In Vegas, baby!

So on Saturday morning Ben, Dave, Robin and I all drove towards Vegas in separate cars. On the way there we met up with Andy and George. Sadly Andy & George were sharing a car, a concept that I just couldn’t get on with. A front wheel drive car at that.

The drive to Vegas was relatively dull. I did enjoy this particular piece of truck-moving excellence.

truck movers

I15, the highway from Pasadena to Vegas, is quite hilly.

4000 ft

This further revealed the crapness of my car. At 75mph, with cruise control on, the car’s auto-box would be in fourth gear. That also happens to be its highest ratio. The road would go uphill, and I’d notice the speed drop to just below 70, at which point the car would have to change to 3rd. This is on a freeway, not a steep mountain road! To actually get the thing back up to 75 I needed to floor it, forcing it to drop to 2nd. Awful! Really frustrating for those following me in better cars too – sorry guys!

Once in Vegas we had an excellent boys night out – no photos I’m afraid! Las Vegas at night is awesome!

night1

We stayed at a fairly minging hotel called Tropicana, and walked to Palms for a night out. Be warned – that’s a 40 minute walk! The next day we rose late and had a hearty breakfast in Hooters. The girls were joining us for the next two nights, so we had booked a rather more swanky hotel for that duration: the MGM grand.

MGM grand

Quick sidenote – the US practise of permitting a right turn at a junction even when the lights are red (UK equivalent turning left) is brilliant. I think it would really improve traffic flow over here. Of course, their inability to cope with the concept of a free-flowing roundabout more than destroys any overall advantage the turn on red might give them.

Sorry, where was I? Ah yes, in Las Vegas.

Vegas in my eyes

In Vegas, there are escalators on the street. Wow!

street escalators

Our hotel was immense. Walking from the room to reception? 7 minutes, solid walking. To the car in the adjoining car park? Another 7 or so minutes. The casino flow stretched as far as the eye could see, with countless restaurants, bars, shops and facilities. We counted 3 branches of Starbucks within our hotel. There might well be more – there’s no way we explored the whole place – we hadn’t brought hiking gear! Oh I nearly forgot to mention, there was a pride of lions living in our hotel foyer too.

lion

On the Saturday night the others went out to see a magic show. I was more interested in sleeping – so got 11 much needed quality hours in. Turns out the only thing I really felt I missed was the most hilarious restaurant name:

gaylords!

On Sunday we set about exploring Vegas by day. We nipped across the walkway from our hotel into our neighbouring ‘resort’ – “New York New York”.

New York!

New York was like our hotel in terms of scale. No lions, but instead they had a rollercoaster running throughout the building which popped out onto the roof for a bit too. This next picture was taken inside:

inside new york

A veritable indoor city. We set about having breakfast. Ben won my holiday award for best breakfast: he had two huge slices of pizza, a large bottle of Peroni and a massive Ben & Jerry’s ice cream.

ben & jerrys

We then took the monorail and went for a wonder. I found this great car with the licence plate “LOW MOE”.

LO MOE

Did Ben & Sarah get married in Vegas? Was Elvis really a witness?

wedding venue

We went up the Stratosphere tower – 1,000 ft above the strip.

strat1

From right on top, the views were immense!

strat2

strip from strat

strat3

Yes, there’s even a Starbucks up there too! There are a few white knuckle rides up there – including this one for grade A loonies:

loony ride

We then nipped to Mirage – another ‘resort’ (hotel). They had a zoo. As you do.

dolphins

cub

We returned to the hotel for a quick rest and a drink, and then set out to explore the city by night.

night 1

We saw the Bellagio fountains do their thing:

night 2

And saw some more great hotel receptions:

MGM reception

Bellagio reception

On the Monday be popped to the Venetian on our way out of Vegas. Unreal! Full on canals, St Mark’s Square, punts, the lot! Yes, the photo below is again, taken indoors.

Venetian 1

Then it was goodbye to Vegas, and we pointed our cars at Arizona.