Day 16: Las Vegas, NV to Los Angeles, CA

We cut the time in Vegas from four days to three, which would give us an extra day in LA. After visiting the Stratosphere (see last blog entry) we headed to Los Angeles, leaving the rest of the crew for another day in Vegas. Jared had left a day before us. Hopefully our trip to LA would be a little easier than him as he had taken over 6 hours due to accidents and traffic jams.

From 2007 USA Elises

From 2007 USA Elises

It was a relatively short drive and quite uneventful, but offers some nice scenery before entering Los Angeles. There is a really dramatic point when approaching the crest of one hill where the weather changes within a few seconds from sunny and warm to completely overcast and cold. It's caused by something to do with the ocean and hills, and perhaps the famous LA pollution, and butterflies, I don't know.

A big mistake to make when passing that point and entering the outskirts of LA is to assume you have arrived at your destination. Ohhh no. It's a huge place. At one point we wondered what town those big buildings on the horizon belonged to, and it then dawned on us that they were downtown LA. We drove on I10 westerly across the city towards the ocean. This road is nice as the traffic moves quickly but it's in a disastrous physical state. The washboard effect is so bad we pulled off the highway at one point to check that my suspension hadn't failed and was causing the bouncing.

Once we hit the ocean front all was forgiven. Other than getting to an amazing looking area, we had finally reached the Pacific. On one journey we had been at the Atlantic, Gulf and Pacific. Lots more pics and stories of the area to come over the next couple of days.

We found a hotel in Venice right on the beach with a pretty nice view:

From 2007 USA Elises

Days 13-16: Las Vegas

Now that we have moved on from Vegas I can do a recap of what we got up to.

All seven of us stayed at The Sahara, a casino/hotel that has by its own admission seen a more glamorous time (all the brochures talk about the Rat Pack). We actually liked the cheesy second tier feel of it, and because it is a little distance from the main strip not so crazily busy. It also has a really fun roller coaster attached to it. Having said that some bits of it are a bit frustrating, but we understand they are in the process of being taken over or something. Thankfully it is on the Vegas Monorail so all the major destinations are a quick ride away.

Any Vegas recount has to include the gambling. I am not a big gambler myself; I see it as spending some money to have fun rather than trying to make money, and with Priya watching like a hawk we are really tame gamblers. Whenever we won anything she would make us stop and move on, and $3 War was our favourite game, which says it all. In the end we ended up about even cash wise, and definitely up given the amount we drank :)

At The Flamingo for dinner and drinks:

From 2007 USA Elises

From 2007 USA Elises

We walked around a couple of the casinos. Here is the interior of the shopping gallery in Caesar's Palace:

From 2007 USA Elises

Ben, Keith, Sophie and Declan had really wanted to go see Prince. The box office there was releasing extra tickets the night of the concert, so they tried their luck. After a couple of hours it looked bleak, but some people they had chatted up came into possession of 20 VIP tickets and all of a sudden they were getting royal treatment. Even Paris Hilton had worse seats behind them; someone sneaked a photo ;)

As they were living the high life Priya and I went to see The Amazing Johnathan, something we had planned to do for months. Some of you may have seen him on Comedy Central. Billed as 'The Freddy Krueger of Comedy', his show incorporates silly magic and a lot of adult humour, a little similar to Penn and Teller but less actual magic and more laughs. We met him afterwards, but the poor fellow seemed a little burned out. I am sure Priya grabbing his cheeks made him feel a lot better.

"Dance Monkey Dance" From 2007 USA Elises

Before we left on Saturday we rode the Sahara coaster (again) and headed to the Stratosphere, 1,149ft high tower near the hotel that has three rides on top of it: one that goes up and down vertically on the top, another that spins around and hangs the riders off the edge, and a third that see-saws the riders again off the edge of the tower (here is a video of Priya and Keith on this one). The last two are particularly terrifying, and I didn't go near them. They can be seen in the second picture here hanging off the edge.

From 2007 USA Elises

From 2007 USA Elises

From 2007 USA Elises