Day Fifty-Six: Another State, Another Park, Another Successful Day

Today was a pretty full day. We started today by finding the "Welcome to Las Vegas" sign (luckily the back says "Come Back Soon".) I think this is the first time we have been successful in finding something so easily!! We took some pictures there, and our next stop was to Dunkin Donuts. We found it! It was right near the sign, so it was rather convenient. It was a little disappointing, though, because the girl who made it was new, so it wasn't as good as it could have been. I'm not one to complain too much about a cup of coffee, though. That made us two-for-two, which is an awesome percentage for us! An already successful day!
After that, we headed towards Arizona. We stopped by the Hoover Dam. The patrolman sounded a little skeptical when we said we were on vacation, but let us through anyway. Good thing we weren't trying to cross any borders! We drove a little more, but then saw that they charged to park, so we turned around, and went back to the free parking area near the new bridge. We walked over the bridge, which spans the border between Nevada and Arizona. It is also a great place to take pictures of the Dam, since you can't drive over it anymore. We walked back and kept going with our drive.
Our next stop, of course, was the Grand Canyon. After a few more hours of driving, we passed the campground we are staying at, and had to keep going for another hour. We finally got there, and walked around the South Rim of the park. This is where all of the tourists are. The views out were amazing, though! We walked about two miles out, found a trail, and walked down it a little. We wanted to stay to see sunset, but since we were tired and hungry, we walked back to the car. On our way back, some older Italian guy started hitting on us, saying we had some "wonderful blue eyes" and asking if he "could at least give us kisses", or so it sounded like. We kept walking. We also saw a lightning storm over the Canyon, but once we were ready to take pictures, it was over.
We drove the hour back to the campground and watched sunset. It wasn't quite as exciting as seeing it at the Grand Canyon, but at least it looked pretty! Soon, all of the stars were out, too. Somehow, from 3,000+ miles away, Dad was able to talk us into hiking down the Grand Canyon tomorrow. I guess as long as you have more than just lemon juice and you stick to the path. So, after we pitch our tent, it's time for bed so we can start super early tomorrow...

States Visited: Arizona, California, Connecticut, Idaho,Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada, New York, Oregon, South Dakota, Washington, Wisconsin, Wyoming (17/50)

Day Fifty-Five: What Happens in Vegas...

After a fun-filled night, we slept the morning away. It was a good thing that we didn't have too much planned for today. After finally getting out, we went out to lunch and walked down the other side of the strip. We walked through the shops at the Palazzo and Venetian. We saw the gondolas and moving statues. One had a huge smile on her face! We heard the Italian singers, but couldn't find them. After that, we went to the Flamingo, and saw their flamingos and birds, and then to the MGM Grand to see the lions. Those are some lucky lions- they spend 18-20 hours a day sleeping. Needless to say, they were asleep when we got there. The last hotel/casino we stopped at was the Tropicana. It was so much quieter and laid-back than the other casinos. Our task for today was to find the Dunkin Donuts we found on our GPS, but couldn't find it. Hoping we'll be more successful tomorrow! Since it was later in the afternoon, we headed back to get ready for tonight.
We spent the night at "The Lion King" at Mandalay Bay. It was absolutely amazing! Totally worth it. They did an excellent job putting the movie into a musical. The costumes and puppets were awesome! They even threw in some hilarious jokes based on Las Vegas! "You're bringing me down. Sing something upbeat." "Viva Las Vegas!!" "Anything other than that!!" Sorry... We would totally recommend seeing it! After the show, we got some coffee and took our time walking back to the hotel. We took some time to plan tomorrow's trip to the Grand Canyon, so it's another somewhat-early night so we don't have to drive through the heat of the day tomorrow.

Day Fifty-Four: Viva Las Vegas!

Cliche, I know.
We spent today walking up and down the Strip. We stopped at all of the hotels and shops and looked around. We walked down to Mandalay Bay to buy tickets for "The Lion King". We were shooting for tonight, but the only tickets that were together were for tomorrow night. So, we bought them and look forward to seeing it tomorrow night! Since it was so hot today, once we got down to the end of the Strip, we decided to walk back to Treasure Island. We spent some time cooling down inside.
At night, we decided to go down to 'older' Las Vegas. We walked down to the Riviera and Circus-Circus. We walked under the 1,000+ lights (read somewhere that was supposed to be on the 'to-do' list here). We also watched one of the circus acts at Circus-Circus. We were going to stay longer, but after the first act, it was another 5 minutes for the next one and we didn't feel like waiting around for it. This act was pretty cool, though, because it was two aerialists. The arms on the girl!! Sheesh! Wouldn't want to meet her in a dark alley...
After that, we decided to walk back to our hotel because for the night. There were a lot of "weird" people coming out, so we decided to go in. We did watch the nightly show at Treasure Island, called "The Sirens of TI". It was not a very family-friendly show, which kind of surprised us, since so many of the others are. It was pretty much a bunch of girls dressed as pirates who overtook the Captain of the guys' ship and it ended with a dance party. I guess everything has to end in a dance party.

