It Went A Little Something Like This.

We’ve been busy.  Busier than we are used to these days.  Some busy has been by choice.  Other busy by chance and the rest we figure just sort of happened because the wind blew.  We aren’t complaining though.  Nope.  We aren’t.

 
It’s hard to complain when you are parked here.

We stayed here for a good bit, soaked in the beautiful scenery and warm temps.
 
Can you see us?  Use the small tree in the water as your reference point.

We took some time to relax by doing yoga. 

O.K. maybe not.

We explored the area on foot and discovered more stunning vistas over each hill.

We put our daily strolling toward something good.

And we were quite surprised by the result.  We even found .51 cents to boot.

A few days into our stay we tried to get the phone to work.  We climbed every hill we could but… nothing.  So, we packed up to take a ride down the road to get some service.  We always pack up, by the way, even for a short ride, because we never know if we’ll go back. Did we tell you that we drove a little over six miles down a washboard road to get to the cove?  We drove that entire six miles and then some back out before discovering service at the paved road.  We discovered something else at the paved road, too.
We had picked up a noisy hitch-hiker in our left front tire.  Good thing we had packed up our stuff before leaving the cove!

So, off we went to Henderson, NV.  Home of the closest Sears with a tire shop.
We were due for our free rotation so we figured we’d take care of two things at once.  Two things.  Not three.  That’s what we had figured. 

It is not supposed to look like that.

The unexpected third item was a shattered center cap which in the above photo is intact.  Sears says that they are very sorry and will pay for a replacement or four if need be.

One of the first guys we talked to about a replacement displayed some serious rim envy.  He smiled real big, couldn’t take his eyes off of them, started stuttering.  “Hey!  Eyes up here, buddy!”  He then informed us that they were quite rare.  Which led to the following succinct conversation.

Nicole:  “So, it’s going to be a bit hard to find an equal replacement?”
Envious Man: “Oh, no.  It won’t be hard.  It will be near impossible!”

A few hours of internet searches led us to some vintage rim and wheel dealers who will get back with us. This led to the big question… what were we to do while waiting a few days for their replies?

Vegas, of course!

We figured we’d spend a night walking around sight seeing.  And then, we met Rahman.This is not Rahman.  But this is how Rahman looked at us.

He was a rep for a Time Share company.  They wanted people to come check out their offers in exchange for promotional gifts.  Five days later we had seen three shows including Cirque du Soleil’s Zumanity, ate at a great buffet which could have survived on the ridiculously decadent deserts alone, played $100 in promotional slot money and generated some pretty sore muscles / got in shape walking all over the strip. The grand total for our five day stay in Vegas… $15.

We had an awesome time but still no word on the center caps. After five days of non-stop entertainment, our senses were ready for a break.

Can’t you just hear it?  Hear what?  Exactly.