Grand Canyon & Vegas
Trip Start
Jan 04, 2008
1
128
130
Trip End
Dec 17, 2008
Las Vegas, Nevada
Friday, December 5, 2008
Grand Canyon West, and most of the other places in the area where you can access the canyon, is in a native reservation and this one is owned and run by the Hualapai who historically (and according to their leaflet) were "skillful traders" - well they haven't lost that skill. In order to see the canyon here (the next place is another 4 hours drive) you have to pay $20 to park your car, then it's another $35 each to get on their bus in order to reach the two view points. Maud also fancied walking on the glass platform that has been built out over the canyon but that was another $35 each so we decided to check it out first before we splashed out the cash. The canyon itself is an awesome sight and, unlike many other places we have been to that are cordoned off for safety, you can walk right up to the edge - and off if you're so inclined. It was far more impressive than any canyon we've seen since Fish River in Namibia and well worth the drive and expense to go and see it. We were glad we didn't shell out on the skywalk though as it looked quite small when you actually got up to it and you aren't allowed to take your camera out onto it - they will take your picture while you're out there and kindly sell it to you for (you guessed it !!) $35 per person....
We visited both Eagle Point - where you can see an eagle with it's wings spread in the rock formations and also Guano Point where there are still some old quarry workings. The Colorado river was about a mile below us and every few minutes there was a helicopter flying past beneath us. We did consider that but it was more than $35pp so decided to save that for another time. After a couple of hours and hundreds of photographs later we headed back to the car and hit the road.
We arrived back at the Hoover Dam and had a walk across the top. They're building a new road bridge high above the dam a little further down the valley which is supposed to be the worlds biggest concrete arch bridge (or something like that) when it is finished - but even at the construction stage it looked like a pretty big engineering job. The dam is also an amazing feat of engineering. It is over 220m high, has a top length of 380m and a bottom thickness of over 200m. There was a tour that we could have taken but that all seemed to be inside the power plant and everyone coming out had a Bob The Builder style yellow hat so we gave that a miss !
We headed back to Vegas and popped in to the Palms hotel. The previous evening Maud had seen an ad for an Oasis concert that had a limit of 2,500 tickets. Having only seen them with tens of thousands of others at a time we didn't think there was much chance but were very happy to find out that we could get great seats. That evening we headed to Caesars Palace for dinner and had a great Italian at a restaurant called Trevi next to a replica of the Trevi Fountain (surprisingly).
The next day we went to the outlets to do a bit more shopping and a bit of a relax (and a bit of gambling obviously). That night we headed for the Oasis concert which was fantastic and then onto the famous Ghost Bar at the top of the Palms (where the celebs are meant to hang out). We think it was good, not sure if we did see any celebs and don't quite remember getting home - sign of a good night out and proof that we can no longer handle our drink like we used to....
The next day we felt pretty rough but managed to pack all of our stuff and move a bit further down the strip to Treasure Island hotel. Luckily when we arrived our room was ready so it was back to bed to sleep off the hangover before dinner at the Grand Lux Café (owned by the Chesecake Factory people).
The next day we felt back to normal so Maud tried a poker tournament at Treasure Island, managed to get to the final table but then the wheels came off and she was out in 8th place - not a bad effort from a field of 60 though...We'd decided to have a posh night while we were in Vegas so we donned the new glad rags and took ourselves to Tao for dinner then on to the Wynn for a bit of 5 star gambling. Like a fish back in water Maud was soon making the most of the complimentary champagne and winning at table poker !!
Our last day was spent doing a bit of sightseeing and grabbing some last bargains in the sales that seem to be on everywhere. We'd seen a few ads for a show called The Real Deal which seemed to involve some poker pros we'd seen on tv and the audience so I headed off to get us a couple of tickets. For those of you who have heard of them we ended up having an evening with Doyle Brunson (aka the granddaddy of poker) and Daniel Negreanu. There were 6 people picked out of the audience (we tried to get picked but failed) and they played live poker with the pro's on stage. The rest of the audience (about 70 people in the small theatre) then played along on wireless handsets winning hands electronically against the players at the table. Between each round they had an audience game of 52 card pick-up where you pick 5 cards and the best poker hand in the audience wins a prize. Good old Turkish managed to pick a full house and so won copies of both the pro's books signed by both of them - nice one ! Later in the next game of 52 card pick-up I pulled a straight and won another copy of the books ! The audiences scores were on a leader board at the side of the screen and somehow as the last hand was dealt my score rocketed me from 16th place to 2nd - so another prize for the Turk. Once the pro's had said their goodbyes to everyone we headed outside to collect the prizes and then discovered that 2nd place also earnt me a GPS system - just need to buy the car to put it in now !! What a top evening out....
After the show it was back to the hotel to pack for the 4.30am start and the full days traveling back to sunny Bermuda.....and I think we were ready - 6 nights in Vegas is hard work !!
