ll have more news next week (she says with her fingers crossed).