.........Saturday morning in LA and Allison and I were headed to Torrance to the Marriot. We had purchased Allison tickets at Christmas time for her to attend a comic convention. It just happened to correspond with our trip out to LA. What timing. Allison enjoys the Nickelodeon comic "Invader Zim", but it has been cancelled and a large fan group is trying to revive the show. The voice actors were all at the convention for two full days of signing autographs and answering questions about the show. They also read scripts from shows that were not produced. Allison was in heaven. I enjoyed a break at the nearby mall shopping for Sees candy and my Starbuck mugs. (I was on a quest to find as many City Starbuck mugs as I could. I actually was able to locate one for Indianapolis, St Louis, Las Vegas and Los Angeles. I was thrilled).  Anyway, while we were busy at the convention all day and night, Tom and Scott and Mike had a fabulous time at Universal Studios. They all agreed that the new King Kong display on the Tram tour was phenomenal. It is 4D and has King Kong fighting dinosaurs and your tram is right in the middle of it all.

On Sunday Allison decided she wanted one more full day of Invader Zim. So Allison was back again, this time with Tom. I opted to go to California Adventure with Mike and Scott. We loved the new Cars ride the most. They even built an exact replica of the town of Radiator Springs from the Disney Pixar cartoon. It was a lot of fun.

On Monday we were back on the road. Thanks so much for your hospitality Mike!  We stopped into Vegas one more time. We visited old Downtown Vegas on Fremont Street. The kids weren't too excited with the old casinos, but they did enjoy our stop into the Pawn Stars store(as seen on tv). We could not believe there was a line to get in, but we had to stop and see all they had since we watch the show. Sadly we did not get to meet the family but we enjoyed looking at all the treasures. We also visited some of the new casinos like New York New York.

We then headed up to Jackson Wyoming and Jackson Hole the ski lodge. Tom loved all the moose stuff. The next day we headed into Yellowstone. There are two large loops you can drive through in Yellowstone, each about a 3 hour drive. We did them both. Plus we got out to look at anything that was steaming or spitting or bubbling or smelled bad(sulphur pits really do smell like rotten eggs). We caught a few buffalo herds but not many. I also spotted a few elk. Thank goodness no bears. Tom really wanted to see a moose. Our favorite was stopping for lunch on the upper deck of the Yellowstone Lodge while watching old Faithful explode right on cue. Everyone especially enjoyed the bubbling mud pots.

The next day we were exhausted and on our way to South Dakota to see Mount Rushmore and WAll Drug and the Badlands. I had wanted to see more buffalo at Custer State Park, but I had to settle for a Big Horn Sheep at the Badlands. And we actually loved our visit at the worlds first Wal Mart(WAll Drug). We made sure to buy lots of souvenirs, including Black Hills gold and donuts.

ON our trip home we took a side stop at the Corn Palace(as seen on Food Network). The outside of the building is decorated in different murals each year and is made entirely out of corn husks and hay and other various plants. As Tom said it is the Rose Bowl Parade of the Midwest. And naturally we had to have some popcorn.

We coasted into Indiana on Saturday and stopped in to visit with Mark and Linda and Eric who was home for the weekend from working at the summer camp. Mark had gotten bored with recovering from surgery and started back to work that week. On Sunday we stopped into Susan and John's place to pick up Cookie. Thanks again you two. We know she had a lot better time at your house than in the kennel! We then made it home late at night on Sunday and it was back to work and camp the next day!

And my Dad finally got a surgery date so he will be going in to the hospital on Thursday August 9th.

Here are some shots of The Hoover Dam/Lake Mead in  Nevada, Las Vegas(old and new), and The Grand Canyon(it really is Grand!) with our California Condor showing off. And Cadillac Ranch outside Amarillo TX off Route 66(my family was busy tagging the cars with their names from leftover spray cans).  More photos to come.

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