LAS VEGAS

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Sunday night 10th October

Las Vegas (pop 1.3 Million)

We walk out of the Luxor and onto the street!! As i look up into the sky above i see that we have a ray of light being beamed out the point of our pyramid into the night sky. Looks cool and it will shine the way home if we get lost which i doubt.
Only another hundred yards walk and we are standing at the far end of the famous Vegas Strip looking down at the dazzling lights and LED screens that cover the strip.

We hauled off to the New York New York hotel and casino and didnt mess around and before we knew it we were jumping straight onto the roller Coaster that dips and curves its way around the hotel roof and casino. It was a buzz flying around on the rails and when we got off our shoulders hurt a bit as we did a couple of 360's as well as a few twists at a fast pace.
The New York hotel and casino lives up to its name as it has a statue of libery, hudson river and Manhatten skyline skyscrapers which are the hotel rooms.

Across the road from here you can see the MGM casino complex which is massive and is very colourful with led lights which change al the time from green's, red's and blue's. We kept on walking down the strip passing all the well known casino's such as the Bellagio, The Flamingo, planet hollywood, Mirage, Caesers palace to name some.
The most awesome buildings I saw were the Veer Towers which each house 337 luxury condominium type accommodation. The towers actually lean to the left and right and look totally weird looking up from the street as you would think it impossible to build such towers. The colours and metal work are very snazzy and it has some high end fashion houses on the bottom floor such as Gucci, Prada, Chanel and Bvlgari to name some.

Time was getting on and its only our first night so we walked to the Venetian where they have a lake out the front with people in Gondola's floating around. The Venetian casino also have a half size Eiffel tower and mini arc de triomphe outside the hotel. What next one asks?

On the way back to the Luxor we stopped and watched the Water fountains at the Bellagio Hotel which was cool as they had Italian soprano's singing in time with the water jetting out of the lake in front of the hotel.
We've all heard of the Bellagio water displays but to be here standing watching is still a bit surreal for me but nevertheless breathtaking.

It was a good atmosphere in the luxor as was most of Vegas tonight especially as the date is 10.10.10 so lots of brides and grooms are everywhere you look.

We met some scottish people who were all dressed in kilts and had been at a wedding so we bummed in with them for a hour or so back at the luxor and played roulette for a while. We broke even after another hour and then called it a night.

Monday 11th October

Jill got up early and went to the hotel pool whereas I took a the chance for a long lie.
We had lunch and then went to Ups to see how much it would be to send a parcel home and for the weight, 9 Kilos it was going to cost us nearly two hundered pounds so we decided to walk a mile to the Post office and we were glad we did as they only charged us 60 pounds for the same weight.
No sign of the Parcel from Scotland yet, maybe tomorrow.

The sun is out and is blistering hot today so we took shade in a cafe and had a cold juice before heading to the ticket office to book our helicopter flight over the Grand Canyon. They could manage us on Wednesday which was perfect.
We then walked to the Miracle Mile shopping center which is fairly new and hosts a wide selection of shops you would normally find at home. We also went to the Fashion shopping center up the road which was more up market and stylish. This shopping center has a big silver thing outside that resembles a Ufo covering the whole roof almost!

We bought a couple of things here and then heaed back to the Hotel as it was starting to get a bit dark and we wanted to dump the bags off and get a change of tops as we had been sweating alot today. We are still debating whether to got to a cirque de soleil in the luxor or somewhere else. The Luxor has a guy called Chris Angel who is a famous Magician doing David Copperfield type grandeur illusions. Not my cup of tea but Jill has told me that she heard from someone that its not that good and it costs 50 pounds each!! We got recommended the treasure Island cirque de soleil show which was half the price and had more to offer. That's going to be tomorrow night so something to look forward to.

We paid $5 each for a 24hour bus pass and jumped on a gold line bus that would take us too Freemont. Freemont is another popular area about a mile away from the strip which also has a lot of casinos and also has the largest LCD tv screen in the world which is the actual screen is the roof of the Mall.
We grabbed some dinner here and waited for hourly show on the giant screen to begin above the long domed roof. Its about 100 metres long by about 20 metres. The lcd flickered into life and we were treated to a 15 minute spectacular display of lights and colourful videos whilst the music
played along at a booming volume. I have posted the video on my you tube account. It was worth the buss pass alone to come here
but we will use the pass again to come to the stratosphere observation tower tomorrow.

We spent the rest of the evening walking the Vegas strip as it really is spectacular to walk about at night as there's always something amazing to see. We watched the Bellagio water fountains again as it was showing a different sequence and song from the previous night and we walked through the Bellagio Casino which is outstanding and very plush indeed!! No gambling here for us as the stakes are pretty high and some serious looking players are hanging around waiting for a big poker tournament.

