The most uncharacteristic thing that Pat ever came up with was that we should go to Las Vegas. My sister Pat who hated big cities, who hated commercialism, who hated crowds, who was not fond of shopping or gambling or watching people do stupid things. Where did she get the idea that we should go to Las Vegas? Because she had heard that Las Vegas has fantastic and inexpensive buffets and her husband Jeff lived for a good cheap buffet.

So we booked flights out of dinky little Rhinelander airport. Himey and I got out to sin city on the evening of May 3, while Pat, Jeff and Jeff’s daughter Amy followed the next day.

My internal clock is always set to go off way earlier in the morning than it needs to. And if you send me an hour west, my clock is even more screwed up. Usually I can wake up in the wee hours of the morning and lay quietly in bed until it is time to get up.

But no, the morning of May 4, as the clock read 3:30am, I sprung out of bed.

“Himey, I can’t lay here any longer. I have to get up and go explore.”

We were in the city that never sleeps, right? Of course, he obliged and we slowly started getting ready for the day. I think the sun was just coming over the horizon when we burst out the front door of the Excalibur to discover all the cities within the city that Las Vegas has to offer.