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Published: October 19th 2009
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Gondola rides at the Venetian.Monday, was Columbus day here. A public holiday but only for some schools and some government depts. We packed up in San Diego and drove to Las Vegas. Once we got out of the populated areas we were into rocky dessert areas again then into the Mojave dessert which is a boring rolling hills dessert. We did see some Joshua trees along the way though. Then out in the middle of no where , we came across a little town with a big casino, roller coaster, flashing signs the works. Gas station, Taco bell etc and then blink we were back into the boring dessert again. Welcome to Nevada!!. Typical we had missed Kenny Rogers as he was at that little pokey town last night in concert. Not much further we slowly came across Las Vegas, It seems to loom up as the casinos seem to get bigger and bigger. You can see the major ones from a good distance away. After getting through a traffic jam, we found our campground out the back of the Circus Circus Hotel/casino. Not alot of trees or greenery here. Ashphelt and rockeries are the norm around here. But what a location, we can walk
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Inside the Venetian casino. to the strip !! We can see the Stratosphere out our window when we sat down to tea. Josh and I found the tv room with a 50 plasma tv, watched the Miami Dolphins beat the New York Jets in an awesome game of football. Miami won it with a touchdown, with 16 seconds to go.
Tuesday we went for a walk around the place. We walked through Circus Circus. They have got an awesome place for the kids called The adventuredome Kids could stay in there all day as it has a cool roller coaster that goes in and around this mountain, other theme park type rides. Around the sides it has boardwalk type entertainment like getting tattoes, I got barbed wire around my arm and Tori got a star. We both got our pictures taken and put onto a hologram keychain. These chinesse guys were doing faces out of clay of people as they sat there. They were amazing how accurate they were.We found a couple of places selling last minute tickets to shows at discount prices, so we booked one for tonight. Kylie and Josh wanted to go to the CSI experience over at the MGM. So
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Water show out the front of the Bellagio. we dropped them off and Tori and I spent more time in the adventuredome. Tori went on this ride that she sat her in a seat, then shot here up in the air and back down again. she loved it. They also have free shows at different times during the day. We caught the clown act and these two people doing balancing type act. They were good. I beat Tori at the blow up the balloon with water gun race, she still got the prize, Like we need another stuffed fish in the trailer !! By then it was time to go and pick up our wanna be detectives. By the sound of it they had a ball. They had to look at 1 of 3 mock crimescenes then go around and work out from all the clues, Who Done It !! When they answered it correct, they got a certificate from Grisom to say well done. Came home and had a quick tea before heading over the road to the Riveria casino to watch a Russian performance on ice. Some of the performers had represented Russia at the olympics. It was a good show with them doing some amazing
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Eifel tower in Vegas. tricks on ice skates. After there we walked down the strip abit as it was so warm. Its been about 17 degrees at night here.
Wednesday we had a slow morning before driving down to Treasure Island Casino as all of them have free parking. Cheaper than catching the $3 one way or $7 for 24 hrs bus that goes up and down the strip. Walked through there and over to the Venetian casino. Its like taking the kids on a trip around the world all in one city. Inside the entrance, is this amazing painted ceiling like something you would see somewhere in Italy. As we walked through the maze of alleys with all their name brand shops along them . We couldn't help but look up at the roof in wonder as it is painted to look like the sky. And it does !! The men dressed in their black and white striped shirts were singing to their customers as they row them through the canals . The canals weave their way past the shops and the restaurants and bars that are situated all through the place. We watched some street performers for awhile before finding a food
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Halloween theme on Freemont street. court. You could spend all day in there and thats only one of the many casinos.
