Last Stop: Laughlin, NV

Howdy, folks!
Hope all is well in your neck of the woods.  Here it is remaining on the cooler front, more like fall, minus the pretty colored falling leaves.  That's what I miss about Michigan is seeing those beautiful colored leaves and smelling the scent of fall....burning leaves, crisp air....ah, I can imagine it in my mind's eye and I remember it very well!  So to those of you that actually have a season called fall, ENJOY IT!  It goes too fast and it so pretty!

Pretty soon Frankie and I will go to my cardiologist office and get my medical records (hopefully the surgery clearance note will be in there!) and then we will come back home, scan the records in (as I INSIST now on having a copy of everything) and make the 30 mile trip to Gilbert.  Isn't it ridiculous that doctor's offices don't use their fax machines?  Why do they even have one?  They might as well use it as a paperweight!!  And yesterday, my husband called for a psychologist appointment (he has a problem with picking his skin and causing these sores that scab over, then he picks the scab off, it makes a bloody mess and the whole thing gets infected and we have to go to the Urgent Care for antibiotics. We've gone through this song and dance for as long as I can remember) and he had to go to a website and print out new patient forms.  I had to do that with one of my doctors, too.  I think it's a new thing out now....the PATIENT prints out THEIR own forms and uses THEIR OWN INK AND PAPER, thus saving the doctor's office money!  Isn't that just dandy???!!!!!  What's gonna be next? We have to supply our own needles and alcohol pads if we get a shot at the doctor's office?

Ok, I'll quit ranting now.  Our last stop in my grandma's cheer-up plan for when I first came to Arizona without my parents (it was my first time away from home and I'm an only child, so I am very close to my parents) was to Laughlin, NV.  This is another gambling city that I sometimes think is even MORE popular than Vegas.  Every time we'd go, it would be just packed everywhere!  When my parents moved out to Arizona, me, my grandma and my mom would go about once a year.  So I've combined some of those pictures in with my original pictures I took on the trip with just Grandma.  Hope you enjoy them!  I'll start with the original ones first.

This is the hotel-casino Grandma and I stayed in.  It's was called the Ramada Express, but it has since changed names, I heard.  I loved it there, though. It had a train that went out the hotel and gave you great views of the main drag in Laughlin.  Here's some pics of the hotel, train and the views:

Here's the train "station."  You boarded the train here.  It ran once every 20-30 minutes, if I remember correctly.  Best part of it:  it was FREE!!!!  Gotta love free stuff!!

                              All aboard! The Ramada Express is at your service!!

 

Here's a view from the train.  Isn't it pretty?

 HOT MAMA!!  Isn't she one FOXY Grandma?  I thought so, too.  She bought the PJ's in Mexico and they were so silky. I loved the feel of them.  She was NOT too thrilled with me taking the picture, but sometimes you just have to "let go" and just have it done!  Hehehe.....

Doesn't Grandma look lonely?  I forget what we were waiting for, but it must have been a long time because Grandma doesn't look too happy right now.  The final two pics below of the original batch are of the Colorado Belle Hotel-Casino.  Grandma has friends who always stay over there.  It's so cool with the nautical theme!!

Mother taking her smoke break.  She wasn't allowed to smoke in either my or Grandma's cars!  So we had to stop every so often so she could smoke.  Didn't matter if it was rain or shine!  I was so happy when she gave up smoking in March of 1999.  And more importantly, she STAYED quit.  Way to go, Mom!

Here I am (standing) winning my loot.  Yeah, right!  I'm not much of a gambler. I worked too hard for my money and I hated to put it into a machine that more times than not, kept it!!!  They also have a rule about not taking pics in casinos, but I didn't see a sign up at the Colorado Belle, so I had just one taken of me.

Mom enjoying the view off the little foot bridge on the banks of the Colorado River.

Mom and Grandma looking at the fish that swam through a pond to the Colorado River.  There was a ferry you could take that would take you over to the other bank of the river or to Bull Head City, which was on the other side of the Colorado river.

Here comes the ferry!

The Colorado River.....and I think you can see parts of Bull Head City.

Mother with her collection of coins.  I've titled this picture, "Brother, can you spare a dime?"  I remember it was raining like the dickens in Laughlin that day and Mom's glass lens on her glasses fell right out of the frame and we had to look all over the pavement for it.  When Mom bent over, her coins went over with her, and all over the pavement!  So I was collecting the coins and she and Grandma were trying to find her lens.  Her lens rolled underneath a truck's back wheel.  She retrieved it and off we went.  Time for new glasses, Mom!!

We always had so much fun on our trips and it's those memories that keep me going through all the pain of fibro, the fear of my upcoming surgery and just the hassles of life.  I would so much rather be laughing than crying!!!

Well, folks, gotta get ready and get my medical records.  Hopefully this will be the last trip for records!  Let's keep our fingers crossed.  Hope you all have a blessed Thursday!

God bless!

Until next post,