Springhill Suites By Marriott Las Vegas Convention Center

day 5.......(yesterday)we headed off early so we could call in on uncle jack and aunty denise. it was lovely to see jack again as we'd met him in australia. we hope to meet up again when we get back to LA at their daughter's place as she has a ranch near Patrick Swayze's place. next stop for lunch was palm springs which was very beautiful, like Noosa only better with no water. it's just in the middle of nowhere but with striking scenery, hills desert and thousands of ...

Heute sindwir früh aufgestanden, um möglichst viel von dem bevorstehenden Tag zu haben. Als erstes ging es ins Death Valley, wo es morgens um 8 Uhr schon über 30 Grad hatte. Nach der Sanddünenwanderung,dem Devils Golfcourse und dem tiefsten Punkt Nordamerikas - Badwater ging es nach Las Vegas. Wieder eine eigenartige Fahrt durch die Wüste.

Dort steuerten wir zuerst das Outlet an und kauften ein wenig ein ;-) Danach checkten wir im Hotel ein und dann ging es auf den ...

... 8221; lecture. He's growing up; things were easier in some
respects when he was younger.



I finished with Jonathan Ross, (thanks Jonathan, it was fun while it
lasted, but it's time to move on!), and we headed back to the room,
thankfully to find Ioan fast asleep in bed. We showered and trekked
all the way across the road to the Bellagio where we were due to pick
our hire car up. We picked up our white Dodge ...

... Casino & Hotel where they have a huge shopping centre and the gondola's sail through. Another free show to see was the Volcano at the Mirage which would 'erupt' every hour to beats and music. It was pretty spectacular. On our penultimate night we thought it was time to get very drunk and so after a few football beers and some vodka and lemo, we headed down to the strip. We went a bit wild and had a drink at one of the nice ...

... a ring!" After some wonderful sounds and a brief moment of jubilation, I looked at that empty silver trough and could not wait for the quarters to start flowing like Niagara Falls. Only...no. My excitement quickly stalled when disappointment set in. Instead of the abundance of quarters I wanted, the only thing the machine gave me was a printed out voucher saying I won $6.25. Whoopee! It was if the security team was sitting up in their "booth ...

Peter and the boys went to Hoover Dam while Glenda checked out one of the Outlets shopping centre. Later in the day we all met up and visited some of the casinos and then Glenda, Andrew and Christopher went to a Variety show which was awesome and included amazing magic, comedy and acrobatics. Peter and Andrew returned later in the evening to see a Hypnosis show (the tickets were only $5.00) while Glenda and Christopher saw the pirate show at Treasure Island.

... Certainly beats walking, especially if you consider the first section of our walk is past a huge vacant block being developed. We headed down the strip and hopped off near Caesar's Palace to take a walk through this icon. This place is huge as are the rest of the Casinos, we walked in and to the back where the shows happen and waited for this to begin. After the free show we headed back out to cross the road to take in a few more of the named ...

... at which I headed over to the Bellagio to watch a few of the fountain shows before dinner. The Bellagio fountains, as predicted, are the coolest thing to see in Vegas and even if I saw some of the shows 3 or 4 times over the weekend, they never got old.

After watching a few shows I decided to go have my one big dinner in Las Vegas, and based on the recommendations from friends I decided to head over to Mon Ami Gabi in Paris for an expensive steak dinner. I requested a seat on the ...

... inspected, x-rayed, and checked-in. Did I mention "mostly uneventful"? After pulling away from the gate at Honolulu (on time), we seemed to sit on the apron for quite awhile. The pilot came on and mentioned that he "heard a whining noise" from the rear of the plane when firing up the engines. We were tempted to tell him that the source was the two year old in the other aisle, but we let him go ahead and call the mechanics anyway. Besides, if the pilot ain't comfy ...

... entering Yosemite Park (http://www.nps.gov/yose) as I was not about to challenge those mountain roads without a front brake. So too bad, but this just gives me an excuse to come back and ride Yosemite and Seqouia sometime in the near future. We took SR395 all the way to San Bernardino. Enroute we passed the a plant of Crystal Geyser Water (http://www.crystalgeyser.com/), which was literally in ...