Probably the place that i have been looking forward to the most… more likely than not for a long awaited game of Texas hold’em Poker! But before that happens, we had to get there. From Chicago. On the good old Grimhound bus.
What a bloody grueler. 42 continuous hours later we arrived – Stinkin! The bus took us from a sunny Chicago, up through the freezing cold snowy Rocky Mountains and back down into the stifling heat of the Navada desert. Las Vegas. We’d seen it all now… from the street guys rappin that got on the bus at Detroit to Jesus Possessed Preachers – telling us the apocalypse was coming. Ohhhhh Lordy!
Somehow, don’t ask how, we managed to catch a ride to our hotel with an old guy who lost everything to gambling in Vegas. Once a very rich builder (so he told us anyway), he moved there way back when and saw the town grow from nothing – to the place it is now. The old boy now makes his living by selling soda on the sidewalk, and giving rides to tourists in his truck (which he lives in) 68 and broke that’s how he put it anyway! An interesting insight to the place that we had just arrived.
We were lucky to arrive in Vegas during the week – This allowed us to bag a cheap room in the Paradise tower at the Tropicana Casino; and for us it was paradise room. It was massive, and the bed was big enough to fit at least 4 people comfortably.
We hit the “The Strip” – a total of 2 hours to walk from one end to the other, and that’s if you don’t stop to look at any of the casinos! But you can’t do that! So it took us the best part of day to walk up and down the strip – stopping as many Casino’s as we could… They ranged from tacky Blackpool style arcades, to Amazing marble Hilton style numbers. New York New York – with its own roller coaster, The Venetian – with long boats that sailed you around the man made canals. But nothing was more spectacular than the Water show outside the Ballagio casino. Check out the video… we spent a good half hour mesmerized watching 3 shows one after the other. It’s worth going to Vegas just to see these.
Andrew managed to enter a poker competition at Luxor casino, but that was very short lived, and only lasted half an hour before getting knocked out! Never mind!
We managed to catch up with our 2 kiwi friends we met in Canada, and spend a long evening checkin out the cheapest drinks offers along the strip, and trying to find the cheapest blackjack table!! Next thing we know it’s 4am!
So that was Vegas… next stop LA.