Day Fifty-Three: If You've Never Had the Chance to Drive to Las Vegas....

Keep it that way!! Not much out here, except for maybe heat rash...I guess this means that we are now headed on our way back. We have now completed 2 sides of our circle (fully aware circles don't have sides)
We woke up quite early this morning to some drunk neighbors. (Not tent neighbors, neighborhood neighbors.) Really drunk. And really mad at each other for some reason. They went on for like 2 hours yelling at each other. Found out this morning that a bunch of them were arrested and that we would (maybe) be getting a refund for the night. So after being able to fall back asleep around 2, we woke up at 5:30 to start our day. We figured that if we left early enough, we would be able to get to Las Vegas before it got too hot for the car. We packed so quickly that we were able to leave camp before 6:15. (I'm pretty sure that the staff member thought we were packing up early because of what had happened during the night.)
It's about 5 1/2 hours from San Diego to Las Vegas, with maybe 3 towns in between! OK, maybe five in California and three in Nevada. And there wasn't much to see on the sides of the road. We had to make sure that we had enough gas to get out here. Everyone warns about making sure you have enough so you don't have to push. I don't think it would be very fun to push a car 30 miles in 100+ degree heat. Lucky we had enough to get about half way out before filling, and then decided to refill just to be on the safe side. After we got out of the San Diego metro area, there was one other rather large area around Riverside and San Bernadino. Beyond that, nothing. The other two towns we passed through were Barstow and Baker. (Baker has a population of 600, but makes the map because it's your last chance to fill up.) This is also the area of the Mojave Preserve. On the other side was Death Valley. We took a few quick pictures of the signs pointing that way, but there was no way we were going to turn off the road!
After miles and miles of desert and Joshua Trees, we finally made it to Nevada! It's state number 16 on our list. It was kind of funny because the sign said that Primm (the first town in the state) was 3/4 mile away and it looked like it was literally right behind the sign. I guess that's what happens when there is nothing around. It was a small town, but it had 3 or 4 different "casinos" and an amusement park. One of them was called "Terrible's". The gas station also had over 30 pumps! I've never seen one that big before! And some slot machines. Just for fun! Forty more miles to go to Las Vegas. After we left California, there were no other large cities to give mileage for alongside the road. The first one we saw was Las Vegas and Salt Lake City. Vegas had a distance, but it was blank for SLC. On the next sign, it said SLC was 502 miles. Not much else in between, I guess!
Around 12:30, we made it to Las Vegas. It was amazing to see the city among the desert. We also saw a sign for Dunkin Donuts- which made us really excited!! We continued down I-15 and saw all the hotels and everything everyone always talks about. Since we still had some time before check-in, we decided to go to the outlets at the end of the strip. It wasn't unbearably hot, but they had water misters, and it actually made it a little uncomfortable. We did some shopping, and then went to Treasure Island to check in. The wait wasn't too long. The room is gorgeous! We are on the 29th floor with a view of the strip. We can see everything out our window. I am pretty sure the bathroom is larger than my bedroom!! The beds and the pillows are super comfy- can't wait to sleep on a bed for a few days!! After settling in, we went downstairs and looked around a little. We decided to go out and do some more shopping- got some new outfits, too! We walked down to Caesar's Palace. That hotel is absolutely amazing! The fact that they have a spiral escalator!! We walked through the shops, stopped at Peter Lik's gallery and looked at some of his pictures. They were neat, but then we walked through some more and saw very similar pictures. After awhile, we decided that it was dinnertime. We got down as far as the Eiffel Tower. Since we had some long days recently, we decided to head back towards the hotel. We played a little on the machines (we were up $10.00 on our $2, but kept going till we had nothing left. High rollers, I know!!) After that, we came upstairs and now it's time to rest up for another long day!!