Saturday 28th June - Last day of the road trip and back together with Emily!!!

Today our road trip came to an end - we farewelled the Grand Canyon and hit the road one last time to head to Las Vegas.  When we got back into mobile range we were able to get a message from Emily telling us she'd landed safely in LA. She was already on the connecting flight to Las Vegas so we drove for the 4+ hours through dry, dry desert and made our way to the hotel.

I have to say, last time I went to Las Vegas when I was 21, I remember thinking that if I never went back to Vegas I would die a happy woman, and here I am again (and yet to be convinced).  I know we will have fun - and I couldn't wait to find Emily (which took a while - this hotel is ridiculously big with over 7900 rooms - seriously?!!), but I'm a bit sad to be leaving the natural scenery behind us.

We found Emily - very tired but happy to be here.  We sang happy birthday and gave her some presents (she got to wear the raccoon birthday hat too), and she had a big long sleep while Damian and I returned the hire car (always a relief to get that back in one piece).

After showers we made our way to Buddy V's for Emily's birthday dinner (for those not in the know, Buddy V has a TV show called Cake Boss and this is his original restaurant). Across the hallway was his cake shop with a queue of about 60-100 people all night, even when we left around 10.30).

A delicious dinner was had by all - Damian is back on deck but sadly Joseph's gone down now after struggling through dinner.  We're all a bit excited we can sleep in tomorrow as we don't have to rush anywhere except maybe to shop!!