TravelStream™ news feed for member afoon on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/afoon en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Thu, 18 Dec 2008 18:31:36 -0500 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/afoon/1/1219443480/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/afoon/1/1219443480/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/afoon/1/1219443480/tpod.html Thu, 18 Dec 2008 18:31:36 -0500 Route 66 and the North American South West

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Prescott, Arizona, United States

Finally a day with no driving, except around town. We started our day off with breakfast at the hotel. We then drove into Prescott Vally to a prospecting outfitter. We bought a folding shovel/pick and a couple other little things we needed for gold panning. We then went into the Lynx Creek rec. area to pan. When we got there we were greeted by 4 officers that badly wanted our attention. One even jumped into the back of my truck since the gate was open. Did I mention the officers were K9's. I don't know if they search and rescue, bomb, or drug K9's(or all of those) but they just wanted a R-I-D-E. We went to a spot the guy at the store told us about. We spent about 2 hours there with no luck. The sheriff that had the four dogs told us of another place to try. We were hungry and went back to the room with a pizza. After a while we went back out to pan. This time we went to the place the sheriff told us about. It was down a road that was a dirt mountain grade. Sure am glad I got 4 wheel drive. As we drove down you start thinking, "We're the only one's here", "did you hear a banjo!" We got a little creeped out and left. We went back to the first place we tried with no more luck. When they were closing up the park a guy told us of a good spot to go, the same creepy place we were earlier. So tomorrow we will go back to that spot. After that we cleaned up and went to Whiskey Row. We ate at the Palace Saloon, which has a great history with the Earp's and Doc Holliday. We then went bar hopping until about 11:30PM.
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Comstock Park, Michigan, United States

Got back home today!
Total miles: 5,001.5
Avg. mpg: 19.9
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Kanab, Utah, United States

Zion & Bryce Canyon
info to come
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New Florence, Missouri, United States

Another Day of Driving
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Dodge City, Kansas, United States

Noting to say but a day full of driving
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Las Vegas, Nevada, United States

After a long night, we again slept in and took long showers. Arriving a little late for breakfast, we had brunch at the buffet at Excalibur.

Did you ever hear my chocolate pudding story? If so, you know exactly why buffets should be avoided (if not, ask, and I shall tell). However, we had been told that buffets in Las Vegas were the best - they were wrong. Is it that hard to wash vegetables before they're served, or use fresh vegetables, or not cook them until they are mush? Apparently so. The meats, potatoes, rolls and ice cream were all that was remotely edible. Ooh, health food.

We spent some more time at the slot machines before we searched for the bus to take us to Fremont Street. At our hotel, they said to catch the bus from MGM Grand. At MGM Grand they said to catch the bus in front of the M&M Store. We caught the bus from a stop between the two.

It was a double-decker bus that was already almost full, requiring us to stand in the area reserved for wheelchairs, hanging onto the bars as we were jerked around at every stop. And, there were a lot of stops. The driver packed us in there like cattle to the slaughter. There was a pair of women with a shoeless small child, two suitcases, a backpack and a stroller who argued with the driver about their need to sit in a seat with the kid, causing unnecessary delay, and blocking any entrance onto or exit from the bus. It took almost forty-five minutes to get to Fremont Street in those conditions.

Since we got down there right after the Fremont Experience ended, we had almost an hour to kill before the next show. We browsed through a few gift shops and decided to try our luck at some casinos. Erin sat down in the Golden Nugget at a penny-slot with one dollar and walked away with more than $10, still unsure how the game worked, but pleased to have finally won something. We also went to Binions and put a few dollars into the penny-slots there.

It was almost time for the show, so we went back out onto the street to watch. The show was an awesome audio/visual presentation of Don McLean's "American Pie," and everyone sang along with the chorus with their faces upturned to watch old news reels and a rocket blasting down the canopy (see video).

After the show, we caught a rather empty bus back to the strip. It wasn't very empty for long, as people are plentiful in Las Vegas. One pair of girls, not wanting to stand or find seats that would fit the both of them, decided to squeeze themselves onto the bench that we were sitting on. After the first girl sat down, I didn't think that the other would try to squeeze in between Gary and her friend, since I could clearly see that she wouldn't fit. However, she used her large behind to push Gary to the side and she did sit down. The two of us quickly moved over so that she wouldn't be sitting on Gary, but then, having room to expand, she did. The first thing we heard her say was that she was surprised to be sweating at 10:30 at night. It didn't surprise us one bit. For the next few stops, she constantly played with her hair and elbowed Gary every time she raised her arm. She also gave off a particularly offensive odor as she did this. We tried to scoot away again and again, and she continued to expand. Finally, with the smell too strong to bear, we exited the bus and walked the rest of the way back to our hotel, only too happy to be on our sore feet and away from her incredible stink.
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Las Vegas, Nevada, United States

This morning, we slept in for the first time on our trip. After grabbing a quick lunch at the food court, because we slept through breakfast, we played the slots at Excalibur for a little while.

Then, we went on the time-share tour. We took a shuttle bus to their office where we were assigned our own personal sales woman. She chatted us up about where we were from and what we did, and seemed impressed by our level of education.

After explaining all of the benefits of "owning" a time share as opposed to staying in regular hotels when you're on a vacation, and having an address on Las Vegas Boulevard as opposed to some obscure Canadian lake, we took a quick look at their "5 star" resort suites. The rooms were nicely decorated and about the same size, if not slightly smaller, than a one-bedroom condominium at Crystal Mountain. There were many small swimming pools throughout the resort complex and they were filled with families who obviously desired to appear high-class at least one week out of the year. Gary asked our sales lady how long it took to sell out each building of the complex, and she replied with a very vague: "That building sold out before it was even finished." Yes, but how long did it take? Months? Weeks?

