My first real vacation, Part 4

After a full day on the road, Knod, Cald and I slept the night away at the Rodeway Inn in St. George, UT. Knod was the last to get out of bed. While we were waiting, Cald sat at the table and wrote a letter on the Rodeway Inn stationery. The plan was for us to drive to Las Vegas and see some relatives to Knod. Fortunately, it was only a two-hour drive to Vegas, so that meant we wouldn't be spending nearly as much time on the road that day. Afterwards, we would go to Los Angeles, find a motel and meet up with Chud the next day so that we could go to Disneyland.

The only problem with this was that I hadn't figured out where we were going to stay, but I figured it would be easy enough to find something along the way. I thought we would just be at her relatives' a couple of hours and then we would make the five-hour trip to somewhere around Burbank.

As usual, I was wrong, SO VERY WRONG.

Knod woke up, took a shower and put on her makeup. Before leaving the motel, I took this picture of her with St. George in the background.

Our first stop was 7-Eleven. Knod and Cald wanted donuts. Then we set off for Vegas. On the way over, we drove through Arizona for about 20 minutes. This meant that we traveled through three different states during that drive. Cald just upped the number of states she's been to. (And we would drive through a fourth, California, before the day was over.)

She had the address, but we had a hard time finding it. Knod said that her brother told her that the freeway was practically in their backyard. We knew which exit we were supposed to take from I-15, but we couldn't any of the noted landmarks anywhere. We kept driving east on the same street. We eventually passed I-515 and THEN found our landmarks. Her brother didn't tell us the correct freeway. We found the house and rang the doorbell. Knod's cousin Seld answered the door. Seld was a little younger than Knod She acted like she had just woken up. She wondered why Knod was there. Knod told her that her mother had called to let them know she was coming. Seld let us in. She played the answering machine, which no one had played the day before and heard the message. Seld's younger brother Hend was also there. It turned out that their parents worked at night. The father was a musician and the mother was a waitress at Caesar's Palace. They were both sleeping.

We wound up hanging out with Knod's cousins for more than a couple of hours. However, we couldn't leave because Knod wanted to see her aunt and uncle, who were both still sleeping. Her uncle woke up first. Seld wanted to go out and run around, but her father told her no one was going outside because of the heat. Finally, her aunt woke up and she got to visit for her a little bit. Fairly soon, she had to get dressed and get ready for work. Around 6pm, Knod, Cald and I got to leave. It was still hot outside.

But Knod wanted to see a little of Las Vegas, so we went to Caesar's Palace. Her aunt had told us about the Shops at the Forum, where the ceiling looked like the sky and it appeared to be outdoors. We went over there, found the parking and went inside. I told Knod that since she wasn't 21, she wasn't supposed to come within five feet of the slot machines. While Knod never attempted to play the machines, she did run up and touch them.

We went into the Shops at the Forum and it was exactly as her aunt had described. We walked around and took several photos of Knod and Cald near the statues. Then we went outside and sat on a grassy hill outside the hotel. We stayed there until dusk started turning into night. Before we left, I called Chud to find out if he knew someplace we could stay the night. He told me to just come on over to his house and we could all sleep in the living room. It was probably the best news I'd gotten all day.

Now we just had to get there. At this point in the vacation, it was Sunday night. I had no idea what traffic was going to be like going from Las Vegas to Los Angeles on a Sunday night. IT'S FREAKING HORRIBLE! So, what should have taken just five hours took at least seven to drive. I was having such a difficult time staying awake. Knod and Cald had already fallen sleep, so they couldn't talk to me to keep me awake. I had to keep my brain active, so I started singing songs to myself. (This was one of those times I was glad I didn't have a radio in the car. That would have caused me to go right to sleep.) We finally got to Chud and Elad's apartment in Burbank around 3am. We came into the house and crashed in the living room. Knod and Cald took the couches and I slept on the floor.

But we would only get about four hours' worth of sleep before going to Disneyland the next day. That will be on the agenda for tomorrow's post.