Viva Las Vegas!

July 7, 2012

For my mom’s birthday, we decided to travel to Vegas to celebrate! No, it wasn’t that kind of trip. My brother and his family went on a short trip to Disneyland with my mom to celebrate my niece’s 4th of July birthday. I flew to Vegas to meet up with everyone afterwards.

We stayed at my sister’s house and my nephew had a fun time entertaining my nieces.

How else do you celebrate a birthday in Vegas? That’s right! You go to the buffet.

Before we headed back home, we went to the swap meet and let my mom go on a shopping spree, because we love her. Hahaha!

Rather than taking the conventional way home, my brother wanted to try a different route. It was roughly the same amount of time, but it was more scenic since it goes through Yosemite National Park.

After a couple of hours, it was just more of the same open road. We hadn’t seen a gas station or a bathroom since we passed Creech Air Force Base about 45 minutes north of Vegas, and I really had to pee. We finally started heading west, and it was more of the same two lane highway, with no gas station in site. Finally the terrain started to change.

We got to the Benton Gas Station about 4 hours after we left Vegas. It was the only gas station for miles…

Suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere… trees appeared. Then a random lake. I had never even heard of Mono Lake so I was really shocked to see it for the first time. We made a quick stop to check out the scenery before we started heading up the mountain range. We arrived a Yosemite toll booth entrance, and made our way through the national park.