Viva Las Vegas

So now we arrive at Las Vegas, what else could I choose but Viva Las Vegas to represent today’s end of the road trip part of the holiday and the next few days of relaxing before returning home.

Here is the map of today's journey:

Leaving the Canyon

I was up at 4.00 and read some online stuff on the Canyon to complete the information I had gained yesterday. 

Drew woke at 5.30 and I made coffee for us both. Drew got up at 6.30 and having showered and dressed we left the room and checked out, we were in the car and ready for our last drive at 7.30.

Breakfast

We stopped on route for breakfast at McDonalds in Williams, AZ, getting there at 8.35. Drew had mentioned a McDonald's Breakfast at various times during the holiday, so this was the chance to have one.

Drew opted for a sausage, egg and cheese McGriddle while I had a sausage muffin with egg. We eat and were back on the road by 9.15.

Getting hot 

Having left the Canyon when it was 84°, as we came down from the heights of the Canyon so the temperature began to rise. It was 90° in Williams and every few miles Drew would shout out as it raised a degree. It was 99° as we left the I40 and joined the US93 heading towards Nevada.  

By the time we were passing Dolan Springs Drew had the pleasure of announcing that the temperature was 102°.

We came up to the state line in Nevada and it was now 108°, very hot indeed. This is 42° for those who use Celsius!

Lunch

We stopped in Henderson, NV for lunch and to swap driver at 12.20. The place we stopped at was a large side of the road Casino called the Railroad Pass Hotel and Casino and it had a nice dining room in the theme of the railroad.

Drew opted for the dish called Just a Burger, which was a standard burger in a bun with fries. I opted for the Classic Reuben, this consisted of salted beef with Swiss cheese and sauerkraut served on rye bread, this also came with fries. My sandwich was sharp and tasty.

We left the Casino at 1.20 and headed down into the valley which is Las Vegas, we could see the Strip and the huge hotels from 10 miles away.

Arriving in Las Vegas

I had decided at the start of the holiday not to try and struggle with finding a Hertz garage in the busy parts of Vegas, I'd only spent a few hours in the place in the past, so didn't know the detail of the locations. I had therefore opted to hand the car back in the Hertz garage at Las Vegas Airport. This proved a good idea as the Car Return was well signposted all the way in to the area. The Hertz garage at the airport was huge and it was only a minute from arrival (at 2.00) before we had handed the car back. It has proved a very good car for the journey without any problems. I'm really pleased it worked so well for us.

From the Hertz garage we boarded the shuttle to the airport and from there got a taxi arriving at the Monte Carlo at 2.30.

Monte Carlo

A very efficient process for checking in saw a queue of 30 people dealt with in 2 minutes, we were checked in and up in our room by 2.45.

View from our room

We are on floor 25 in room 218, with a view along the strip, so outside the window is New York New York, MGM Grand and a selection of shops including an M&M store.

You might think the 25th floor might be a problem for the elevators, but in the Monte Carlo there are three banks of elevators, one for 2-12, another for 12 - 22 and the final ones for floors 23-32. So for us we get in to one of the six lifts that serve our floors and the first stop is floor 23, if anyone is going there. As it happened we came straight up to floor 25 and along to the room.

At 4.15 Drew popped out to get us each of Coke from downstairs - this is cheaper than room service and there are no mini-bars in this kind of hotel in the US. I loaded up all the photos from the last few days on to Flickr and named them, it took a while, but it is a good process to remember the fantastic things we have done.

The Strip

At 6.00, Flickr was right up to date, we went to look at Las Vegas. 

We walked from the Monte Carlo into our neighbouring hotel, The Aria, this is new since Drew's last visit here and is very spectacular. The Aria leads in to the Crystals Shopping area which is also highly decorated, it includes flowers, kites and water twisters, amazing to see. 

At the end of the Crystals we then ventured outside, as you can imagine it was very hot, but not the hot of the early days of the holiday, with humidity too, but a dry heat which was nice to walk in as the sun went down. We walked up the strip until coming to the Bellagio, we timed that well as the famous Bellagio Fountains began their 7pm display about 2 minutes after we got there.

Our next stop was Caesar's Palace, this place is amazing, not only is it so huge it would be easy to get lost, but it has shops and galleries which, through careful use of decoration of the ceilings, and temperature management, make you feel you are outside. With images of the Trevi Fountain and other monuments of ancient Rome is simply an amazing site.

Yes for the critics there is also signs all around of conspicuous consumption, with no mention of those who can't access the requirements to buy in these places, but that being said our first two hours had cost us nothing, other then the leg-power to walk.

My first visit to Vegas was not a great success, back in 1994 we came into the town the night after we had arrived at Los Angeles airport. My propensity for second day tiredness after coming across the Atlantic was something I first discovered on that occasion. 

When we arrived my family and I caught a bus, which in those days seemed to go from the back-door of every casino. It was a dismal journey with me falling off to sleep and seeing lots of bins and rubbish and not many bright lights. 

Memorably on one occasion on the journey a very large Floridian lady got on the bus and turned to my brother-in-law and said: "shift your fanny, hunn; before I land on you!!" (NB, this is the North American use of the word fanny, not the British one).

I slept that night for 8 hours and felt grateful to be leaving Vegas the next morning. I didn't expect to be coming back.

However in 2006 Drew came to Vegas for an academic conference and he loved the place. His photos from that visit can be found at this link. So given his excitement about the place, I was persuaded to try it again.

I realise now that Vegas is a mindset. If you try and judge it by any normal standards it won't fit. If you treat it like an unreal theme park where everything is at the edge of excess you can begin to enjoy that excess. Having learnt that from Drew that's what I'm doing.

Dinner

After Caesar's Palace we walked down the other side of the strip, you get from side to side by escalators and walkways, no road crossing here. We were heading to the Rain Forest Cafe in MGM, where Drew had experienced a lovely meal when he was last in Las Vegas in 2006, unfortunately it was closed for renovation work, so we crossed the strip, again by elevated walkway, to New York New York, where we found a lovely Italian Restaurant called Il Fornaio. 

Having seated us they greeted us with a selection of bread and olive oil and balsamic vinegar for dipping. We did this while we placed our order.

For appetisers Drew had Carpaccio which was a large portion of meat with a good amount of cheese. Drew enjoyed. I went for one of the evening's specials: Arancini al sugo, it was last year in Cavtat that I last had Arancini and these were an excellent example of this kind of dish, tasty and filling with a lovely tomato and basil sauce, the remainder of which got mopped up by my bread.

For mains we both had pasta dishes, Drew selecting Capellini al pomodoro, you could see the fresh basil over the plate. I opted for Tagliatelle alla bolognese, very traditional, but none the worse for that. The pasta was el dente and the sauce was rich with meat and tomato, lovely.

Drew was also interested in the desserts, there was a large selection, but he opted for Cannoli Siciliani; a cannoli filled with sheep’s milk ricotta served with candied orange,

bittersweet chocolate and pistachios. It looked lovely and Drew enjoyed every last morsel of it.

From New York New York it is a short walk to our hotel, which is next door. So we arrived back at the Monte Carlo at 10 and were in bed by 10.30.