The flight from New Zealand to LA really messed up my body clock - was about 12 hours long and you arrived before you had left....
Hired a car in LA to drive down to Vegas and this proved to be slightly ambitious. First off it ended up being a tiny car which I could barely fit into, secondly it was my first automatic, thirdly my first time driving on the wrong side of the road, forth it was a longer trip than I had anticipated, fifth I had forgot it was Independance Day Weekend so the roads were heaving and finally I was half asleep due to jet lag.
So all in all there were a few near misses and I had to stop a couple of times to try and wake myself up before falling asleep at the wheel but I got there safely around 8pm and returned my car - I decided that I would fly back to LA at the end of my time here.
Arriving at my hotel (the Tropicana) I discovered it was a bit of a dump - it was bambo themed furniture and a mirror over the bed (classy, always wanted one of those); but it's cheap and generally OK... it's easy to walk over to the nicer places anyway for the buffets etc
So far not much luck on the gambling and poker tables; must have used it on the drive down !!! World Series of Poker just kicked off although don't think I'm up for the $10k buy in at the minute.
Went to see the Bellagio fountain this evening (pictures attatched); all in all pretty impressive.
Overall sadly no luck on the gambling front; although I did focus on the progressive jackpots (>$10m) based upon the theory that there is no point gambling unless it would make a real difference if you won.... so no real surprise I didn't !! I'm guessing that I probably used most of my luck up on the drive down to Vegas.
Time to make another move; next stop Toronto Canada.
Got a flight back to LA and then onwards; sadly the main flight was American Airways who's business class has to be one of the worst. Got told in LA that Canada is not considered to be an international flight so they didn't think I qualified for the lounge - I don't remember the US invading Canada; must have missed that (although they let me into the lounge anyway). The flight was not much better; the planes were so old that even in business you didn't get a TV screen and they dropped a glass of red wine in my lap - however the view outside the window made it up; it was spectacular and a cloudless day so you could see everything.
LESSON LEARNT
* American roads aren't well designed; surfaces are very rough and there is usually gridlock at each junction.
* Don't fly American Airways.... they've knocked Quantas off the bottom spot.
