The USA Road Trip
Day 13 Williams to
Las Vegas
Before leaving Williams there was one last thing to see. “Bearazonia”
a drive through wildlife refuge as you guessed it full of Black Bears. The
girls weren’t too interested in seeing this so they went off to investigate the
shops on Route 66 while Ryan and went off to photograph bears. Along with bears
the refuge has a large number of other native animals, such as bison, wild
cats, etc, but it was the bears we had come to see and we weren’t disappointed.
Sitting in your car watching a large bear amble past is amazing. I even got to
watch a bear make his way up and down what I thought was quite a flimsy tree,
but didn’t seem to pose a problem for him. For such large animals it is
surprising how agile they are.
Saying goodbye to Williams we once again headed off into the
Desert and up to Nevada. Early afternoon we arrived at one of the wonders of
the Industrial Age; The Hoover Dam very impressive it is too, standing over 200
metres tall and 300 metres wide and at the head of a reservoir 180 Km long. I
visited the dam twenty years ago and can remember the traffic jams as all
traffic had to make its way across the two lane road on top of the dam wall. Now
it has been diverted across the equally impressive Memorial Bridge, it is hard
to imagine such a heavy flow of traffic making its way down the narrow winding
road and across the Dam but somehow it did.
The attached photos give some idea of the drought the
American Southwest is going through as the dam is only at 40% capacity and the
water level would normally be 10metres higher than were it is now!!! A lot of
this drought has been caused by a lower than expected snow melt in this area of
the States. I guess having to supply the irrigation water and power for
Southern California and Las Vegas doesn’t help.
After the Hoover Dam is was then a quick 45 min drive into
Las Vegas arriving in time to catch the tail end of another rain storm. Before
arriving in Vegas Chelle and I were deliberately vague with the kids on what our
accommodation would be like so as not to spoil the surprise and I think they
were surprised when we drove up to the Excalibur Casino. For those that haven’t
heard of it the Excalibur is a rough approximation of a Castle from the outside
and it carries this theme right throughout. So naturally the kids were excited
about staying in a Castle. Also because my sister wasn’t arriving till the next
day and because we had booked two adjoin rooms they got to have their own room
and own beds for a night. No more complaining about Natasha hogging the bed.
Once we had settled ourselves in it was time to explore and
of course the first place the kids wanted to see was the pool or pools, as this
place has four of them including one with a water slide. The Excalibur is one
of the more family friendly casinos but as with the rest to get anywhere within
the place you have to go across the gaming floors, which are crowded and filled
with smoke, even to go from our room to the pools we had to navigate this area.
This was the only downside, we had previously been a bit anxious about the
place as some of the on-line reviews weren’t real good, but I wouldn’t hesitate
in recommending it. One of the great things about the place is the Buffet, only
costing around $30 per person with the ability to be able to visit as many
times as you like during the day, very cost effective when one has a teenage
son. The temperature being over 100 degrees the rest of the afternoon was spent
around the pool. Mum and Dad even taking the opportunity to have a quiet drink
beside the pool.
In the evening after dinner we explored the casino some
more, checking out some of the shops and finding the gaming arcade. Then we
went next door and visited the neighbours, these being the Luxor and New York
New York. The Luxor of course is Egyptian themed and shaped like the pyramids,
which Tash thought was very cool as she likes that sort of thing and New York
New York is of coursed based on the streets of New York, even down to having a
quarter size Statue of Liberty and Brooklyn Bridge and a roller coaster on top
of the building. After the evening tour it was back to the room to get some sleep
before the next big day and the arrival of the kids Aunt, my sister, Helen.
