Day 10: Friday 10th September

Eh, Viva Las Vegas!

Slept very, very late and were only just out of the hotel by 11:00am - so Zion Valley had to have its plugged pulled, very unfortunately. However, Utah continued to delight us as we drove through the lovely scenery. Rocks everywhere! We stopped at a place which was built like a Fort! The Virgin River Stores, I believe it was! There were all sorts of goodies inside and I bought a string of jalopenos!! The girl who served me was very friendly and told me that she had a friend who lived in Plymouth and she was hoping to visit soon. She loved green. In truth, there wasn't a lot of green around here!

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We then entered Arizona again, as we drove down the very spectacular Virgin River Gorge - and then, we were again leaving Arizona - and entering Nevada!

We stopped in a truck park for a smoke - and then in Washington City (though I cannot find it on the map) and a quick shop in Wal-Marts!

But, by mid afternoon, we were driving around the outskirts of Vegas!

It was fairly easy to find West Flamingo Road and our accommodation there at Westgate Flamingo Bay. Wonderful!! We had an electric gate to our condo!! And the condo itself was very, very comfortable indeed. There was a sitting room - and two bedrooms (each with bathrooms and TVs), a huge hot tub and a very well equipped kitchen. Luxury!! The one drawback was that there was no balcony or patio - although it was SO HOT outside, that I doubt we would have used it!

To THE STRIP!

We stopped, first, at the Belaggio. We parked the car (after having had our 'trunk' searched) in their carpark and then had a wonder around the casino!! Quite an eye-opener!! Hub won 10 cents on the one-armed bandits!!! Then we walked outside and stood and watched the fountains at play. That was really extremely impressive - and everybody clapped when they'd finished!! Then we collected our car and moved on. I hadn't thought that the Belaggio had been as luxurious as people say it is - but it was nice enough.

Next stop, down at the bottom of the Strip; the Luxor. How pleased we were that we hadn't stayed here! The rooms, inside the pyramid, were reached by the most scary of lifts and the height of the passageways would've left us extremely wobbly! Ah but, the casino!! Hub won $2.50 and I won $1.00!! We had something to eat and then retrieved our car from the garage and headed onto the Strip once more.

It was by now dark - and, wow, those lights! We drove past all the famous hotels and saw a bit of the volcano eruption, outside the Mirage. We parked inside the Venetian. We didn't go to the casino, but wondered around the shops around the faux canals and St Mark's Square - amazed to discover that the skies were false - and even more amazed to discover that we'd been fooled by them and had (for a short while) thought that we were walking around in the daylight!!

By now, the traffic up the Strip was quite horrendous and, although we had wanted to 'do' a couple more hotels, all was a little fraught, so we decided to head back to our hotel. Las Vegas was quite amazing - but that little excursion had been enough for me, at least!

I spent some time in the lobby of the hotel, using their internet to order Dad a balloon for his 80th birthday! When we walked back to our condo - we noticed that there was a queue of little cockroaches, trying to get themselves under our door. A couple (small ones) actually made it .... though not for long!

Sleep came easy.

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[ Introduction ] [ Day 1 ] [ Day 2 ] [ Day 3 ] [ Day 4 ] [ Day 5 ] [ Day 6 ] [ Day 7 ] [ Day 8 ]
[ Day 9 ] [ Day 11 ] [ Day 12 ] [ Day 13 ] [ Day 14 ] [ Day 15 ] [ Day 16 ] [ Day 17 ]
[ Days 18, 19 and 20 ]

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