Wednesday 14 May
Trip Start
Apr 13, 2008
1
36
155
Trip End
Oct 27, 2008
Las Vegas,
Nevada,
United States
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
We had showers etc and left for a big drive to Las Vegas 200 miles into the Mojave Desert. It was very hot outside but we had our air con going all the way.
It was an amazing journey and we steadily climbed a long, straight road to about 4000 feet. The landscape is pretty rugged with little or no vegetation and quite spectacular.
We arrived in Vegas about 4.30 so we drove straight down Las Vegas Boulevard or "the strip" until we got about half way down. We decided to try to find somewhere to park close by. I must admit I was sceptical but as we were driving round the back of one of the enormous hotel/casinos Holly and I spotted some campers vans parked in a car park
Las Vegas
. We managed to find our way in to what turned out to be a truck park and parked right next to the other vans. Steve spoke to the security guard who was quite happy for us to stay over night. So there we were right behind "Paris" ready to rock and roll!! We took the kids up the strip in the boiling heat and ventured in to several Casinos - Mandalay Bay, Monte Carlo, NewYork NewYork, Excalibur, Luxor, Caesars Palace... it was mind-blowing! The sheer size of each of them is astounding. You could spend a week in each one of them. Of course as we had children we were not going to be gambling so we walked through the casinos without loitering which is the law when you have kids with you. We just wanted the kids to see the sights really. It is seriously quite impressive but it was not really something we wanted to spend much time doing.
We watched the amazing water fountain display outside Belaggio and then we retired to our sweltering van for bed. This is the part we regretted as the temp. was around 100 degrees. It did cool down eventually but not by much so we didn't have a very good sleep plus it was very very noisy with cars, planes and helicopters everywhere!
