..... After one of our best nights sleep, we drove 8 miles to Shoshone, a very small town in the middle of Death Valley which had an Internet Cafe. It wasn't so much of an internet cafe as someones home where they converted the lounge into a small cafe area and had their own computar set up in the back. The owner was Dave and he lived there with his 5yr old son Olivia (who can only be described as an adorable brat who didn't want us to use the computar as he was in the middle of a spongebob squarepants game). After a quick 10 mins of checking our email ( no one loved us today) and booking our Las Vegas accomodation we quickly departed as Olivio was getting rather impatient.

Next stop was Pahrump (where do they get the names from?) where we were only going to stop to get petrol, but decided that the car needed a wash (you can imagine how dirty it was driving through the desert and we had to portray a good image in Las Vegas just incase we were mingling with any stars). So whilst we waited we went to a cafe across the forecourt for lunch. We got the usual chatter from the waitress, at one point she even followed Kate to the toilet and chatted to her mid pee, which we thought was taking the love of our accent that little bit too far. She told us that her bosses were from Ipswich at which point they walked in. Out of politeness and the fact that the waitress dragged them over to chat with us, they joined us at the table. Are we glad they did! Lovely couple and invaluable to us as they gave us the low down of the do's, dont's and must sees in Vegas, we left the cafe VERY excited.

It was about an hour later when we hit 'the strip' WOW!! We purposely drove right passed our hotel and oohed! and arrghed! over the fantastic sights of all the other hotels. We had booked ourselves in the Luxor, and for those of you who aren't familiar with Vegas it was a giant glass pyramid with a 35ft Sphinx guarding its entrance ( sphinx was bigger than the original one in Egypt). The inside was just as spectacular with the egyptian theme running right the way through. When we checked in we were given the keys to a 25 floor room and told we would have to use the 'inclinator'. The inclinator, very much like an elevator only went up and down diagonally ( being in a pyramid shaped building it made sense). The room was luxury, we did that thing you see in the movies and ran in and jumped on the beds. We lay there thinking about how lucky we were, not only to be in Vegas but it was quite a feat to be in a 4star hotel on a travellers budget, more likle flashpackers than backpackers but that's no surprise to all that know me.

Dinner was at Alladins over the road, which is not as easy to get to as it sounds. All the hotels were massive and sprawling, you would have to pass one to get to the other and whilst following the flow of people you would end up inside one, not knowing how the hell you got out and being distracted by all the sites. Needless to say dinner was quite late this evening. The one we got lost in first was New York New York. It was very odd to walk from Egypt, then see the Statue of Liberty in front of you and look in amazement as a rollercoaster wooshed past you going through the hotel and back out again. Then whilst in the hotel you would look out acrooss the way and see the Eiffel Tower - Bizarre! Aladdins was fab we had an all you can eat buffet which we ate very quickly as we were itching to get out and see more sites. We wondered down desert passage which was the shopping arcade linked to Alladins, and watched the rain storm which occured every half hour in the middle of the arcade, sound affects and everything- only in Vegas! This was the first to tick off the list of our must see's adviced by our Ipswich friends and there were plenty more to come.

Next was the Bellagio Fountains, it is hard to decribe how spectacular they were. Who knew water could defy gravity like that? We stood in amazement and silence for at least 15 mins. Deciding to save the rest of the spectacles for the other days of our stay, we headed back to Luxor where we sat by the slot machines, playing with 1 dollars, on machines we had no clue how to work, but acting on the tip we were given, that if we looked like we were gambling we would be served free drinks, and it worked. Well, it worked the once anyway, it was very hard to get the attention of the scantily clad waitresses ( which we fondly nicknamed them) and look like you knew what you were doing on the machine, but it saved as a couple of quid from buying drinks at the bar ( travellers budget and everything). 3am time for bed.

We finally got that well deserved lie in and didn't stir til gone 11am, but it was a quick shower and change, as we were on a mission for breakfast and 'cirque du soleil' tickets. Our plan was to buy ' cirque show tickets for that evening and the luxor's in house show tickets ' burn the floor', for the next evening. But following the general theme of my travels, not everything goes according to plan, or does it?? We could only find tickets for $95 to see Mystere for the following evening as unknown to us most of the shows didn't run on a tuesday ( today being a tuesday). This meant that 'burn the floor'was a no go, so we were going to have to find something interesting to do that evening. With much deliberation over lunch, but certainly no need for arm twisting we decided what we were going to do,WERE WE IN FOR A TREAT!!........ Lunch was eaten in Flamingos (imagine the big, pink, neon sign which adorned its entrance), which was pleasant, followed by a walk around the gardens amongst the tropical birds (flamingoes included, obviously). Lunch was again eaten quite late as we kept on getting side tracked, so after, we headed straight back to our hotel to get ready for our evenings entertainment.

We did the pretend gambling thing again, but like the evening before it took awhile for the 'scantily clads' to acknowledge us, so we only got  one drink before catching a taxi to Fremont Street. Fremont street was the warm up act before our proper nights entertainment and again taken on reccomendation from the Ipswich couple. When we arrived it just looked like an offshout of 'the strip' with prehaps slightly more neon. There were alot of people milling around, so we knew  something was soon to happen, yet could only vaguely remember what it was we were going to be seeing. Then all the neon lights went out and everyone looked up, so of course we followed suite. Then suddenly in the roof which was apparantly the length of a few football fields back to back, turned into one giant video ceiling for 10 mins it was awesome! But you'll have to see the pics to appreciate it. Next destination was back on 'the strip' to Riviera Hotel where we went straight to the bar to settle our nerves. We were actually dreading the next part of our evening as we didn't know what to expect. Then once 10 secs into the show, all 'britishness' was out the window and we had FUN ( with a capitol f, u and n) If you haven't all guessed already we had booked to go and see some male strippers. American Storm was their name, an amateur group who had been selected as part of a VH1 documentary which had travelled the US to look for the best looking men to start a strip act, I actually remember seeing some episodes of the documentary when I was home. What I didn't remember, was how successful they were at finding the best looking men in America ( I'm even drooling whilst writing this oh my giddy aunt!!) What a couple of hours, gorgeus bodies, beautiful faces, did I mention the gorgeus bodies. Bought a calendar and dreamed about them the entire 1and a half hour walk home to the other end 'the strip'. What was also nice was the beam of light that came from our hotel that is apparantly the brightest light in the world and can be seen from the moon, that guided us back.

Following day after dreaming all night of my new husband/s from American Storm( they don't build them like that in Wales), we spent most of the day sun-bathing by the pool. This was a novelty for us as sun wasn't the easiest theing to find during our US travels. Tonight we were going to see 'Mystere' a cirgue du soleil show, ( for anyone who hasn't heard of cirque du soleil, its acrobats and circus acts from all around the world with the brightest costumes imaginable, with a storyline and a script). Dinner at Monte Carlo first, lovely Italian, then a walk up to Treasure Island where the show was being held. Mystere was beyond any of my wildest expectations, it was amazing. How the acts learn't to do some of the things they did, was truly incredible and it was comical too. Both of us new instantly, that if possible we were going to stay another night and see 'O' another cirque show. We went to bed with bigger smiles on our faces than the previous night, but still dreamt of my American Storm boys. Up early the next morning, as we needed to seek out tickets for 'O'. After about 20 nail biting minutes, we reserved our tickets for another $95 each, budget, what budget? Then proceeded downstairs to book another nights accomodation. Luckily it was only a thursday as when we booked our extra nights stay for $80 we overheard them saying the next night the rate went up to $259 phew! Spent our extra afternoon by the pool but decided to get ready early that evening so we could take advantage of the extra night and go and see everything we hadn't yet fitted in (well not quite everything). Dinner was at Rainforest Cafe in MGM. On entering the hotel we came across a cage with 2 lion cubs roaming around (yes, inside the hotel) and the rainforest cafe was an experience in itself. Every half our or so drums would sound, animals were heard and it had a tropical storm in the middle of the restaurant. Even some of the fake animals scattered around moved. Then we did a quick tour of M and M world simply to try to understand how they can dedicate a 4 storey building to a brand of chocolate (and not even a nice brand of chocolate if you ask me). And our final destination before the show, which was held in Bellagio, was the Venetian. The architecture was incredible, it was like a little Italy, complete with gondalars (not sure how you spell it) and singing oarsmen, which you could ride on, down the river in the middle of the hotel - breathtaking! Bellagio was just as fantastic, with its own tropical greenhouse and an entrance ceiling covered in glass flowers, almost as good as the michelangelo painted ceilings running through the Venetian ( who needs the cisteen chapel). 'O' was again better than expected, this time it was themed around water, synchronised swimming and dives that would have beaten any olympic or world champion dive, all done in the most magnificent costumes- Jaw Dropping!! I so didn't want to leave Vegas Boo Hoo!..............