Out of there and up the escalator and over the road to the Bellagio. We watched the incredible water display that goes off all day with a 3 minute gap between them . Its huge and amazing what money can do. We found a chinesse takeaways and a Mexican takeaways in the same place, so that was us for a very nice tea. Then we drove down Las Vegas Boulavard to the Old downtown Vegas. They have closed down the main street and covered it with 4 acres of curved roof that has video showing along it. After dark on the hour they dim the rest of the lights in the street and do an amazing video show on the roof. They change the show quite often by the sounds of it, they are doing a halloween theme at the moment. After that we watched a free show by an Illusionist. It was really good, he had a giant screwing machine go right through his stomach , took away the blanket and the screwing machine lifted him up into the air. When it put
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Hoover Dam from the air. him back down again, back came the blanket and low and behold the screwing machine went backwards and he was left unhurt. He did some other tricks that were pretty cool too. All along in front of the casinos are side shows doing allsorts. One that caught Joshs eye is these guys painting paintings using spray cans and a scraper. They were good !! so Josh got them to do him a painting of a view of Las Vegas in the reflection of spidermans eye. Ill give him that , he doesn buy much but when he sees something he really likes he buys it. By the time we got home it was after 10.30pm, thats 2 late nights so far.
Thursday, everyone had a sleep in this morning. Kylie cooked us all sausages, hash browns, scrambled eggs for brekkie UUmmm what a way to start the day. The kids went over and played air hockey and pool in the games room by the office for awhile. We had to be out the front of the casino at 12.30 to meet the shuttle bus that would take us to the airport for our flight over the Grand Canyon. We got
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West rim of the Grand canyon. a 1 1/4 hr flight over Hoover dam, Lake Mead and the west rim of the Grand Canyon . We left from a little airport on the north side of town. It was a 20 seater plane and we all got window seats, we got earmuffs to put on so we had a comantary all the way along.Except for Josh who didn't tell anyone that he couldn hear much of it till afterwards. Las Vegas has a population of over 2 million people, that surprised me. When you get up in the air you can see where they all live, its a very spread out place. DRY, all you see is brown everywhere. The only place thats green is the golf course and it stands out big time. Once over Hoover dam , you get to see how large Lake Mead is. Its the largest man made lake in America. and the Colorado river that runs out through California to the ocean. The view of the Canyon is definately better to be seen by airplane. Parts of the canyon are lke table tops, flat like a pancake then 400-500 ft drop offs that go straight down to the river below.
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Lakers vs the Kings The water is a real clean looking blue colour with a bluey-green tinge around the edges by the rocks. The white distinct line on the rocks shows where the water level has been up to in past years. Today its about 100 ft lower than that due to poor snow falls in the Rockies in the last few years. Our little plane bobbed around over the canyons due to the wind shifts,1 1/4 hr was just enough for me, lucky we all had a good a/c vent that blast right at us. Josh and I went for a swim when we got back as its up over 30 degrees during the day. WOW , too bad the water in the pool hadn heated up. I jumped in one end and got out at the other. Lucky the spa pool isnt set too high, it was luke warm just nice. Had tea and then jumped in the car and click, click,click. The battery was dead. I was in it earlier trying to find the stadium so we could go to the basketball and had left the key on. So we locked it and started walking out the front to get a
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The crew in front of the turbines at the Hoover Dam. taxi. When we got to the Thomas and Mack stadium, it was fairly busy out the front. I had to line up at the will call line to get our tickets . I managed to find us $10 tickets to see the LA Lakers play the Sacremento Kings. As usual we had an awesome view of the whole arena !!! The lakers bought their cheerleaders with them to this preseason game. It was evident pretty soon after tip off that the Lakers were going to play the game like they were the Harlem globe trotters. With their fancy behind their backs passes and bounce ball lay ups. Much to the crowds delight of course. The Kings played basic basketball to stay in the game but the lakers were always going to win it. The final score was 98-92. The referees over here are on strike over pay at the moment and it means they are using all the college basketball referees. I was reading in the news were they are struggling at some games to keep up with the pace of the NBL game. Stars are getting fouled out of games which theyre not happy about. Coby Bryant was the
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Water intake tower and lake level of Lake Mead. star here tonight, everyone has his shirts on. At $105 for his singlet I left it on the shelf where it was thankyou. We walked back into town with this Pommie newlywed couple we meat in the line for a taxi. Problem was the taxis werent going anywhere as there was so much traffic trying to get out after the game. It wasn't that long a walk back to the strip. We found our chinesse/Mexican place for a late night treat before getting a taxi home. It was after midnight by now, another long day.
