Blogs from Las Vegas, Nevada, United States, North America - page 5

Another great sleep in super comfy beds! Starbucks breakfast as usual, then jumped in the car and headed downtown to MGV the Machine Gun Vegas gun range! Met at the entrance by some sexy girls clad in black with pistols on their belts, Alex was impressed already! They showed us in, filled out the forms, chekced we werent insane and didnt plan to shoot up the place in a crazy Brit rage! Chose the package of guns we wanted to shoot and then waited for our beeper to go off to get called onto the range! Now I had done some range shooting before in South Africa but not for quite a few years so a little nervous, but way more excited than anything! Got called onto the range, given our eye and ear protectors and ... read more

Starbucks breakfast ....this is getting to be a habit! Had been recommended to visit Red Rock Canyon, just a short drive away, was a lovely clear day so set off ready to enjoy the scenery and take some photos. Entered the Red Rock park area, set off on the scenic drive, along what we realsed was a one way road for 13 miles through the canyons, about 5 minutes into what started as a spectacular drive, the gas warning light came on and we realised the tanks was almost on empty...we couldnt turn around as the road was one direction, we had driven about 3 miles of the 13 mile tour and had no idea how long the gas reserve would last...so with a lot of "colourful language" bickering and blaming each other we drove round ... read more

Back on the road, out of the desert, climbed into the hills and then down into the valley, a much more interesting drive than yesterday. A couple of hours later we saw the building of Las Vegas rising in the distance! Soooo excited, I love this town! Had already decided on a hotel - New York New York but decided to cruise the "strip" before checking in, to absorb the atmosphere, the place is really busy, lots of conventions going on. Left the car with the Valet guy and checked into our Park Avenue room on the 34th floor overlooking the south end of the Strip, amazing views, fab spacious room with a real top end luxurious fell. Freshened up and went down to explore the notel, OMG, amazing place, the whole notel is like a ... read more

A great nights sleep when we could eventually close our eyes against the fantastic view of the strip all lit up in its glory! Starbucks breakfast and out to explore and check off some of the things on our list! Now most people will have no idea of what we are talking about now, but Alex and I are big fans od a couple of shows on the History Channel, Pawn Stars and Ricks Restoration, both shows based in Las Vegas, the former set in a Vegas Pawn Shop and the latter in a restoration yard, both shows often get mingled, with the owners/workers requiring each others services, these guys are mini celebs in the US. So off we drove to the Pawn Shop hoping to catch a glimpse of the team, arrived there to find ... read more

After our first experience of ordinary service, by American standards (normal service by Australian standard), at breakfast this morning we hopped in the car and headed to the desert. We drove out to the Valley of Fire and then on to Lake Mead. A round trip of around 160kms and more photo opportunities than poker machines in Vegas, nah that's impossible. Once again the roads were first class, even the windy scenic drive through the desert where the roads people have very carefully laid the roads over the natural countours of the desert were smooth as silk and the interstates are just so easy to drive on. In The Valley of Fire State Park we stopped at The Beehives, Visitors Centre, White Domes and Elephant Rock taking around 130 photos. I have been through and tried ... read more

Sadly we left the Grand Hotel at Tusayan on the South rim of the Grand Canyon this morning. We enjoyed the hotel nearly as much as the canyon itself. I have included a few photos of the lodge type hotel the Grand Hotel is. On the way we saw Smokey the Bear and made our way for one last visit to the Desert View Lookout on the North East end of the South rim. We arrived pretty early to an almost empty carpark, in a lot that would comfortably park 300 cars, and took a series of photos in near perfect light and under crystal clear blue skies, While Sammy the Squirrel was picking at lightening speed! Temperatures still hovering at or just above zero. The drive from the Grand Canyon to Las Vegas is stunning. ... read more

Las Vegas and Grand Canyon Tuesday/Wednesday Left home at 4.15am on Monday morning for our 5.30am flight from Cairns to Brisbane. In Brisbane we had a 3 hour wait for our flight to Los Angeles. The flight was 13.5 hours I think and went much better than expected. We got 2 meals, watched movies, played games had a few drinks and a couple of little naps. After landing in LAX and going through immigration, we had another 3 hour wait for our flight to Las Vegas. We flew with SouthWest and people bring their dogs on the plane! We got a cab to our hotel, the Flamingo which is about in the middle of the Las Vegas Boulevard. We were upgraded to a mini suite and it was awesome! We had a great view of the ... read more

VIVA LAS VEGAS On a lazy Sunday afternoon in the middle of September while drinking beer and watching football, basically just wasting time and not doing anything that can be construed as something even mildly meaningful, I decided that I should go somewhere someplace sometime in the very near future to waste even more time and do something even more meaningless and spend a week doing something so utterly worthless that one might wonder what the reason would be behind doing something so pointless. Well, there is no reason at all I am glad to say, and that's the whole point of traveling in the first place, at least for me, a pointless journey to a random spot on the map of this here planet Earth, an excercise so meaningless but spiritually so fulfilling and very ... read more