Day 11 - Zion National Park, UTAH To Las Vegas, NEVADA

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Woke up this Sunday morning to another sunny day with fresh mountain air and we went back to Porters Restaurant for breakfast for the second time. We both had the Fruit Parfait and OJ and I had a coffee as well and did not realise our vouchers only allowed one beverage but the waiter said it was all OK. I’d overlooked to mention yesterday that I was able to watch the AFL Grand Final whilst we were staying here on Friday night on ESPN with coverage starting @ 10.30pm and I saw Geelong thrash the Sydney Swans on what looked like a beautiful Melbourne spring day.

As we walked back to our room at the back of the complex to get ready to check out we had a quick walk to see the adjoining hobby farm and saw the ducks, chickens, black sheeps, goats and pony horse it was a very peaceful scene compared with where we will be tonight.

We left around 9.00am for the 2.5 hour drive to Sin City. We had two route options presented by google maps, so I asked the receptionist for guidance on which route might be more interesting and she said go via Hurricane (not sure you’d want to live in a town with that name ?). Got some gas there whilst stopping for a quick break to stretch the legs and gas price has now increased to around $4.80 a gallon and I grabbed a Columbian blend of coffee from the 9 choices available. Kerry spotted a rather unusual scene at the gas station with someone towing what looked to be a house on the back of a pickup truck.

We kept on driving and roughly 100 miles from Las Vegas, we drove through a spectacular gorge carved by the Virgin River (the same river that carved out Zion NP). As the highway twists and turns above the river, enormous cliffs rise thousands of feet on either side. Apparently, other than Zion, this is the Virgin River’s most impressive natural feature. The road through the gorge, which opened in 1973, is one of the most expensive portions of America’s interstate highway system ever constructed (thanks to James Kaiser website for the fun facts).

We completed a final fuel stop as we approached Las Vegas as we had to leave the Lexus with a full tank and the gas price was now the highest we have paid at $5.35 per gallon. We drove down the strip and arrived at Paris Hotel around midday and decided to check in and then take the car to the Mirage Resort to drop it off at the Avis Depot. We had to drive to the parking garage at the back of the building and walk through the complex with all of our bags to the front of the hotel to check in and after waiting for 30 minutes in line we were told check in was not until 4.00pm unless we wanted to pay extra for early check in. We declined so we left our luggage with the porters for $10- and headed back to the car and it was now 12.40pm so we were getting close to the 1.00pm drop off time !

On leaving the car park we had a bit of a drama exiting as the boom gate required a ticket to allow us to leave but when I drove in earlier the boom gate was already open so we had no ticket, so I had to call for help and Kerry was getting stressed about being late and getting charged extra car rental fees. The situation was not helped when I took a wrong turn to explore the loading dock of the adjoining Planet Hollywood complex (not what you would call a scenic manoeuvre !

We eventually found our way to the Mirage Resort which is scheduled to be bulldozed soon including the famous Volcano that erupts on the hour that I saw on our first drive down the strip back in 1992 as a newly wed in the biggest car I have ever driven (I think it was a Lincoln Town Car that had a trunk so big it fitted 4 extremely large suitcases with ease. Into the parking lot at the rear and followed the Avis signs and no problems at all with car dropped off at 12.58pm and plenty of time to spare !

We now have 3 hours to kill before we can check in, so we headed to the front of the Mirage Hotel (it is such a long way from the back to the front of these buildings !) and once he hit the strip we noticed how hot is was outside (around 35 degrees) so in looking for some relief we headed across the road to the Venetian Resort and walked around the Grand Canal Shoppes which are beautifully done. The inside of the shopping mall looks like a scene from Venice with canals and gondola rides (only in Vegas !). Lots of women wearing sheer clothes with g-string bikinis underneath with high heels so I felt quite overdressed in my t-shirt and shorts. Kerry said I looked a little distracted but in reality I was extremely distracted !

We spent about an hour here and when we came out of the Venetian after having a Subway lunch we were further from Paris Hotel than where we started (wrong exit !) so starting heading south and the heat was too much so we pulled inside the next Casino to get some relief and we would repeat this for the next hour exploring Harrah’s, The Linq, Flamingo, and Ballys before arriving at Paris. The Flamingo was quite amazing with an oasis at the back near the pool with flamingos and other water animals to see. The pool was going off with doof doof music from a DJ (clearly a party pool).

We eventually arrived back in Paris Hotel around 3.30pm hoping this would be a good time and the line up to check in was like we were back at the Zion NP shuttle with around 200 people in front of me but on this occasion it would take 1.5 hours before I got the room keys. I tried the $20- cash around the credit card trick for an upgrade but forgot the crucial word “complimentary” so we were offered an upgrade for around $20- per night and we were moved from unimpressive view room overlooking the parking lot to a view overlooking the large swimming pool, Eiffel Tower and Bellagio fountains. Very much worth $20- per night.

We decided after so much walking we would have dinner in one of the restaurants downstairs and chose Cafe Americano where we were served by Guadalupe and I had the Turkey Foccacia and Kerry had Crab Bisque for $45- including tips.

We have the next 2 days here in Vegas to explore on foot. Welcome to Sin City !

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Comments

[Bruce]

Vegas
Loving the trip report. Make sure you dive out to the Valkey of Fire while you are in Vegas. It’s amazing we’ll worth the drive

[Amy]

Shopping ideas!
Haha very cheeky Mr Spanner! The real shopping question we have = is have you bought Kerry some of those g-strings you keep seeing around in Vegas?? haha Beautiful photos! and wow you are bringing back some memories of Vegas for us! Keep having the best time!!