Our second day in Las Vegas brought more hot weather, a visit from a new friend and a quick visit to a tire shop and the Vegas Strip.
 Just a few minutes after leaving our bedrolls, we begin making coffee in the morning, its the first thing we do . Our Downeast French Roast Coffee (Maine product) is nearly gone and I'm surprised it has lasted this long. As Dolly was enjoying her cup she glanced at the passenger side rear tire and noticed about a one and one-eighth separation on the sidewall along a seam. There is lots of tread left and the truck only has about 50k miles on it, but this is something we can't ignore or put off. No driving in the desert at 75 mph, miles from the nearest piece of civilization. We need a new tire - ASAP. I wrote down the type and size of tire and found that Sears carried them after a brief "google" search.
 In the meantime, we had arranged the previous day, a visit from a local Las Vegas friend with family roots from Maine to stop by. Lisa whose last name is pronounced "Tebow" but is actually spelled Thibeault or something like that. There are many families in Maine with a French/Canadian ancestral history. She is originally from Kittery, and her husband, Jeff is from Mexico, Maine and recently stationed here . Lisa is the site administrator for the Facebook Site "Simply Maine," and I have posted photos on the site of scenes that I have photographed for the past couple of years. It was so much fun to meet a person who I had only corresponded with for that long. We sat and talked for a few hours and discovered that we had a common friend from Waldoboro. Small world!
 After hugs and goodbyes, Lisa departed and we again took on the tire replacement issue. Dolly used Google to find a Sears so we could replace the tire about 12 miles from the campground. We plugged in the address into "Bertha" and off we went. We found the Sears store with no trouble, I went in and negotiated a replacement tire and then visited the mall next door while the tire was being replaced. We visited the mall because 1) it was something to do; 2) it was out of the heat; and 3) we were "wicked thirsty." I was thinking the entire time in the busy place a Mall Cop would throw our asses out because we had a dog, but I just carried her and we got along fine. After about 45 minutes, we went back to Sears to check on the progress of the installation. The truck was in the service bay being worked on. I mentioned something to Dolly about the drivers side rear tire was being changed and she said - "Dumb ass..it's the passenger side rear tire." I hung my head in shame, dashed to the service counter to get them on the correct tire which they did as they had only started to remove the lug nuts. I was turned around when I had backed the truck in, not pulled it into the camp space. Me Bad...bigtime. $154 later, we were on our way and decided to take in Las Vegas Boulevard - the Las Vegas Strip.
 Actually, the tour through the heart of the casino gambling district wasn't too bad. Four to six lanes of cars (one side) and huge, very huge hotels and casinos. Very flashy and gaudy, we saw them all. With a dog, you just don't try to find a parking spot in 100 degree heat and hit the slots, there isn't an easy way other than a doggie boarding place or take turns in a pet friendly motel. We decided on neither and headed back to the campground. Dolly had said she was hungry (it was about 3:30 pm by now and all we had to eat so far was a banana about six hours ago. Further, she said she thought tacos would hit the spot so we found a Taco Bell and pigged out on hard and soft shell tacos. Mmmmmmm gooooood. I was so hungry I told her I could eat the south end of a skunk heading north.
 On our way back to the campground, we stopped by the Nellis, AFB Base Exchange (shopping center) picked up a few things and headed back to camp. We sat around, visited and turned in about our normal time...9 pm.