Viva Las Vegas.

The drive to Vegas
OK so as a quick prelude to Las Vegas, we drove from Los Angles to Las Vegas with another couple who are very good friends of ours; Kathryn & Ash. (Yes the same Kathryn & Ash from Fiji, NO we were not tagging along on their honeymoon!)

We had booked a car prior to departing the great state of Western Australia and had no idea what exactly we had booked. So it is a little of an understatement to say we were surprised to see Ash roll-up in the Golden Giant. Will post photos on here for those who haven’t seen the facebook pics yet.

It was a fairly smooth ride, Ash and Jon shared the driving, and bar one wrong side of the road “incident” (I wont say who was driving, but as a small clue it wasn’t me!) we arrived safely to the glowing lights of the city in the desert.

Las Vegas

We are not sure how much we should include into this blog from our time in Vegas. The rules of Vegas are clear and simple, well there really is only one rule; what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.

That being said I don’t think we really ‘experienced’ the true Vegas to its full potential to upset the Vegas Gods. So here goes...

After sitting a car for 5 hours, walking through two outlet-shopping complexes and negotiating the ‘right hand’ side of the road we finally arrived.

It is impossible to describe the experience of seeing the lights of Las Vegas for the first time, nothing really compares so I won’t bother.

Side note: If you plan on heading to Vegas for the first time we strongly advise arriving at night (as we were wisely recommend), oh but don’t be the driver - it is too dangerous to be a first time driver in Vegas, way too many distractions.

So we pull into our hotel, the Monte Carlo, check in (tried to negotiate a room upgrade by telling them we were newlyweds. Upgrade Fail) threw our bags in our room and hit the strip.
Ash had come to town on a mission; he had planned to visit 40 casinos to collect 40 $5 chips for his casino table back home. Night one - we hit 3 casinos!

Vegas is a temptress, you must treat her well, do not play her at her own game or she will chew you up and spit you out. Make sure you have done your homework before you go into battle, plan your attack carefully, time your run and stick to a plan or you are going home $5000 in debt, 50kg heavier not slept a wink and married to a showgirl called ‘Jasmine’. So what did we do?

The first two nights we thought we were kings, played the big tables ($10 blackjack) drank, drank and drank; $1 margaritas at Bills are not to be trifled with, and walked around 20km a night. We got to bed around 3am for the first two nights thinking we had out danced Vegas. Second Fail.

Our third day in Vegas and we had run out of gas? This was not possible, we still had 3 days to go! Vegas was laughing at us, give up? Not these little ducks.

So we hit the pool deck to recharge, booked a few shows – L.A. Comedy Club & Circ De Soli Believe (It was Chris Angles new magic show, hmmm no comment) and prepared for our last few nights in town.

Although Vegas was is an amazing place we also got to experience something greater, the Grand Canyon. This was probably our favourite experience of the trip so far. The day consisted of a flight out to the western rim, helicopter ride down to the base, boat cruise up the Colorado River, bus trip to Eagle Point for lunch and a terrifying ride flight home. We will try not to go on too much about the Grand Canyon as you really can’t describe the experience and the photos don’t do it justice.

Ok, so we did heaps of things in our time in Vegas, checked out around 20 different casinos, hunted down a boot shaped drinking glass (long story), ate at hooters ... for the chicken wings, shopped at the forum, went on the rides at the stratosphere (well Sandy, Ash and Kathryn did, no comment), watched pretty much all the light and water shows along the strip and did about a hundred other things.

By the last night we were pretty much on the floor for the count and ready to pack our bags tuck our tail between our legs and scamper on to our next destination.
So long Vegas.

We boarded our sixth plane in just over 20 days and headed on to New York, New York.

Oh for those who had money on us getting married in Vegas, sorry, just couldn’t find a black midget Elvis impersonator celebrant. I looked.