Viva Las Vegas

One of the famous American Pie's
see all photos »

Today was checkout day in Los Angeles. After a big breakky once again at Coco's, off we headed towards Nevada. The freeway system here is really something amazing - the four, five and six lane routes just keep going and going. At one point it just seemed like a big bowl of spaghetti, with each lane of a 6 lane highway going to different places. Our co-ordinated driving tream once again kept us on the right path. We started with a three hour drive which took us to the outet town of Barstow. We picked one of the outlet malls to go into and found that most of the shops were closed. The ones that were open were spread wide enough apart though to spend about 2 hrs wandering around. It was a little windy making the cold very biting. Joe scored a pair of levl jeans for US$24 which was good. Paula continued on her quest to purchase gifts for family and friends.

One of the fountains inside Ceasers Palace..
see all photos »

As the sun started to go down we decided it was time to move on to Vegas as there was still another 3hrs of driving to get there. We had a nice hot coffee at Starbucks to keep us placated until we got to Vegas for dinner. The final drive was uneventful, with us all looking ahead waiting for the bright lights to appear. The first evidence we were getting closer was at Pimms on the Nevada border where a small town just lit up the sky with lights and Lucky Pete's casino. This is also a fashion outlet centre so we may be going back there in a day or two to check out the shops.

Bright Lights.. Big City

A preview of Paris...
see all photos »

We finally spotted the big lights on the horizon and especially the columnar light from the top of the Luxor pyramid straight up into the heavens. A right turn onto Flamingo Road and we had arrived at our destination - The Flamingo. Luckily the parking here was real easy with a very large multi-level carpark. We are on level 5 (just in case I forget!!). At check-in we umm-ed and ah-ed about upgrading to a mini suite - (we were also offerred a full suite at an extra US$300 a night for five nights - which I am sure only was offerred after the black amex came out!). We decided to stay in the standard room, as what was a mini-suite good for if we were going to be spending most of our time outside of the room. After going up in the wrong lifts and having to walk about a kilometer to our room, we unpacked and tried the internet connection. Once again this wasn't working - what it is with the internet here - and why us??

The Paris registration counter...
see all photos »

We rugged up and went out for our first walk on the strip. By now it was 11pm and it was a little quiet (comparatively). We stopped for a cheap chinese meal and then headed over to Ceasers Palace hoping to catch the free 12pm Atlantis show. Paula was just dumbfounded with the inside of the casino and shopping promenade. On arrival at the show area we found the last show was at 11pm. Decided to keep walking and went up and over the strip via a walkway to Paris. We took so many photos of the lights of Ceasers and Paris!! It looks like most of the resorts and casino's shops close at 11pm - so it is only window shopping at the promenade shops. These places just ooze money. Somebody somewhere must be winning on the slots and on the tables!!! We walked through Paris to Bally's Casino. Paula suggested we stop and rest in one of the lounges for a cocktail and listen to a quartet of ladies belt out some songs. This was great and the public dancing was very entertaining!! When their final set finished it was 2am and we decided to head back to the room to catch some shut-eye.