What Happens In Vegas....

1^st – 5^th August

Ah, Las Vegas.

Glittering jewel in the desert or dark black canker on the earth fed by humanity’s greed, egotism and desire for something eternally just out of reach.

When you’ve decided, let me know.  You’ll find me by the pool sipping a Strawberry Daiquiri.

There really is something about Las Vegas, which is probably why I’ve returned so many times.  Many see it as a fake town and in some respects it is, but no more than say the whole premise of Disneyworld.  Hey kids, that’s not really Cinderella’s castle but you’re still going to puke with excitement.

And like Las Vegas, Disneyworld is designed to make us want to stay, to see what’s just around the corner.  So that Italian marble bathroom in my hotel room bigger than my lounge at home, is there to make me feel good, and it does.   The electronic drapes and the giant bed with Egyptian linen is there to make me want to stay, and it does.   But if this is what I can find in my room, what wonders await me outside, just around the corner, along the corridor and down the elevators which glide to the casino floor with such speed that your ears pop.  

One could easily spend a whole week in Las Vegas and not really gamble at all.  It’s just one massive resort and you would probably need all that time just to visit every hotel.  At Treasure Island you will see two full sized pirate ships battle it out with cannons each night on the hour, culminating in one sinking below the surface of the lake.  At The Mirage, a giant volcano will seemingly spew hot molten lava into the air and into the lake below.  The Luxor hotel is a giant glass pyramid for goodness sake.  These are fantastic Disneyesq spectacles. 

Back at our hotel, the food is incredible.   You can eat cheaply in Vegas, but for just a little more you can have excellent food which you will remember.   If you are gambling, either at a penny slot machine or $100 blackjack, your drinks will be gratis.  If this were the UK, I have no doubt my Merlot would be poured from a chemical toilet cleaner bottle that someone had drawn a grape on.  Here, it’s the real deal from the Californian vineyards just over the Sierra Nevada mountains.

Our time was spent lazing around the pool in the day, having dinner and mooching between casinos in the evening.  We didn’t see a show this time, as in summer headline acts are a bit thin unless you like watching a guy with his hand up a puppet for two hours; and we’ve pretty much seen all the Cirque Du Soleil shows.  Having said that I could watch ‘O’ on a continual loop.

For the first time on this trip, we weren’t travelling and could really relax into lazy mornings and late nights.  Also, we both really noticed the lack of jet lag which seemed to make our time here last even longer.  

We didn’t break the bank of Las Vegas, but old hands like us know a few tricks and Mr Wynn was happy to pay for our accommodation. 

This place really does have a hold on me, and it would please my dear old Mum so much to know just how many times we’ve all been able to visit her since we placed her ashes here on a family trip in 2006.  She loved the place too, and my fondest memories are of seeing her sitting at a 5cent slot machine swinging her legs for the sheer fun of it.  That memory alone will keep me coming back until like her I am on my own final adventure.

Big Chief Coffee with Long Life

Saturday 30^th July

Travelling in America is easy.  On some roads you do have to keep an eye on your fuel gauge, as gas stations can be sparse.  The desert heat and dry air also means that one should consume at least four litres of water a day.  Restrooms are available pretty much everywhere and for the most part so is food.   The type and quality can vary enormously.  The concept of a sandwich without cheese is not known here, which for a pescatarian like myself sounds like great news.

However, these same sandwiches must by law also contain meat of some description which on our travels has ranged from chicken to buffalo.    In the desert, several hundred miles from the sea, the safest bet has been Subway where you can build your own sandwich.  Also, you can do the sandwich building thing in Safeway supermarkets here, which seem to be the UK Waitrose equivalent.   One we visited outside Denver also made sushi to order.  The guy doing this was a more than a bit deaf and we felt it would be safer to get have him make us sandwiches which he did very well, and very slowly.

Of course, what you really can get everywhere is coffee.  American filter coffee; and in the larger towns you may find a coffee shop or two, serving Italian/Seattle style.  The one in Gardiner, Montana has already featured. 

As we checked out of the Hat Rock Inn in Mexican Hat, I asked the receptionist if there was such a coffee shop nearby.  She said there was a hotel that had a ‘real’ coffee machine down the road.  It did have a real coffee ‘pod’ type machine and they made lattes with UHT milk.  It took a very long time and I put this down to the fact that they had to individually open those little cartons found it motels and UK B&Bs everywhere,  until they had enough to make one medium and one large latte.  That’s a lot of work right there.

We continued on down the US 163 back through monument valley and onto the US160 and then north on the US98 (Indian Route 22) which passes through part of the Navajo Indian Reservation.  At Page we stopped for lunch and a view of the dam at the western end of the extraordinarily massive Lake Powell.   

The lake stores 30km³ of water when full and is 186miles long.  Whilst Lake Mead to the west is larger in volume, Lake Powell has nearly 3.5 times more shoreline, some 1900miles.

From Page, we headed to the eastern entrance of Zion National Park where the landscape once again changed to sandstone canyons and towers, with rivers and waterfalls.

We drove through the park and exited at Springdale and our next motel, the Desert Pearl inn.   We had a fantastic room with a terrace where we sat and watched a thunderstorm roll in.

Sunday 31^st July

Up at 530am for our day in Zion National Park.  Vehicles are only allowed a half a mile or so into the park where trailheads are served by a shuttle bus system.  Our first hike was to Emerald Pools a series of three small ponds at increasing elevations above the canyon floor, which brimmed with insect and amphibian life.  Our hike was made all the more pleasant by the fact we were enjoying it without anyone else around.

All around were the ubiquitous Rock Squirrels, a stockier, meaner looking version of our own Grey Squirrel.   

We took the shuttle bus to the northern most stop called the Temple of Sinawava where the Narrows trail follows the Virgin River through Zion Canyon for some 16 miles.   We went as far as we could which for me meant chest high in the river and a slightly stupid feeling as I emerged with my shorts rolled up.  

We found a rock overhanging a white water part of the river further south and had a picnic.  Shortly after, it started to rain really heavily and we got soaked but it was fun and we got back onto the shuttle to tour the rest of the park whilst we dried out.   Flash flooding is common across the western united states and we heard many radio warnings and local newspaper items detailing the dangers.   

We left the park via Springdale again and to our next destination, Las Vegas.  It helped that we were still slightly damp as we knew five nights of luxury awaited us, and where most probably if you were ever given a UHT Latte, the perpetrator would be taken out into the desert late at night, and shot.

Our journey was straight down the Interstate 15 and we gained a hour as we drove across the Nevada State Boundary and onto Pacific Time.   It was cloudy as we approached Las Vegas and we didn’t quite have the vista we had planned on driving in, though by the time we actually got to the Wynn Encore, the clouds had magically disappeared as if it had all been pre arranged.   

We got a room high on the 59^th Floor with a view of the golf course and north Las Vegas and were able to actually unpack for the first time on our trip and later that evening ate dinner not wearing shorts.