We got back to the Luxor via the Excaliber Casino and hotel as they are joined together by an underground/overground network of travelators and escalators and its pretty cool to walk through takin in the gambling atmosphere as you pass by people wildly playing Craps, roulette and blackjack. If you wanted you can carry on walking through from the Excaliber, Luxor and onto the Mandalay Hotel where you can catch a monorail which will take you back into inthe heart of the strip via the MGM casino. All very organised indeed. We had a laugh at one point because one of the Escalators wasnt working and people were walking up it. We heard one oversized American shouting 'god damn, i cant believe the escalators broken'. He was fairly having a wee rant too himself about it and we tittered to each other as we passed him up the 36 steps to the next working escalator.

Back at the luxor we decided to try our luck at the roulette again and got our winnings out from the night before and after about a hour or so we called it a night and had broken even. Not bad for us! Its 2am and its just as busy as it was at 9pm so you can imagine why the casinos cart people about on escalators and monorails all night long.

Tuesday 12 October

Same old weather today. 33oC and no wind!
We are glad we got the parcel sent off as we have much more room in our bags and its easier to pack. We hauled out for a late lunch down the strip and had another dander around the shops. We also picked up our tickets for the Cirque de soleil show at treasure island casino and it was due to start at around 9pm. We hopped on the bus just before the sun was setting hopeful that we would get up the obsevation tower in time to see it fully but it got dark so quick that we didnt see the sunset at all but we werent bothered as the veiws from the tower were amazing. You get a 360 degree view at the top and the restaurant here actually revolves around at a very slow pace so if you were dining here for a couple of hours your would do nearly 3 rotations of the city.
We were amazed at how quick the lift took us up and down the tower and the lift operator was a funny old coloured guy who was very witty and has us giggling all the way up to the top.
We use our bus pass again and manage to get back to the Treasure island for our show which was due to start in about 45 minutes.
We had a beer and sat down at a poker video machine and i put $2 and won $26!! Result, that'll pay for our popcorn and beers! We went along to the show and queued for about 10 minutes and sat down at our seats which very close to the front but to one side which was fine and we waited excitedly.

The show was fantasic!! It had everything from singers, dancers, a comedian, acrobats, tampolining, trapeze all in a bizarre themed show called mystique. It all sort of rolled into one big imaginitive story being broken up now and then by the old man that was the comedian come clown. The story was kind of meant to be seen through the eyes of a baby which was a grown up man dressed up in nappies and dummmy etc. I cant describe it to be honest, but i know it was 90 minutes of excellence and money well spent!! Go see it!

We slowly walked back to the luxor as we both have aching feet from all the walking about we've been doiong over the last few weeks.
We get back to the room and our phone message box is bleeping. We have a message. Jill picked up and listened and what a magic surprise we got...our parcel had arrived in room 11067!...well, when i say parcel I mean Anne and Duncan (Jill's mum and dad) were in the hotel!! They had flown over and checked in earlier today. What a surprise we got!
Its now past midnight and Jill hurriedly phone their room and spoke briefly and arranged to meet in the morning for breakfast. What a nice Surprise indeed. We are feeling a bit bad now as we are two days ahead of schedule and would be leaving Thursday instead of Saturday. Nevertheless we'll have a couple of days together which is really good!!

Wednesday 13th Ocotber

I left Jill to head off down to meet her mum and dad for breakfast to give3 them a couple of hours. We all met up in the lobby a little bit later on in the morning and headed off down the strip. Its a great feeling for Jill and I as we were starting to get on each others nerves a bit being stuck in the car driving about for long spells so its a breath of fresh air to have Anne and Duncan here with us. We went to the ticket office and bought tickets for a CSI adventure tour inside the MGM casino. Its a mock make up of the tv programme CSI vegas in which you are presented with a crime scene and you have to solve a pretend murder using forensic evidence given to you. You then take evidence and clues to the lab and office to try and work out who the main suspects and eventually the murderer!
It was good fun working as a team and of course we all guessed the right suspect and were awarded a CSI certificate as we left!!

We were starving after so we went for lunch around the corner and then Jill and I had to make our way to the Luxor as we were being picked up for our helicopter tour around the Grand Canyon, Lake Mead and Hoover Dam.

We got picked up a swanky bus which took us to just outside Boulder city where the Helicopter was waiting for us at the heliport. We checked in for our flight airport style and decided to pay extra to guarentee front seats beside the pilot as we've been waiting for this moment a good while now and want the best seats!
A quick safety video was played to us and the other 5 passengers before we were introduced to our pilot who was a young lad, super cool and friendly. He asked if we'd been on a helicopter and i said said 'yeh, around New York two months ago' I explained
that we were travelling the world and he said laughingly "im in the wrong job flying helicopters obviously". to which i chuckled 'awa n shite!' he laughed and asked where in Scotland I was as he'd heard of Aberdeen. As we carried on walking around to the
helicopter we spoke about Aberdeen and superpumas helicopters, the north sea and Sea Kings rescue helicopters. It helped calm the nerves on the 5 minute walk to the helicopter as there was helicopters taking off and landing around us.

