QUIET, ALMOST TOO QUIET

Hal is home, back to the Mother Land and back to the Mother. I hope he is dealing with the transition, he seemed to deal with the American lifestyle pretty well. He did not do so well in school, not because he is dumb but because he was silly, and did not hand his homework in on time. That was partly our fault but really it rests on him....we could only help so much. But over all for life experience I think It was a plus.
He is a great person and will become a wonderful adult. He is very good, compassionate and loving with us, the younger ones and animals, which I think is a pretty good sign. Unless you are Dexter and can fake it real well.

We had to get him to LA to fly out, so he and I took and few days to there. The Last Hurrah!
Thursday afternoon we boogied over to Las Vegas. Its about half way and weird enough for a visit.

There is another slightly quicker and waaaay more boring route, which I took back home.

We stopped for a look at Hoover Dam. The honking huge bridge, that will bypass driving across the dam and make the trip even quicker now meets in the middle. Its a definite engineering feat.

The got to Vegas and checked into Excalibur. Ice cream castle in the middle of the desert. I booked tickets to The Tournment Of Kings, dinner and show. Heh, it was about as cheessy and silly as you can imagine. Lots of cute knights romping around on horses, jousting, shouting, sword waving, stunt falls off horse back and the big baddy Dragon guy had a flamethrower glove. Awesome fun! We got a whole game hen for dinner.
After the excitement of the show we wandered up and down the strip. I've been there a few times now but still the sparkly lights sparkle me. But by god my feets hurt by the end of it. Wearing slip on jogger thingys that the dogs have eaten the inner soles out of. Not the best plan for long pavement walks. Was even too tired to go and put $5 through the pokies.


Next day we drove to LA, only got a little lost but still got to La Brea Tar Pits in plently of time to check out the bubbling pools of tar and the stricken Mammoth family.


The sheer amount of bones they are still finding is staggering. The wall of Dire Wolf skulls is still the winner.


We stayed with friends and due to their awesome directions I didn't get lost to their house.
Spent the evening eating pizza and playing the Wii. Bought tickets for Magic Mountain....Alyssa just had to mention it had the most Xtreme rollercoasters of any of the theme parks.
'Ohh great ugh' I thought 'but must be the cool old aunt and suck up my ooogglyness over the thought of rollercoasters'
I went to bed early leaving Hal and Jesec killing zombies in Left For Dead2.
Magic Mountain on a Saturday...crazy. Looong lines for some of the rides.
You know what. I learn something new about myself. I like rollercoasters. After the first eyes shut, gibbering in terror experience, all the other ones were a spine tingling hoot. Even kept my eyes open.
There was one 'The Ninja' that always had short lines and we liked so we went on that one 3 times. 'Tatsu' I really liked, Hal not so much because they tilt you till you are face down and whizz you around. 17 stories high and 62mph. The video brings it all back...cool.


Anyways much fun was had and we even made it to the airport in time. They let me through customs as an escort to a minor so I saw him onto the plane with a little sniff.

Next day I drove 7 hours home through the most desolate of nothing (and that includes the towns) back to Rob, the peaks and to the cool.