We had to leave at 08:00 this morning and so wave farewell
to the magnificent Grand Canyon. The reason we were setting off earlier than
planned was to take an alternative route as the regular way past the Hoover Dam
was doing spot checks and if we got picked for one of those then they’d
discover all the kilos of cocaine we were….. nah only kidding! It would just
take ages to search everything and weigh the van etc and so we were going
around this. The downside was missing out on the Hoover dam though Damian
informed us that it is “just another dam” and that it was very similar to the
Glen Canyon Dam.
We eventually turned off onto the historic Route 66 where we
drove along for a while before stopping at the funny little town of Seligman
which had completely embraced its Route 66 history and this was what had
allowed it to be one of the few surviving town along the route which runs
parallel to a newer and more efficient highway.
After a drive of over 300 miles we finally arrived in Las
Vegas where we were told some of the history about the place before being given
a short tour of the strip where Damian also pointed out lots of points of
interest for us to look into. Before he dropped us off at the hotel however
there was one more thing we had to do – eat!
We pulled up over the road from the Rio Hotel & Casino
and then walked our way over to it in the searing heat of this desert. We each
paid for what has been voted the best buffet in Vegas 10 years in a row. We sat
down and got our free refill drinks and then set about making a dent in the seemingly
inexhaustible food supplies. This place was enormous and plays host to over 300
different dishes of almost every variety. It took about 3-5 minutes to walk the
entire length of the serving desks and it was hard to decide what to eat first.
We all returned with plates stacked to varying heights with even more diverse
food selections between us. Danny had favoured to carvery section where they
would cut of a very thick slab of meat of your choosing (beef cooked rare which
he liked) whereas Corrie had gone with lighter options. Corrie’s tactic paid
off as she was able to return eight times unlike Danny who could only manage to
venture back twice.
After the feast we got to the Best Western Mardi Gras hotel
where we all went to our rooms to dump our things and would have the next few
hours to ourselves. We had gotten a room together and so we spread all our
things over the other double bed in the room. We showered and relaxed before we
had to get ready and go meet at Damian’s room at 21:15.
Here we gathered up the booze kindly purchased by Gill as it
was the end of her 9 months of travelling and she wished to thank everyone for
making this a great end to her trip. After that we made our way to the front of
the hotel where we all got inside the stretched limo that was ready to roll.
The limo tour took us along the strip and stopped to let us
all get out and take photos in front of the famous Welcome to Las Vegas sign.
We then were chauffeured to the downtown area where we were dropped off at
Freemont Street where we all awaited an LED show that was supposed to be going
off at half past every hour… it turned out that it was on the hour and so we
couldn’t linger anymore as we had to be dropped off at the Bellagio in time for
23:00. Damian apologised for the confusion and we soon forgot all about that as
the clock struck 11 in front of the Bellagio. Hundreds of powerful water
fountains all started going off in time to music and created a great display
for the hundreds and hundreds of spectators. This place was used at the end of
the Ocean’s Eleven film too but it is even more brilliant to see in person. We
ended up watching three of these shows as they were every 15 minutes. After
this the two of us decided to split a taxi with Damian back to the hotel as we
would have 6 more days here and were in no rush to gamble away what little
remains of our travel funds!
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