We got photos of us around the helicopter and inside and he explained some do's and dont's before getting us seated. There were four in the front and four behind. There was the pilot then jill then me with a old man from Switzerland sitting at the window seat. Two couples from America sat behind and we all could talk to one another via the headsets.
One of the guys behind was an ex helicopter pilot himself which we dreaded but infact it was cool as he was asking pretty basic questions in regards airspeed, weight and power aswell as worst case scenarios etc. It was good to listen to them having the odd conversation during the flight yabbering on about helicopter stuff that was easy to understand and helped understand some basics about aviation.

So the pilot gets the rotors going and we lift off and stay at about 2metres off the ground until we reach the center of the runway. A quick ok from traffic control and we are off and flying, climbing up to 3000ft and then cruising at 110mph. We are glad we took this helicopter on the advice of the ticket office as its got a silencer on the rear prop which makes it so much quieter than the New York Helicopter plus it has anti-turbulence sensors underneath which give it a very smooth flight. The front seats were ace and well worth the extra £25 each!!

The pilot informs us that the trip is going to take us 80 minutes and we would cover about 120 miles. It was actually about 50 miles to the Canyon as we are going to be flying around the Hoover Dam and Lake Mead as part of our flight.
The pilot gave us a brief history on the dam and Leak Mead and its contributing rivers such as the Colorado river. As we were flying over at 3000 ft we could clearly see boats in the Lake and also we could see the full extent of the new bypass they were building past
and over the Dam.
Wow. Its a buzz being up here, we felt so safe. The Ex pilot in the back ask a few questions about sea levels and ground level differences when working out flight paths. Jill and I statred to ask questions through our head sets also and it was good laugh as we all started speaking about red bull and flying as someone asked the pilot if he ever got tired flying!

We reach the Canyon after about half an hour and we are told that the Canyon goes on for about 200 miles but they only allow flights over a small part of it in order to protect it from accidents and pollution. The pilot then pointed out the Glass skywalk that overhangs the Canyon. We were going to drive to the walkway on our trip up to Vegas from Flagstaff but decided against only because it was 4 hours out of our way and it cost about 30 pounds to walk it and your not allowed camera's.

We continued to fly through the Canyon only a mere 200 ft above the rim. Looking around you can see how the river and wind has cut away and formed the Canyon over millions of years. The colours and formations of some of the rocks were pretty and as we turned to head back to base we got a glimpse of the Canyon Plateau which spread out for miles on the Canyon top. It would have all been this level way back millions of years ago and gave you a perspective of it.
We flew another 25 miles north and cleared the Canyon and were now flying over the Colorado Mountains again. We passed over Lake Mead again and then we could see Boulder city approaching which signalled that we were about to land very soon. The sun glare is really bad now as the sun is about to set and its sitting low on the horizon... Im glad i'm not flying!!

We landed with very little effort at all and once the Props stopped spinning we got out with jelly legs!! Yet again we were the only ones to tip for grattitude but hey ho we were buzzing and couldnt thank the pilot enough..i just wish i could rememeber his name mind you!!

We were pretty tired after that and snoozed on the bus home.
We all met up at the hotel in the lobby and Hauled out for dinner at the MGM plaza which had a nice looking chinese restaurant.
The food was amazing and we were all pretty stuffed after the end of it. We talked for a while then headed back to the Luxor via the Excaliber. Anne and Duncan went to bed as it was getting late so we stayed up a wee while playing roulette and once more we broke even after about a hour or so. Not winning nor losing is fine by us!!

We are heading off tomorrow lunchtime to head back to San Francisco as we have booked tickets to see the world famous legendary DJ Paul Oakenfold. We are in two minds whether we should just stay in Vegas another two nights as we were meant to be here two days more going by our original itinerary but we arrived two days early so we only planned 4 days in Vegas.
We decide to go anyway as part of the reason we are heading to San Francisco is the fact that we want to drive down route 1 from San Francisco to Santa Cruz then Santa Maria which would take us down the golden west cost of California. Anne and Duncan are flying off to washington to see a friend there for a few days on Saturday so we hope they enjoyed us as much as we enjoyed seeing them.
We got back to our room and packed our bags and got ready for the long haul to San Fran tomorrow.

Thursday 14th October

We got up and all went for breakfast at denny's on the strip. The usual eat your self daft followed and we toddled back to the Luxor and headed to the valet spot where the guy would deliver our car to us. It turns out the guy, that gave us our car back, grandpa was from Arbroath. Small world indeed.
We said our fairwell's and we headed on the road again. It was tough leaving Jill's mum and dad behind as I realised how much we were missing our families and friends.
I reset my mileage counter as this trip is going to be mammoth!! We had one last stop before we leave town and that was at the Las Vegas sign.
Leaving Las Vegas!!

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