Cowboy Patriots - July 4

Jerry is subbing for Beverly on the blog today. Pardon him for being a bit long winded...

We had breakfast this morning at the Perry Lodge among the many pictures of Hollywood stars of yesteryear. Lots of

actors had signed their pictures, with the usual

"Best Wishes," etc. My favorite was Tim Conway, who was in Kanob filming the classic "The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again." (I remember seeing it as a kid). His signed picture said, "To the Perry Lodge - We'll always be in touch, because I'm not paying my bill!"

Kanab really gets excited for the 4th of July. It's a one stop-light town that holds a 45 minute parade. The hotel allowed us to stay an extra hour so we could watch the parade. There were many, many floats. Two high school classes having re-unions over the weekend had floats. Families had floats. Apparently every organization in the area had a float. There were also lots of old cars, including a 1923 Model T that was converted

into being a tractor (it had metal tractor wheels). The parade went up one side of the street

then down the other, so we got to see it twice! At the end the fire company went down the street

and lightly sprayed anyone who wanted to 

cool off.

We drove off into the desert toward Las Vegas. The desert got bleak pretty quickly. We stopped for gas and I discovered the van managed to get 27 miles per gallon! We never get anything like that back east. Driving 75 miles per hour doesn't seem to hurt milage. 

We had to stop at a desert town called Washington City, Utah to get more electronic gadgetry for the camera and car, then had to go to

Barnes and Nobel at the local mall for a few books Molly wanted and some DVDs of Brooke's new favorite, The Cosby Show. She discovered it while watching television a few nights ago. The kids have watched remarkably little television during the trip. Blair reads, Molly reads, talks or listens to books on tape, and Brooke talks.

When we arrived

 in Las Vegas at about 4:00 PM it was 109 degrees! The wind felt like a hair dryer on low speed. We spent our evening with friends from

my college days, Dave and Sharon Reith. Dave works as a top financial officer for a major defense company. He got transferred here about a year ago to deal with a contract with the Department of Energy. Dave and Sharon have three kids and

live in a beautiful home north of Las Vegas, about half and hour from where he works. The kids went swimming in a salt water pool that Sharon

designed for their backyard while Dave cooked hamburgers and hotdogs. Blair said that as hot as it was the hamburgers and hotdogs could have been cooked on the patio. We had a nice evening of conversation and then watched the fireworks from the Reith's front yard. A great way to celebrate the 4th!