As before, Rick’s comments will br in italics and mine will be in standard font.
*After 4 1/2 months of waiting the time finally arrived, I was going to see my sweetie 
After a short stop in Amsterdam airport, I arrived 14 hours later. *
And he was the last damn one off the plane!! You would think that having not seen Rick since April another half hour wouldn’t kill me, but that might have been the longest half hour of my life. Fortunately, that first kiss was more that worth the wait.
We got back to Brynda’s house where I finally met Grace, our cat. A quick bite to eat, before we [Brynda interrupts]Then on Sunday morning we had a late brunch and…Ah well, the next day we left for Las Vegas. I was attending a conference there which was the perfect excuse for introducing Rick to the surreal world that is Vegas.
Vegas, where to begin. We spent a lot of time visiting hotels, The Venetian, The Luxor, New York, New York, The Bellagio etc and eating in some wonderful restaurants. We did the whole gambling thing and came out $5 up <Woooohooo!>
The NY, NY rollercoaster scared the crap out of me [sub]and after I convinced Rick to go on it[/sub]. I liked the view from the Stratosphere though, but nothing could have gotten me to go on the Bigshot. The highlight of the trip was the Grand Canyon tour we took on Friday. We went with a company (Photo Adventures, might as well give them a plug) who takes small groups in SUVs on tours. Our group was the guide, one other guy and the two of us, allowing for lots of kissing/cuddling/snogging in the backseat. We drove to Hoover Dam/Lake Mead, then on to the Canyon where we took a helicopter to the bottom [Rick] which was soooo cooooool, my first time in a helicopter 
[/Rick] and then went on a short pontoon boat ride onthe Colorado river. We then drove out to the West Rim where we did some climbing to get to a gorgeous vantage point.
The view was breathtaking and very deceptive indeed. Until we saw how tiny the helicopters at the bottom were, it did not look that deep, and it looked like you could throw something across to the other side, but the guide told us it was 3 miles across. After taking numerous photos, we headed out to the Joshua tree forest [sub]avoiding the rattlesnakes[/sub] and on to Rainbow Canyon before heading home.
With all this gambling, picture taking and canyon viewing [sub]yeah, that’s what we’ve been doing :D[/sub], we haven’t had time to post, but we wanted to let you guys know that we’re having a wonderful time.
*Tune in later for more exciting news from Brynda’s house [sub]if we can drag our arses out of *[/sub][Brynda interrupts]So anyway, we’ll post again later.
It is so wonderful to have my sweetheart here with me. Love, as they say, is grand. *And that goes double for me. I hope the other long-distance doper couples who are together this week are having as much fun (and hot monkey sex) as we are.
My flight is later tonight, so at least we get to spend one last day together.
No incriminating photos will be posted, however.