Las Vegas and Hoover Dam, Nevada
For this leg of our adventure we slept in a motel in Bakersfield California. The room was really nice, it was clean and very modern. The next morning we woke up and realized we had a flat tire so the first thing we needed to do was get that fixed. Luckily we found the garage really close to the hotel and they fixed the tire for $15!!!! Our drive to Vegas was four hours long and we finally got to the Stratosphere Hotel which, is a casino hotel on the end of the famous Las Vegas strip. We had no idea we were in Las Vegas on Memorial Day long weekend.....arghhhhhh......we actually picked the busiest weekend of the year to be in Las Vegas so we were very lucky to actually find a room at the Stratosphere Hotel.
The first thing that struck me was that there was ablsoutley NO secutriy checks anywhere...this made me slightly nervous to say the least....I also noticed the heavy smell of cigarettes smoke from the patrons at the casino and the loud casino bells ringing at the slot machines. Our room was on the 20th floor room 102..... so the we decided to check out the pool on the rooftop. It was very impressive and interesting to say the least ....it felt like a rave party with a lot of young adults Chilling by the swimming pool... we felt a little out of place. we met some nice ladies from France,,, so we spoke to them for a while then went to the famous strip. We decided to take the monorail.... so we bought a ticket took it to the MGM Grand Hotel.
WOWWWWW this was Las Vegas.....so We wanted to catch a show....but all the shows i wanted to watch were sold out so we kept walking down the strip. I found to be very commercial and it was jam packed with people ...afterall this was Vegas.... ... so we proceeded to walk down the strip and of course we saw the fountains at the Bellagio.... we did the New York ,New York .....we saw Caesars Palace Casino Hotel....the Venetian...etc.
Well we walked and walked and walked all the way back to our hotel...my feet were killing me cuz i had sandals on....anyway our hotel was still buzzing with action...so we went to our room and called it night!!
The next day we took a tour to the Hoover Dam....after doing all our homework we decided a tour was just as expensive than if we went by car. So we got picked up at our hotel and off we went to the dam. Please watch the video below to get a history of the dam...it's very very very impressive. The video explains everything...
History of Hoover Dam Video
So we got dropped off and had 2 hours to take a tour of the power plant below in the dam and to check out the dam up top ....we were blown away with the engineering marvel which stood before us....it was majestic to say the least.... a must see as some consider it to be the 8th wonder of the world!!
On our way back the dam we got off at Fremont Street.....which kinda reminded me of a poor man's Vegas strip. This place was also hopping...there were a lot of punk rockers walking around and the usual debauchery stuff.....so we watched a band play for a while then took an uber to the hotel....wow what a day!!!! We enjoed our stay in vegas though next time we'll catch a show or tow for sure....tomorrow ....Zion!!!
Love always
Mary and Peter.
The day before we met Jenna and Austin at the river walk, sweet young couple from Atlanta Georgia, and they had warned us that Bryce canyon was going to be beautiful. I thought to myself how can anything be more beautiful than the Grand Canyon? And we had already seen the beauty of Zion so what could Bryce possibly offer. But as predicted when we got off the bus and went towards the lookout point at 8100 feet we were completely blown away at jaw-dropping.....out of this world..... straight out of JR Tolkien's fantasy world..... beauty!!!!
