Day 24 (Sunday, July 18th) Las Vegas, NV

We got up late and headed over to Brett's house, today. After lunch we spent another couple of hours swimming with the dogs to cool off. The boys had a lot of fun! After the sun started to set, we all got dressed and headed down to Las Vegas for our eagerly awaited tour.

We started by riding up to the top of the Stratosphere Tower. The Stratosphere is an 1,100 foot tall tower that stands way above the rest of the casinos and hotels on the Las Vegas strip. The upper observation deck is open-air and is 906 feet high. There are several thrill-rides up there and Jake has been droolong to ride the "Insanity" for months. Insanity is a spinning ride that holds eight people. The thrill is that the ride, once loaded, pivots out into space over the edge of the tower. Then, it starts to spin until the riders are pulling 3 Gs. This causes the seats to pivot and swing out 45 degrees until the riders are looking straight down, 906 feet to the strip! They're spinning in space at about 30 miles per hour, hanging over the edge of the building! Needless to say, none of the adults felt the need to join him, but now he can say, "Been there, done that, got the t-shirt!"

Once everyone had their feet back on the ground, we had a late dinner and went for a tour of the Las Vegas Strip. We didn't have alot of time left after dinner so we settled for a driving tour of the Las Vegas Strip. We drove up and down and took a few pictures, but most importantly, we got a good idea of where everything was so we could go back and walk around. Our hope is that the truck will be ready soon enough, tomorrow, for us to trade in our rental car and drive back down to the strip. We hope to get out and walk around to see the sights we'd most like to see. If we get back into Vegas early enough, we'll have a nice easy stroll on the strip and maybe even get to drive back and visit Fremont Street.