The U.S.A. – Part 2 – 3 Days/2 Nights Las Vegas & Grand Canyon Tour
Imagine a room full of brilliant architects, savvy businessmen, super-intelligent interior designers and top-notch security experts. Now fill the room with laughing gas and feed them LSD pie for lunch. Add several billion dollars to the mix. Then, tell them to go and design a city like no other in the world, and have some pretty skilled builders construct it… in the middle of the bloody desert. Welcome to Las Vegas.
It’s no wonder they call this place ‘Sin City’, or ‘Disneyland for Adults’ – with the right amount of money, anything is at your disposal here. But you don’t have to be a rich gambler to enjoy Las Vegas – wondering up and down the main strip just admiring the view and/or taking photographs can burn up hours at a time. During the day, the temperature here rises above 40 degrees C, and at night the only way to cool off is to head into the confines of one of the many elaborate air-conditioned labyrinths – otherwise known as casinos – of which there are plenty:
Las Vegas comes alive at night, but everthing here is 24-hours – in fact some of the casinos have their entire ceilings painted as though it was daytime outside: a blue sky with realistic clouds (no joke!). There are absolutely NO CLOCKS ANYWHERE, so you literally forget what time of day or night it really is (note: just look at your watch – I found that helped…). No photography is permitted inside the casinos, but most of the interesting stuff was to be seen outside anyway. The famous ‘Bellagio’ (watch the film Ocean’s 11 if you haven’t got a clue…) had a spectacular water fountain display which took place regularly that – due to its sheer precision and beauty – was one of the highlights of my visit. The picture doesn’t do it any justice: you simply have to see it for yourself.
Our Grand Canyon visit began early (6:30am) and was a fair old drive to get to. Our driver had already presented us with the option of taking a helicopter flight over the Canyon for $145 – I went for it on complete impulse, convincing myself with “you may never get this chnace again/put it on your credit card and worry about it later! blah, blah, blah…” statements of persuasion. The views were worth the money however…
…and they even played the Jurassic Park film theme-music as we hovered over the extraordinary landscape. Not a dinosaur in sight though. Typical. Afterwards we took a walk in the blistering heat around the South Rim to take in more amazing views:
On the second night I wandered the Vegas strip with a photographer called Claire, taking in the sights and sipping on various fruity alcoholic beverages:
A fun trip indeed – Vegas is unique in every imaginable way. I decided there’s be not be much point in heading back to L.A. with the tour bus as I was fast running out of money, and my next stop was San Francisco, so I booked a flight for the very next day. As you’ll find out in the next entry though, spontaneity doesn’t always pay off when you haven’t booked any accommodation prior to your arrival…
J.
Tags: Random Stuff, The U.S.A, Travel
J
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