Day 21: Viva Las Vegas!

Viva Las vegas!

So bloody hell wow! Las Vegas is just amazing and I managed to gamble
pretty much for free:) More on that later:p First things first we
need to catch up cos it has been a bitch finding free internet or
wireles so far and also cos so much has happened! Like England losing
to Portugal. What a load of bollocks!!! I was so grumpy and probably
would have been like that for the whole morning if it weren't for the
fact that we were in Las Vegas:D We also picked up a hitchhiker along
the way... Oscar's girlfriend, Clara. Unexpectedly I have to say, but
it's been fun having another person to talk to and just after a day on
the road I think she appreciates the kinda fun adventure we're having.
Wish all of you guys could experience the same feeling out here too!
Right now we're in a town called flagstaff and visited the Grand
Canyon yesterday:)

Back on the road

So wowza, lets rewind to our last day in Chicago where we went up the
Sears Tower though I have to say the New York skyline is still the
best i've seen so far. Last day on the East was a turning point on
our trip seeing that it was mainly urban city scapes, whereas where we
are now is just mountain scape. So we fly over to Denver and the
first thing that hit us was the heat! It is soooooo hot on the West
side!!! The scenery is also very very different too. In contrast
with tall tall skyscrapers, driving through the Colorado Rockies we
have tall tall mountains. Instead of wide spread buildings we have
sprawling desert scape with trailer parks and ghost towns. It's like
a totally different world, but at the same time pulling off the dirt
track onto some random all american diner is still so familiar as
stereotypical america. Just part of the experience I guess, but its
great.

Arriving in Denver, finding our way to our hostel was a funny affair,
since we didn't have a car til the next day. There's a long and very
very dodgy road called Colfax where the most dodgy people hang out.
Basically think of Brixton or Peckham but down a like 5 mile road that
we had to walk down :s Yeah quite scary but luckily we met a guy on
the coach who was heading the same way so led us down safely. Hehe,
one guy followed us for loose change so we gave in and gave him a
quarter to get rid of him, cos there was no way I could fight with a
massive heavy backpack.

Anyways the morning we walked down the mall street which is basically
a brand spanking new mile long street of malls & shops which I thought
was really cool. Well we tried to walk all the way down but the
blazing heat just got to us so we took the free bus down to the
station and went to pick our lovely car :D Yay, I love my cars. We
didn't get an upgrade this time so sticking with a compact we got a
white Toyota Corolla. It doesn't move like my little baby V6 but it
does the job. A big grrr grrr SUV would have been better but Oscar
prefers the small cars :p One slight hitch though, was we still had
to put the car under my name cos Oscar doesn't have a credit card, and
for Oscar to drive he has to pay an extra $420+tax cos he's under 25!
It's a expensive luxury, but looks like Oscar is going for it.

Driving
So I'm really learning a lot about myself on this trip, though I'll
fit that into another blog. The main thing is that the thought of not
knowing where we're gonna stay or eat the next day is not daunting
anymore- its like exciting. We drove the 12 hour journey to Las Vegas
through the Colorado Rockies. It was just absolutely beautiful to see
such big mountains, colours and scenery on a drive. It really was a
scenic route if ever I have seen one and so much more interesting than
boring metal & concrete barriers on the east side. Along the way we
stopped off at a random motel which are dotted around everywhere and I
have to say compared to the 4 star Wyndam in Toledo, motels are the
same if not better and newer facilities. We also stopped off in our
first Walmart :) And yes they sell shotguns and shells in store! We
also picked up our grocery for free cos the clerk charged us wrong and
being in the land of walmart, you get it for free if they get it
wrong. Okay granted it was only a bag of apples but still welcome
donation to our deserving cause.

Vegas, yeah baby!

Right that brings us to Las Vegas:D And again wow! Walking down the
"strip" are all the different casinos on one 4 mile road, I was just
in awe of the over the top, flambouyant themes of each casino funded
by so much money! Basically every casino is themed, has a buffer :) a
shopping mall of some description, a hotel and of course a casino
floor:D So pretty much they design them so you never have to leave
their facility. Other things that lock you in are the maze that is
the casino floor where exits are never signposted, and hourly prize
draws to get people to stick around the casino. The great thing
though is that everything evolves around the gambling so everything
else is subsidised and quite cheap. Food comes in the form of
reasonably priced buffets (buffets get bonus points), rooms are the
same price as most of the hostels we've stayed in, and parking if
free. After 2 good days of walking up and down the baking hot, super
duper face melting sun my favourite casino for interior was probably
inside the Venetian which had a replica of a Venice town complete with
gondola's and fake sky. The town doubled up as a shopping mall with
the likes of prada and gucci lining the streets. Totally over the top
and pretentious but amazing all the same. Favourite for classiness
was the Mirage with it's super swanky black marble poker rooms;
Caesers Palace for super marble and gold and the Bellagio for it's
super water works display outside. Favourite for food was the
Treasure Island buffet which had everything from crab & sushi to fried
chicken & pastries :D Also the after dinner show was a firework laden
pirate ship all singing all ancing show with scantily clad ladies...:D

