USA: LAS Vegas Continued

27 March 2012

Tony and I have been taking in the sites of Las Vegas and have made the most of the best value bus trip in Nevada – appropriately called "the Deuce".  The double decker bus takes you all the way from one end of Las Vegas to the other (almost) for a total of US$7 each, hop-on hop-off service that runs for 24 hours a day, and buses leave multiple stops no more than 15 minutes apart.  We are still getting used to Zero desert humidity, bit of a shock after leaving the wet season of Cairns, Nth Qld. The Strip is amazing - 24hr bars, casinos, cantinas, restaurants and cafes of a variety of tastes, cultures and weirdos.  We just had to stop and lounge around outside of Cesaers Palace and drink the delightful Margaritas and Pina Coladas and watch the passing people traffic (of all persuasions and solicitations - LOL).  We ventured into Cesaers for a photo shoot ie. the mural at Reception - ie. the Hangover fame - minus Allan.  Now somewhere in this time Tony went missing - look where I found him.  OMG!!!



Check out the sign above the "beads".

Believe it or not we only spent 15 minutes at a roulette table - smokers Including cigars) are still allowed into the gambling halls and it just got too much. 

Today (wednesday) we did 1 of the longest 1 day tours in the world (still doesnt beat our Uluru tour) leaving at 5.45am and returning at 11.15 pm to Hoover Dam which was an astonishing engineering feat for its day, didnt matter 10,000s of workers died, most wrongly diagnosed by Company Doctors with pneumonia, rather tha carbon monoxide posioning from being transported on fuel trucks thru the many tunnels. Americans were never one to let the truth get in the way of a good story. The Grand Canyon National Park it is 1 mile deep, 10 miles accross, has 5 million visitors a year and wow what a natural wonder, we will post some photos later. They have only explored about 3% of the park for Archeolgical material, already there is evidence of 10,000 yrs human occupation. Apart from the great height which had Tony looking somewhat uneasy, the views and natural wonder is amazing, They have a 14 day, 277 mile rafting tour down the Colorado River which dissects the Canyon, looks a thrilling trip.  As expected a wide array of tourism goodies, including a lot of Native Indian stuff which was great. Got some great views of Las Vegas "lights"on the way back.

Tomorrow we leave Lost Wages and head back into L.A en route to San Diego where we are staying at a bnb for the 1st time, its a great website and depending on how it goes we may well use for future US cities, we have already checked out LA and have found a likely place.

We are gunna check out if Greyhound have a loyalty program as we will clock up close to 1,000 miles after LA-LV-LA;LA-San Diego- LA, with New Orleans to Miami to follow.  We start train travel next Wednesday from LA to San Francisco, and after a couple of days onto Seattle.

Now I guess you are all waiting to hear about the renewal of vows (32yrs 2mths 1 day and 2hrs after our Wedding back in Sandgate). We happened to be walking along Sth Las Vegas Blvde and saw a wedding sign pointng down Cathederal Way and decided to make and enquiry. And when you may have thought it was one of those 'ticky 'tacky' chapels - it was far from it.  The young ladies were wonderful and more excited than we were (almost).  But as it happens, we didn't make any booking, we just went back to where we were staying, got changed and went back at 8pm, picked out a song (Fleetwood Mac), got a single red rose, met the celebrant whose name happened to be Elizabeth and I walked down the aisle (swinging away like Muriel did to Abba).   It was a real hoot.

Now as you know there are usually some dramas in our life, and what would a Vegas wedding be without one.  Just so happened that we didn't have our wedding rings.......so the logical thing to do was to find something that would serve the purpose - there happended to be a little shop near the wedding chappel that sold jewellry.  We now have 2 matching wedding rings albeit stainless steel "el cheapos" which I know I will wear for a long long time. Now check out the photos......

We'd like to say a big hi and Thank you to Michelle, Tessa, Elizabeth from "Vegas Famous weddings" who will be following our Blog too.  So if you are in Vegas and want a celebration like ours make sure you look them up on the web, facebook, twitter.

Elvis couldn't be there for our wedding vow renewals as he had a prior engagement !!!  Actually we saw him the next day at the "Welcome to Las Vegas" welcoming visitors to the city.




Elvis and his pink cadilac welcoming visitors to Vegas

Till next blog have a good night and we'll be in touch from San Diego.  (looking forward to some real mexican food).