Day 21 - Two sides of Las Vegas

Hey all,

Guess what - for all the luxury and lavishness of this hotel, there's one thing they don't have. Free internet. That's right, we have to pay by the hour to use the net, so that's why I didn't even post last night.

Here's a recap of the last couple of days.

In Flagstaff we had discovered two things. First of all, the old route 66 used to pass through there. Route 66 no longer exists as a US-wide road, but some stretches have been preserved, and obviously some of the new roads are built along or on top of it. For a fair few miles, we went along the I-40 much the same way that route 66 once went.


The second thing we discovered was (as I said earlier) that our route to Vegas would take us past and thus over the Hoover dam. Here's a shot of it. Notice how all the cars drive on top of it!


The queues going the opposite way over the dam were unbeliveable. They went on for miles after we passed and we were thinking maybe there had been some accident, or someone got stuck in the security check. We heard later on that these were the people leaving Las Vegas after the busy weekend!

So here we are in Las Vegas. It's a crazy place. Our room is on the 23rd floor which is about halfway up the building. We have a sweet view over Las Vegas boulevard - more commonly known as The Strip:


Yesterday we explored the city, and most importantly The Strip. All the hotels here have different themes. The Venitian is mimicking Venice, Caesar's Palace is set in Rome, Luxor is a big pyramid with a gigantic sphinx for an entrance, and New York New York is... Well, it's New York:


The Bellagio is one of the most famous and luxurious hotels in LV. The fountain is famous and can be seen in Ocean's 11. There are shows every 15 minutes where they operate the fountain to music. When we saw it the first time it was (fittingly enough) playing Viva Las Vegas by Elvis!


But Las Vegas isn't all about gambling, neon lights and oversized hotels. Less than an hour's drive away is the Valley of Fire state park (state parks are like national parks, only smaller obviously, and less well known). Even though the surrounding areas are grey and dusty desert, this particular area has been subject to some strange geological activity that has exposed an underlying area of red sandstone. It's gradually being washed, blown and worn down (over an immensely long period of time of course), giving the stone strange shapes. Here are some pictures of our trip there today:





We're just about to get into our wonderful, big, soft bed (I want to take it home!). By the way, we gambled but didn't lose much. No big sums, just tried a bit of slots and roulette (Mattias could have spent a long time at the table, but we'd agreed on a sum so we didn't spend more than that!) and watched as other people's money poured into the pockets of the casino.

Tomorrow we're off to Los Angeles and the west coast. Still lots of fun to be had!

Until then.