Day 13: Carpinteria, California to Las Vegas, Nevada

Day 13: Carpinteria, California to Las Vegas, Nevada



August 7: We had a great morning in Carpinteria with Shawn, Alexis, and Emerson. We walked into town for coffee and breakfast, then down to the beach. Our trip photos from this day through the rest of the trip were lost upon download once we returned home. Consequently, some of the best ones are gone and many of the recovered photos have odd color or cropping. The photos in the remaining blog posts are among the few we were able to recover.



Yummy breakfast burritos at Reynaldo’s. Photo by Blake.



Carpinteria beach panorama. Photo by Sarah.


Beach bums. The kids hadn’t been able to swim in the ocean since their last visit to Scotland in 2008, so they were really looking forward to this. There’s at least one future surfer here. Photos by Sarah and Blake.


Dolphin swimming near the shore. Photo by Blake.


Saturated Sam. Photo by Blake.


After an exceptional week on the California coast, we headed east toward home. Driving inland, it’s not long before you’re back in the desert. Here, we’re approaching a mini sandstorm blowing across the road. The drive home was about 1500 miles, but with some interesting stops along the way, such as…



…Las Vegas. Photos by Sarah and Blake.




We stayed at the Golden Nugget, which is one of the older hotels in Las Vegas. It nevertheless boasts crazy excessive amenities such as a waterslide that passes through a shark tank. Kenny and Sam could have happily gone down the slide all night. Photos by Blake.




Deep fried Oreo’s, Elvis, Spiderman, Batman, and a Roman soldier in a thong were all present along the Fremont Street Experience. There were also exotic dancers, rap singers and lots of people who won’t have had any memory of that night when they woke up the next morning. Note to the alien armada en route to Earth, but still tens-of-thousands-of-light-years away: when you reach this planet and begin your archaeological studies to establish how humanity destroyed itself, start in Las Vegas. You will find artifacts of our best and our worst commingled right there. Photos by Blake.