Gambling luck
But favourite for luck and gambling was the Sahara where we stayed our
first night. After checking in we signed up to a random clubcard for
the half price buffet and got entered for some prize draw. Halfway
through our buffet the announcer calls out my name and haha I won
something so go to choose a envelope and get $100. Okay not that much
but enough to enter a poker tournament we saw earlier for $42. Only
problem was that the money I had won could only be used on slot
machines, so I ended up on the 1 armed bandit style machines next to
all the old ladies hehe, but I did win $50 cash- just enough to enter
the poker tournament :) After a lesson we enterd the next day and it
was really exciting, not that I was expecting to actually win
anything. $42 bought us $2000 worth of poker chips, but to win you
had to come like top three out of like hundreds of entrants. Well
Oscar made it to 10 minutes. I, with some tips from chow yun fat,
managed to stay in for 3 hours through 7 rounds :D Kinda funny cos I
made +500 at one point, then was down to my last few chips and then
went all in to break even again, before finally doing a kamikaze move
cos Oscar was waiting for me. Man, I will always remember I went all
in and only needed 1 more spade for a flush! Hehe, maybe next time.
Ooh, the best bit of playing any of the games is free drinks.
Magaritas and coronas were the order of the day for me, and I guess
its just another way for the casino to get drunkards to lose their
money.

What I did find annoying was that the casinos charged more than double
for a room on weekends, so ended up staying in 3 different ones on
each night. Sahara on Thursday, then Excalibur was the only casino
that didn't count Friday as weekend, then we had to go off the Strip
and end up in a casino called Terribles...luckily the name didn't
reflect in the room.

Shopping Malls
The day Clara arrived Oscar went to met her so I let them have some
time together, and also so I could explore the malls on the strip. As
I mentioned all the best casinos have malls inside like the caeser,
venetian and alladin all have indoor fake towns with painted skies and
stuff. But the best mall is the Trump "fashion show" mall- its just
huge and so fresh. Man, bluewaters will never be the same again. The
next evening we also went down fremont street where all the classic
casinos are, like the one with the neon cowboy sign with a moving
hitchiker arm (though it wasn't moving anymore). They installed a
massice LCD canopy that had a cool video show on it.

Leaving Las Vegas
So Sunday we left Vegas and headed back East towards Grand Canyon and
Clara came along too, to experience the thrill of the ride. Oscar's
been driving well so far, though there was one incident in Vegas where
he pulled out of a gas station...on the left hand side of the road
towards oncoming traffic :s I was like "er..Oscar, should that car be
heading towards us like that!?". Haha, he quickly swerved right and
drove over the central pavement.

Route 66
On our way to Flagstaff, Oscar was pretty knackered so I took over and
for the best bit too, via route 66 :D But just my luck, taking over
the driving and cruising down route 66 I drive straight into a bloody
thunder storm, and I mean like so much rain that I can't even see my
car bonnet storm!!! So I had to slow down to 55mph and with lightning
whip cracking around and on windy moutain top roads it was bloody
scary! Oscar and Clara will confess too that it lasted for ages and
visibilty was non existent. Hehe, but somehow we managed to get
through it. En route we made a random stop at Grand Canyon Caverns-
basically a very deep cave. It has nothing to do with the grand
canyon as such but made a really intersting detour as the air flow
from the cave actually comes from the Colorado River. When we arrived
in Flagstaff the first we noticed was the cool temperature! Yay, no
more heat. Plus it was raining. Yay, British weather at last! Hehe,
we had a really nice dinner at a pizza place called Picazzo's. Pizza
was lovely, local beer I had was called "stone a bastard", but best
desert 8 had in USA so far was here! Giant macademia nut cookie with
vanilla ice cream...YUM!!! Mmmm, can still taste it :)

Grand Canyon
Yesterday we headed down to Grand Canyon National park, in through the
South Rim and worked our way all the way round east and out of the
East entrance. First thing about grand canyon is that is totally
different from what I expected! I was expecting blistering heat, all
red rock, and sandy desert dirt tracks. Instead it was perfect
temperature, nice breezes, foresty areas surrounding the canyon with
vegetation on the tracks down. Either way the view was just stunning-
vast expanse of mountain.

When we got into the national park ($25 entry!) we took the free buses
to the west side view points which were just awe inspiring. We then
went and did the Bright Angel trail which was basically a bloody scary
one & a half mile long trail down the edge of the mountain side, and
then back up again, with a recommended time of 2-4 hours round trip.
It took us about an hour to get down and it was quite steep and with
loose rocks and so near the edge it was just abit dodgy :) The way up
was just totally knackering, especially after 3 weeks of an all
american fitness plan of fried lard, but we razed it up in 40 minutes,
haha. Must have been crazy!?

The evening we got back to Flagstaff around 10pm, but when we went to
find a restaurant, every one was closed! What's that about!? So we
had to plump for some random bar called Blues and Pools and had some
pizza again. Annoying thing was we entered the bar area first and
they bar tender was being a gay and insisted we show our passports as
ID's just to sit in the bar area. Unfortunately we only had driving
licenses which every other bar we had visited before had accepted.
This geezer was a real ass though, so he sent us out back to sit in
the "restaurant area"...that also actually had a bar. Anyways, the
food was actually quite good so I'll let them off.

4th July
So today Clara sets off back to Las Vegas and we head off to San Diego
via Pheonix. Also it is America's biggest party- 4th of July
Independence day. Yeah, not sure how they will welcome 2 guys from
England, but hopefully we won't be part of the bonfires.

Okay it's 8:30am now so gonna wake the other 2 up and find breakfast.
Hope everyone is well!

Speak soon!
John

*******

special message: keep smiling cos "a brighter star is on the way"

tan level: char grilled

temp: spit roast hot!

feeling: hungry for buffet