Advertisement
Published: February 29th 2008
Edit Blog Post
There is only one road in to Vegas from California and we hit it in the morning. As the freeway got quieter the desert either side of us seemed to get bigger. All you can see is sandy hills either side of you and in front! It is exciting at first but the road just goes on and on and on! As we had time on our hands we had decided to stop off in Barstow. This town is full of pensioners and american people in a time warp! The motel guy had a limp and the kind of look that gives you the creeps, so we were pleased to be out of there in the morning!
The interstate continues on for a fair while before you drive through 2 small gambling cities that are there for people who just can't wait to get to Vegas to gamble. We could wait so drove on through Primm and Jean as they are called.
Now as our hotels weren't booked for a few days we decided to try some towns outside of Vegas. We headed for Boulder City. It is a quiet city (i would say it is more of a
town!). We headed out for possible the cheapest mexican and beers ever to be had and managed to escape the city piss head who wanted us to go out on his boat the following day, and whilst i was in the toilet, told ross he had the tools to show us a good time! (not sure what he meant about that, we're guessing it was something illegal!) We got out of there and ran back to our motel!!!
Next day we decide to check out the Hoover Dam which is a short drive away. We took a stroll over the bridge and i learnt a lot about rivers and dam's! Very educational but also fascinating to see this huge construction. We also took a walk into Arizona as the state line is bang in the middle of the river. So that's 3 states we have been to in America so far! CA, NV and AZ (not sure Arizona really counts!)
Driving back we saw possibly the cheapest nights accomodation in lights at a hotel/casino! $30 (15 pounds!) for a room so snapped it up and booked ourselves in the following night. This place is quite cheeky really it
was built on the border of the city for the workers of the dam to get their gambling fix, as gambling is not legal in Boulder where they all stayed. Anyway we had fun there. Entered a poker tournament together and we were sat on different tables. I was a bit intimidated by the old men who all knew each other and decided to talk about me and not too me. We managed to hold our own though. (we won't go on about poker as much as we LOVE it!)
Next day we take our first "hike" together along the old rail road that runs alongside Lake Mead to the Hoover Dam. It is an 8 mile round trip, the sun was shining and was quite flat so wasn't very challanging for us newcombers to the world of hiking! We couldn't help but smile whilst we took in some spectacular views of Lake Mead, and then saw the Hoover Dam for the 2nd time!!!
Our next mini adventure was to check out Red Rock Canyon and whilst doing so came across an Old Nevada town called Bonnie Springs. One way in, one way out! Looked cool so we
checked into the motel there that gave us free entry to the petting zoo and the old town, with free shows. It is like a town out of the Wild West and you can see red rock canyon all around you. The shows were geared towards kids but ross got accosted to join in one of the shows and actually got involved in the local hanging!!!
O.K. so now the time had come to head onto "The Strip". It had been well interesting driving around Las Vegas and it is not difficult to believe that it is the fastest growing city in America. Developments are popping up everywhere. As we took our first drive along the strip we were quite suprised to see a few of the hotels that were there a couple of years ago gone, and some new impressive ones have popped up. The impressive Donald Trump Gold building and Planet Hollywood to name a couple. Well we had 5 nights booked so started off at Circus Circus and then onto the Stratosphere for a couple of nights. Of course we went up the tower and enjoyed a very pleasent lunch at the Top of World Restaurant.
We treated ourselves to 3 courses so that we would revolve around at least once whilst we were there! Very cool.
Our hotels then got posher as we stayed in New York, New York and then the Luxor. We stretched our stay one last night and had a cheap one in the Sahara! Las Vegas is as cool as ever and we enjoyed a bit of mild gambling, but it was also frustrating not having money to spare. Our best win was sticking one dollar in a one cent machine (just so we could get a free drink off a waitress) and after the first spin winning the maxi jackpot of $178. Ha ha how cool!!!!
We spent a night in downtown vegas enjoying the free light show and some very bendy gymnastic argentinians doing acrobats! We also had a nasty time share experience one day where we did get free show tickets. (nothing could really compensate the annoyance of the whole thing though) We won't bore you with the details but involved a very intense sales experience for about 4 hours being trapped in a building. Anyone that has got roped into something similar will know what
we mean.
Our trip to Vegas was great, but we couldn't help but feel liberated to be leaving too! Those flashing lights, the lure of the "jackpot", the urge to put chips on our favourite numbers on the roulette and just the feeling of non stop partying taking over us and sucking us in.
We decided to drive the interstate back to LA and stopped off at a quiet place called Gancho Cucamonga! Cool name! We were then heading to Orange County to go and enjoy some of the lovely beaches that we drove through in the pouring rain first time around.
Oh forgot to mention to any of you American Football fans that we watched the superbowl in Vegas. It is such a big deal in America and there were adverts on TV for the run up all going on about what ppl were going to eat during the superbowl and different recipes for chilli's and how to hold the best superbowl party. It seems that everyone in America watches the game whether their team are playing or not. Well the Giants won and defeated the Patriots who had been unbeaten all season. It was pretty
The famous sign
Had to pull over in middle of busy road to capture but had to be done! exciting!! Well to be fair the atmosphere was for us, not neccessarily the game itself!!!!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.091s; Tpl: 0.024s; cc: 7; qc: 44; dbt: 0.0385s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb