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After jumping in the car and setting up the sat-nav to Vegas, the Sat-Nav said that it would only take 3-4 hours to make to Vegas, Leah and I were pumped! We just needed to grab some lunch and fuel on the way. So we stopped off at a Shopping Centre in East LA and ended up eating a Italian Restaurant, I ate pizza and Leah had some pasta. Leah told me she was really hungry so we had some entree and dessert, the dessert just so happened Red Velet Cake, it was amazing! So we hopped back in the car and decided to keep going only this time when we checked the sat-nav (even though we had driven 45min from Hollywood) it said that it was going to take 5-6 hours. Leah and I looked at each other a little confused.... but then remembered that it was a long weekend here, (it was Friday and Monday was the Public Holiday) so everyone would be heading to Vegas for the weekend. Still we thought a little extra traffic wouldn't of slowed us down an exta couple of hours, never alone just stopping for lunch. So we kept driving and had after a quick stop for fuel found out that the sat-nav said we had 6-7 hour drive to get there. Leah and I were getting a little frustrated with the Sat-nav as each time we checked it, we thought we'd be closer to our destination and the time would go down, instead it was rising and at an alarming rate! So we continue on our drive along Highway 15 North which is nothing smaller than a 10-14 lane highway that tonight is full of traffic that eventually slows to crawl. So Leah and I decide that we should turn the radio on to try and find out what on earth is the hold up. After about 5mins we hear the traffic report stating that anyone using Highway 15 shouldn't as there's massive delays due to a huge bushfire and that we should take an alternate route! What a fire in the middle of a desert!? Damn! Don't you hate it when you get that really important bit of information just after you miss the last turn off for other highway that doens't have any delays =/ So Leah and I got to spend some quality time together in the car as we average about 10mph (16klms/h) for about 30 miles of bumper to bumper traffic.... I don't think I've ever seen a bigger car lot in my life! and neither of us want to hear of any traffic prolems you may have back home as they just can't compare! We were lucky enough to see lots of Helicopters in the sky both news or fire water dumpers (Leah and I get to experience our own ride later.) We were lucky our Dodge Charger is rather new so we didn't have any over heating/break down problems as the sides of highway was littered with cars with their car bonnets up. The most annoying thing about it was that once we got to the fire on the side of the highway the traffic in our direction went down from 5 to 4 lanes, they only cut ff 1 lane, yet because so many people want to stop and have a sticky beak it causes such choas! As soon as we passed the fire all the traffic ended up going full speed again! AARRRGGHH SSSOOO ANNNOYING!!! We just waited in 3 hours of traffic for nothing!
Leah and I after having our massive lunch and sitting in the car for 3 hours already really needed a pit stop (almost to the point of peeing ourselves). So we decided to stop at the first exit, as most of our last 3 hours of (so called) driving had been done on divided highway where we couldn't see traffic on the other side, it was a shock to see that on the other side of the fire there was an even bigger car park as they had closed the highway south completely!There were cars everywhere! Parked all over the place, Leah and I were lucky to find a place to park the car while we had our quick pit stops and headed back on the road. We then shared our stories of over hearing other people having to stay the night in the middle of nowhere, either camping it or staying in their cars or even heading back to where they came from as they were unable to make it to Los Angeles, as the highway was going to be closed until at least the next morning. After joining the highway again we make good progress through the busy traffic with nothing else to report except for the rolled SUV that everyone also decided to slow down for and look at, Again! We finally arrivied in Las Vegas at 10.30pm, just so you know our total driving time (not including stops) for our trip to Las Vegas on ended up being 8 hours!!!
If you ever want to drive to Vegas, make sure that drive in at Night! The glitz and glam of the lights is purely spectacular and easiest to see it all in a car! Both Leah and I were very impressed. We found our hotel the MGM Grand and after parking the car settled into our large room. Even though both of us were really exhausted we thought were in Vegas so we should at least check out our own Casino! The MGM is HUGE!!! Pokies, blackjack tables, poker tables and roulette all set up in massive rooms as far as the eye can see, with restaurants, theatres, eateries shops and even the odd Lion enclosure. It's a pretty crazy place packed full of all kinds of people, bucks and hens parties, loads of asians and generally people just wanting to have fun. We end up having a quick bite to eat before heading to bed, as both of us was completely stuffed from our trip.
After a good nights sleep we wake up a little refreshed and decided to eat breakfast in the Rainforest Cafe, this crazy restaurant offers the full rainforrest/safari experience with large stuffed animals surrounding the sitting area that move and make noises every 10mins, then every 20mins there's a tropical thunderstorm that lights up and shakes the room with mighty thunder strikes. Effectively loud enough to scare a poor old lady sitting at the table next to us, she thought it was an earth quake. =p Breakfast was large and tasty both us enjoying the food and experience.
Today our plan was to grab everything out of the car, as it had to be returned, do some washing and hopefully have enough time before 3pm to drive down the strip as its the easiest way explore Vegas (another car park by the way).
After doing our washing and returning the car we decided it time to check out some of the other nearby casino's. The closest casinos being New York New York, Excalibur and Tropicana, all with their own different themes, amusments and shows. New York New York being a small scale replica of the City of New York, complete with its very own rollercoaster, Excalibur a medievil castle and Tropicana which is pretty self explanetary. After our night in our comfy room and eating a good breakfast in the air conditioning it's easy to forget that Vegas is built in the middle of the desert but you are quickly reminded of this when you walk outside as the temperature is hot (the days of our stay averaging around 35 degrees). After spending some time walking in and out of all the different casino's it becomes rather annoying after while as you're always walking in and out of hot and cold air, I dunno if it's good for ya body either.
After another quick brisket sandwich for dinner we decided to see our first show in Vegas the MGM Grand Crazy Horse Show. It is a burlesque/cabaret type show, in the words of their website: Crazy Horse Paris celebrates the beauty and sensuality of women. Witness sexy perfected as beautiful dancers combine sensuous choreography, stunning light displays, and film to portray the female form as art. Very much like its namesake in Paris for those who have seen it. Also they had this guy duo called the Scott Bros that was pretty insane.. Leah tells me there type of dancing is called popping, you may have seen it before if you have ever seen any shows on tv like so you think you can dance, its almost robotic, but then still completey different. As the show finished around midnight we stayed down in the casino for about another hour, losing a few dollars in some of the pokies before heading to bed, as we were still trying to recover from the trip getting there.
After a massive sleep in we decided to go for a wander around the MGM again and check out the pools!!! Wow this place was awesome, the MGM has no less than 6 pools. One a party pool made for nothing else then downing a drink while dancing to the DJ music, another pool for kids, one for grown ups, one similar to Calipso beach at Wet 'n' Wild except it was also a drinking area, a sports pool with volleyball net and suppose they had to have one for acutal swimming didn't they. After checkin out the party pools we headed down the other end of the strip, going through Paris and the Bellagio hotels before the heat got to us and we decided to bus it home, after checking out the bus route we decided to just stay on the bus til the last stop which just happens to be a massive factory outlet shopping centre. After wandering around for a while checking out just how inexpensive some of the stuff really is (if only we had the bag space) it was time to jump back on the bus as we had a date with our next vegas show, The Lion King. Well the show was great, the props and costuming were fantastic, the singing... well not so much.. which was unfortunate as we did really enjoy the show we just thought it could be better I suppose!! Anyway as we where already in Mandalay Bay for the show, we decided to check out the casino and also see the Shark Reef Aquarium. The Aquarium was good, not unlike many of the ones we have all been to back home (thats the problem coming from a country thats a massive island I suppose, we are a bit spoilt like that!!) after seeing the sharks, turtles, fish, alligators and even a komodo dragon it was time to head home, but not before Mark decided he wanted to pat a giant stingray that was part of a "touch tank" actually in the tank there was probably around 20 different rays you could touch.... no thank you... still Mark managed to survive his stingray encounter... Once back in our Hotel we decided to check out the buffet... now this buffet was the biggest one I had ever seen in my life! You could pretty much choose from anything you could imagine: seafood, italian, indian, thai and american food, including them cooking your own steak was available and thats not even mentioning the desserts buffet! Safe to say we hit it pretty hard.. then it was off to bed as we knew we had a big big day coming up, not to mention our last day in vegas.
The day had finally arrived, today we were heading out to see the Grand Canyon via Helicopter. We got up early, got ready and headed downstairs for our breaky and to wait for our transfer bus to pick us up. We had a tiny bit of spare time before the bus got there so we chucked a few dollars through the pokies and to our amusment my machine won $20... what a nice start to the day!! The bus headed to a couple more hotels after ours and once we filled the bus completely we hit the road for the 25 min trip to the Boulder City Air Terminal where our tour was to leave from. The bus driver was like having our very own tour guide, he told us all sorts of things about vegas and pointed out major attractions and sights. Once we hit the air terminal we all jumped off the bus and headed to the check in counter, once checked in and weighed we had to watch a safety video then just had to wait til we were called. Our pilot called out our names as well as two more Aussie girls and a Canadian couple, we had our group it was time to meet our chopper!! we walked out to the tarmac to chopper number 45 and got the usual happy snap (that of course you could pick up and pay for later). Once divided into our seats, Mark got the window and I was in the middle next to the canadian girl it was time for takeoff. Now normally (in a plane) I am a shocking flyer, to me takeoff is the worst part but I can safely say I much prefered the take off in a helicopter.. actually I was enjoying myself, looking out over hoover dam.. then came the turbulance!! Who knew that helicopters could experience turbulance also!!!!!! ugh!!!!!! Probably had something to do with the fact that it was actually a rainy day! The pilot told us we were lucky as they only ever get about 2 inches of rain a year out in the desert, so us getting some spots on the windscreen was a bit of a rarity in itself. Thankfully I was not alone in my mild freak outs as the canadian girl beside me grabbed me a few times also!! All in all it wasn't really that bad I must admit(Mark says it was just like a bumpy road.) Now for the scenery itrself.. that was amazing! we flew past hoover dam, the black canyon, over the top of lake mead, past the crazy people out on the sky walk and finally into the grand canyon itself. After admiring the beauty of the canyon from the air we actually got to land on the floor of the canyon and then we could actually just gage just how big this place is. We took a stack of pics but I dont even think they will do it justice. After a short lunch and a few glasses of champaign we clambered back on board the chopper and set off back for Boulder City. The ride back wasnt that bad actually I have to admit.. maybe had something to do with the champers... All in all it was a great experience, our pilot was fantastic, we had a great group of people and not to mention we got to see one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World and also one of the Seven Wonders of the Industrial World.
Once we got back to the hotel we decided to make our way down to the Mirage to check out Siegfried & Roy's Secret Garden and Dolphin Habitat where you come face to face with white lions, white tigers, panthers, leopards and a heap of bottlenose dolphins including some cute little calves!! After Mark took a billion photos of the tigers we were back on our way exploring the strip, well almost, we had to stop so that Mark could play a pokie machine that he saw called Milk Money. After effectively losing his milk money, we then headed back out to the strip this time stopping at Treasure Island to see the free pirate show they put on. Called Siren's of the sea, it was a battle of women vs men priates, with some flames, water and sound special effects. We then continued our trip back past the Bellagio to see the fountains doing their thing at night, took a few photos and then caugth the bus back to the MGM for one last look around and found a really nice Wulfgang Puck restaurant for some dinner. The food was really good and so was the beer. =D Unfortunatley we had a to call an early night as we had to up at 4am it catch our flight to Buffalo.
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