We spent three nights (July 3rd to 5th) in Las Vegas but I'm going to cover them in one post. I'll also mention here that Vegas is hard to photograph. There are cars and people and telephone poles everywhere so I haven't really taken many photos worthy of showing.
Our arrival at Las Vegas was not the most straightforward. We were staying at the Linq casino which is located on the strip. The address is listed as being on the strip however in reality we had to access the parking area from behind which was completely confusing. The signage and road markings are absolutely useless in Nevada which made it that much harder.
We eventually figured it out though and made it inside where we met up with Hannah who had flown in Vegas that morning from Auckland via Los Angeles. We got up to our room to find that it was pretty small but otherwise nice enough. What wasn't nice was finding that the WiFi was restricted to two devices per day. Considering that we each had at least 10 devices between us that was not enough and is pretty poor these days, especially when the building was made out of some sort of mobile signal proof material.
We had arrived late in the afternoon so after we had unpacked and settled in we headed out to explore the strip and find some dinner. Our casino was just across the strip from Caesar's Palace where we went first. There is a huge mall known as the Forum which we explored and found a Cheesecake Factory restaurant (yes it's a restaurant over here!) where we made a reservation for dinner.
Caesar's Palace lobby
One interesting thing about Vegas is how relaxed everywhere is about alcohol. People can buy drinks at a bar, walk outside with them, and then take them into a restaurant and drink them while they eat. We each got huge slushie cocktails to have while we waited for a table. The food itself was good but huge. I have to say that this is the only time I've had anything that has lived up to the hype I'd heard about American portion sizes. Everything else has been no different to New Zealand (and just as expensive!). We each had leftovers to take home.
The next day was the 4th of July and we spent most of the day lounging around the Treasure Island Casino pool. It was for hotel guests only so we had to find a friend to bring us in (on the advice of the pool entrance attendant). The weather was hot and sunny and it was nice to relax by the water.
We all had high expectations for the 4th of July fireworks that were sure to be excessive in Vegas. Somehow we either missed them all entirely or there were none. We were outside from around 9.30pm onwards so not sure what happened there...
We spent the rest of the night at a huge party at a place called Encore at the Wynn casino. Entry was free and included free drinks for girls (this seems to be a thing in Vegas). It was pretty amazing with a huge pool, bright lights, and some famous DJ (I think he was called Cascade?). The time flew past and the sun was starting to rise as we made it home.
The next day (the 5th of July) we didn't get up until midday. Our only plan was to visit the Hoover Dam and that is what we did. The Dam itself was really impressive as well as the topography on which it sits. The scale of it all is hard to appreciate, even when seeing it for real. Also impressive was the Mike O'Callaghan–Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge which was built recently to shift the main highway traffic off of the dam. The bridge is high above the Colorado River and gives good views of the dam and Lake Mead behind it. The border between Nevada and Arizona is also midway along which gave us our third state.
Lake Mead is well below it's normal water level
The border between Nevada and Arizona
The dam seen from the bridge
That night was our final night in Vegas and we spent it exploring parts of the strip that we hadn't seen. Overall I thought it was pretty impressive and mostly not as tacky as I'd expected. My favourite part was the fountain show at the Bellagio. The casino sits behind a massive pool and at certain times each night fountain jets rise to the surface for a spectacular show of light, smoke, and water. We saw shows to both My Heart Will Go On from Titanic and Star Spangled Banner. We'd had hardly any sleep the night before so after seeing the fountains we went home.
The Strip at night
I had heard a lot of stories about how Vegas works and I have to say in my experience almost none of it still held true. First of all everything is expensive; food, drinks, hotel rooms, etc. Gambling itself it also expensive with the lowest bet I encountered anywhere on a slot machine being 50c per roll. Because of this we ended up spending less than $50 between us. I never saw anyone get free drinks while gambling but I might not have stayed in one place long enough to notice.
Most of the buildings were really nice inside although I got sick of casinos pretty quickly. Every single place looked the same with stupid colourful slot machines. I feel like it was be a whole lot better if they toned down the gaudy branding that all of the machines have (Dolly Parton slots for example).
The Strip itself was also a bit of a disappointment due to three lanes of heavy traffic in each direction. Pedestrians seem to be second class citizens here, forced to cross the road on huge bridges above the road. This meant that the sidewalks were always packed with people walking slowly.
Our final morning involved a trip to Walmart and breakfast at IHOP (International House of Pancakes). IHOP sadly did not have their famous all you can eat pancakes (only in January I'm told) but we did get bottomless coffees and the food itself was actually really nice. Our waitress was really great and we left Vegas feeling pretty good.
Up next is Zion National Park in Utah.