On Friday we headed in early to catch the bus to Las Vegas. A ropey old bus arrived and everyone raced for it, we were at the end of the line. Luckily the bus was full before we got on so they had to order another one to come. The second bus was much nicer, yeh! Kent was happy altho he is going to have to get used to lesser forms of transport! The journey was uneventful, the countryside interesting but mostly empty once we were out of LA. Shirley (Carols niece) was there to meet us in Las Vegas and took us to the apartment where she lives with her husband Don and son Kaleb. Thoughtfully they had decided to live right next door to the complex swimming pool :) That evening we went out to see the old strip downtown. The central area was covered by a huge movie screen and every half an hour we watched a video clip on varied themes. The lights of the buildings were amazing, we just walked about taking it all in.
Hoover Dam was our place to visit on Sunday with Shirley and Kaleb. It is huge but the volume of water in the Colorado river has been declining over the last 10 years with the Lake above the damn now being only at 48% of its usual level.
Monday was a visit to the Valley of Fire with Don and Kaleb, an amazing and hot valley of red sandstone.
Tuesday 12th - The last day of our stay in Las Vegas, we packed, we swam, we headed into town to see more sights. First stop the Mandalay Bay, here we went through an exhibit similar to Kelly Tarltons called 'Shark Reef” (remember this is inside the hotel). A tramway ran between three hotels and we boarded it to see the Luxor Hotel, this amazing pyramid, with matching Sphinx and Cleopatra's needle, has rooms on the outside and a huge mall, theatres, and displays on the inside (and the usual gambling machines of course). We had lunch here accompanied by the sounds of a jackhammer as they were building a new 'Titanic' exhibit. On to the Excaliber Hotel and more exploring.
We had so much fun in Las Vegas, Shirley, Don & Kaleb were such great hosts and we saw all that could be seen in the few days we were there and appreciated so much being able to be with them - thanks guys!