Friday, we made our lunches and jumped in the car to head out to Hoover dam. Click, click, click again. The bloody thing started last night when we got home. So I went over to the office and a guy came over and gave us a jump start. I bought some jumper leads on the way out of town. Hoover Dam isn't far out of town ,only about 3/4 hr drive. We did the power plant tour, which takes you down to the turbines on the Nevada side. There are 7 turbines on the Nevada side and 8 on the Arizona side. Yes the state
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The new bridge being built at Hoover dam to bypass traffic. line is down the middle of the dam. Built during the great depression between 1930-35. It was the largest contract given out by the government at the time. At the top of the dam the concrete is 45 ft thick, at the bottom it is 660 ft thick. Very reasuring when youre standing behind that wall. From there we went for a drive around the western side of Lake Mead. It part of a National Park, so had to pay to get in. Beautiful lake, there were people out water skiing on it. Alot of fishing for Bass is done also. From there it was back to town and a catch up in the trailer .After tea we drove down to New York, New York casino. Walked out of there down to the ESPN zone which is actually part of New York, New York. LOL Kids had money left on their card from New Yorks ESPN zone that were dying to use up. Wandered along to the Coke shop then the M&M shop. The places was humming for a friday night. Everywhere you walk there are people laughing and drinking walking down the street. Some are quite dressed up ,
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Hoover Dam. others just jeans and a t-shirt. Mind you it was 32 degrees at 7pm .We found a Wendys before heading home for an early night, it was before 10pm. Turned the computer on and caught up with my cousin Tracey as she is staying at Bevans place this week.
Saturday, today we went and found the outlet shops that Kylie has been wanted to go to. Bad mistake !! They have some very awesome shops there. I think the kids and I spent more than Kylie did as she was busy finding clothes and shoes for the kids. So after lunch tori and I left them to it. I thought i would go and look at boat shops as we saw some down by Lake Mead yesterday. We punched 3 into the GPS and all three have closed down . So that was a waste of an hour. We were just driving back to the campground when Josh rang to say they were ready to be picked up. After tea we drove down to Treasure Island again and caught the 7pm showing of the battle of the pirate ships in the front of Treasure Island. It was an awesome show
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Boaties on Lake Mead. with hundreds of people watching it. Then we walked down to the Mirage Casino and waited for the 8pm Volcano eruption. Its goes off every hour on the hour. Same thing hundreds of people line up to see it. It was pretty impressive. Its a huge waterfall normally then the water stops. Steam starts rising out the top, Then some loud explosions and flames shoot up out of the pond in front of us. Red lava looks like its coming down the side as more flames and steam come out the top. Then it all stops and the flames go out and the water comes trickling over the waterfall again.
Sunday we packed up and drove northeast towards Cedar City. Pulled in at Zion National park on the way. $25 for a car load to get in and then there's a free shuttle bus that runs up and down the valley during the peak summer months. Its finishs at the end of the month. So we jumped on that and got off at a couple of different places along the way. Zion is a long thin canyon that has been carved out by the Virgin river that flows through it.
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The Stratosphere. (Thats the name of the river) weather has slowly eroded it all away and now its left with stark contrasts of mountains. Sheer cliffs that are 2500 ft high in some places. Strange rock formations, similar to that of in the 'Badlands of South dakota' where the layers of rock are different colours. The distinct red and whites are from sediment that settled on there millions of years ago and got compacted into rock as other layers settled on top of them. Then as recently as 10 million years ago a major movement in the earth, pushed them up to their current position. See I did listen to the video we watched. They had a 20 minute movie of Zion National Park and about all the animals and rocks in the park. We lost an hour by crossing over into the mountain time zone today which didn't help us as we were running an hour behind then. So we stopped for tea at Taco bell and then kept driving on up to Cedar City in the dark. Got to our campground to find the office closed and no late registration like some of them have. So just found a site
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Kids downtown at night. and parked in it. We'll sort it out in the morning.
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Dave Owen
non-member comment
Greetings
Paul, look foreward to your blog , shit make me want to go there.....Hope your all keeping well, Dave O