After our brief tour of the facilities, we returned to the sales office where we finally discussed pricing. She asked us to estimate how much we would spend on hotels for the next 30 years of vacationing and then told us that we were making other people rich while we got nothing in return. "Why do you think 6 million people own time-shares?" she asked us. We each thought silently to ourselves, "there's a sucker born every minute." After telling us the price of a two-bedroom suite ($41,990) and the yearly maintenance fees ($590) that "almost never increased," and the transfer fees for staying somewhere other than Las Vegas ($164-199/week), and seeing our lack of interest, she brought in the "closer."

He showed us the prices for other packages, progressively getting smaller and cheaper as he failed to spark our interest. Finally, he got down to a package for every other year for $10,990 and a $295 maintenance fee. We simply told them that this type of vacationing didn't really appeal to us and that we preferred seeing multiple cities in a single vacation, rather than staying in one place, however luxurious it seemed. They admitted that, for an additional and unnamed fee, we could do so with their program, though, we were still obligated to use their resorts. We informed them that we really weren't ready to make such a financial obligation, mostly because we were almost out from under the last of our debts. He then stated in a very matter-of-fact way that we "would always have debt." Needless to say, we were very put off by this rude assumption. He asked us about our last vacation, and when we told him that we had stayed at our parents' house in Florida, he told us that that "didn't count." Again, we were very offended by his rude manner and his asinine assumptions. We informed them again that a time-share really did not fit our lifestyle and that we were not the type of people who made rash and uninformed decisions. Then, his manner immediately changed from rude and forceful to "fine, I don't give a shit about you, take your shit and leave." He asked about the gifts we were promised - one last attempt to guilt us into an impulse buy - gave us a handshake that a Southern debutante would give, and showed us to the door.

All in all, they lied about how much of our time they were going to waste and where we could use the dining voucher, but, we won the battle of wits and walked away with more of their money than they did of ours.

We picked up our tickets at the Luxor box office as soon as we got back to the strip, fearing that the people from the time-share were going to pull a fast one on us. But, we had no problems and got seats in the second row. We also had no problem cashing in our gaming vouchers for cold, hard cash.

After a quick bite to eat at Quiznos, we went to the show. It was really a fun time, though, most of the girls in the audience looked like they had been dragged there against their wills.

After that, we went to Studio 54 for a few drinks at $10 each. It sounds worse than it was, since the pour was proportionate to the tips. That is to say, large. The atmosphere was well worth the trip and we stayed out pretty late drinking it in.
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Durango, Colorado, United States

Pics and info to come
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Las Vegas, Nevada, United States

We left Williams, Arizona this morning, headed for Las Vegas. Passing through Kingman, we ended our trip west on Route 66.

By the time we got to the Hoover Dam it was 104 degrees F. Damn hot, if you ask me. We also had to go through a police checkpoint before we crossed the dam - damned security checks. Since we had previously learned almost everything a person could know about the Hoover Dam and its construction from the History Channel, we decided against taking the tour.

We continued on through the incredibly hot weather into Las Vegas. We stayed on the ground floor at Excalibur, and, before we even got into our room, we were offered a deal from a time-share outfit. In exchange for two discounted tickets to Fantasy (a show at the Luxor), and $125 in gaming/dining money we would give them two hours of our time and listen to their spiel. So, we signed up for a tour of their resort for the following afternoon and headed to our room to freshen up.

We grabbed a quick bite to eat at Pizza Hut and went to the gaming floor to try our luck at the slots. Our luck held firm at its normally deficient levels and we lost some money. But, hey, that's what you do in a casino.... You give them your money, and you like it. We went around to a few different casinos to make our deposits: Luxor, MGM Grand and Excalibur.

Then we walked around the strip for a while to see all the neon lights and the different casinos. We came to several conclusions during that walk...there are a lot of foreigners in Las Vegas; the Bellagio is a beautiful hotel full of expensive shops, mosaic floors and well-dressed and well-mannered people (unlike all the other places we went); New York New York is much, much cleaner than the actual city; and, the M&M Store is HUGE!

We returned to our room, tired, and anxious to experience more of Las Vegas and match our wits against some determined sales people.
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Williams, Arizona, United States

Today we headed to the Grand Canyon south rim. The drive out of Prescott north on 89 was straight as a pin compared to alt.89. We made it to Williams in no time and decided to stop and reserve a room for the night now rather than later. The lobby had a sign that read "Independly owned and operated" (yes they misspelled independently). We made a reservation anyway. We made our way north to the south rim of the Grand Canyon and stopped in a town just outside the main entrance. There were a bunch of Native American's selling their handmade goods. Erin found a nice turquoise necklace that she bought. While we were browsing a older gentleman with a P.A. system was beating on a drum and telling stories. He was talking about his visit to Ohio and an Amish community. He said they are the hardest working people he has ever seen. It was funny and very interesting to hear the observations of a Native American on the Amish. From there we went into the park. The Grand Canyon was great. It's really hard to wrap your mind around the size of it all. It's also hard to believe how there can be so many people with bad B.O. Seriously, some people need to shower at least twice as much as they do. After a few hours we had stopped at most of the turn outs and headed back to Williams. We stopped at an IMAX theater to see "the most watched IMAX film ever", which is about the Grand Canyon. It seemed very familiar to me and at the end the copyright was 1984. No wonder it's the most watched IMAX, it's the oldest! I remember seeing it for free at Cedar Point about 20 years ago. This time I paid $12 to see it. Oh well. We went out to eat in Williams in an old service station that is now a Route 66 Diner. They had a lot of old restored gas pumps inside and live music on the patio. We strolled through town after that and bought a few things to remember the place.
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