Las Vegas - 19/1/3

Got up late - was great to have a lie-in. Beds were very comfortable. However, it seemed as though a previous tenant suffering from a bout of enthusiasm had been sick in the room. It had been cleaned up, obviously, but there was a very faint whiff now and then, and a wet patch of cleaning fluid on the floor. Ick. We had a leisurely morning in the room planning the rest of the trip, which we pretty much nailed in an hour or two. I went downstairs around 11.30 to get some food and then onto a lesson on how to play 'Craps' - I'd seen people playing it the night before and it was a total mystery to me. B took her time getting ready and had a wander around the shops in the hotel complex.

At 2pm we got the bus with Papillon, the Grand Canyon Helicopter tour company, after a bit of faffing about with their poor organisation. The bus took about 30 minutes to the heliport which was out n the desert to the east. Our pilot introduced himself as Paco - a very friendly guy. He led us to a 6 seater red helicopter, a French number, apparently costing ~$3million, but with a big glass bubble, obviously ideal for sightseeing. A short while later we were airborne. Excitingly, we got to sit in the front, so had full view of everything for the whole trip, pretty much a 270 degree fov. Pretty damn awesome. First part of the trip was flying over Lake Mead - one of the world's largest man made lakes, created by the Hoover Dam. It took 7 years to fill and provides water for Mexico, California and Nevada amongst others. It has 5 marinas, numerous beaches and the shoreline is a distance of ~550 miles. We were told that it is a popular tourist destination during the summer months, as it's only about an hour's drive from Vegas - you could see why. On this particular day, the water was completely flat as well as being deep enough so that there were no speed restrictions on craft of any kind. Having a speedboat and maxing it across that placid surface would be so much fun!

Next up was the Hoover Dam - which holds all the water in. It's an impressive structure for it's size, compared to the amount of water it holds. It did look very small from ~4500 feet and clearly built in a valley that was narrow to reduce construction cost, but an engineering masterpiece for 80 years ago; having said that, some 100 workers lost their lives in the construction - imagine workplace safety was further down the list than it is now.

We passed on from there to fly over the Grand Canyon. No words to describe it's immensity. The colours were incredible: bright reds, dark brows, dirty white, majestic ravines, huge crevices and although we were probably flying at around 150-200mph for about 20-30 minutes over it, I imagine that we barely saw about 1/10 of the natural wonder.

The helo ride lasted for just over an hour; On the way back Paco found out that we were road tripping and gave us lots of handy tips for places to visit as we travelled further east. Interestingly, as we left, Paco also said thank you to us for visiting his country - something that a number of other Americans have also mentioned.

Back to the hotel and had a mission to find a cash machine that didn't charge a fortune ($6!) to withdraw money. This didn't happen. However, we did stumble (!) upon the MGM Grand, one of the larger and more posh casinos, inside of which was great restaurant that was a man-made rainforest, complete with sound & light effects. Great fun. This is where we ate for the evening and drank cocktails. Greater fun.

Then we headed onto the gaming floor, where I was itching to try Craps. One of the croupiers in the MGM was pretty rude as I didn't have my ID on me (not the asking, that was fair enough, it was more the way he shooed me away. His pit boss then ok'd it without the ID but I was irritated with him so didn't want to play at his table; we elected to return to the Luxor where the gaming staff seemed more friendly, were happy to chat and offer advice on the intracies of the game. I went to the Craps tables, B for the slot machines. This brief burst of consumer decision probably had no affect on the casino itself as it turns out that one major corp owns half of the big casinos on the strip and 1 other corp the other half. While chatting to one of the croupiers, and older fellow, said that he first moved to Vegas back in the 70s. I asked him whether he preferred it back when the 'other' guys were running them - the mobsters - and he said yes, most definitely. There was little crime, as the families running the place didn't allow anything untoward to scare the punters away and transgressors were punished. Harshly. Not much imagination needed to guess what he meant... Another advantage he said that was as all the casinos were individually owned, if (as a croupier) you were fired from one, you should walk right into the one next door and get another job. A further interesting point he made: the mob families made enough money to highly educate their children, who then made their way into the companies that now own the strip - so although it's now very much more legal and above board, the families still retain an interest.

Losses? B enjoyed playing the slot machines, put $65 in and eventually won $38 back. Over the day I'd been playing Craps, and was down $200. Arse. Then came that point where I had to make that decision - do I put more in to chase the losses back up? Well. I decided to have one last go and changed another $100 for chips. This went down and down and I got down to my last $40,  but then increased it to $80 by the time B came to find me. Then, over the course of the next few hours, we were gaming next to some fun people, 2 novices and a seasoned regular - and some individuals were lasting a long time on the dice. (The way craps basically works is that once a player get their turn to 'shoot', the longer they can roll without rolling a seven, the more everyone (including the shooter) around the table makes money. You just keep your chips down on certain numbers, and are repaid at the various odds when that number that you have your chips on comes up.) As time went on, there were a couple of shooters that rolled for a long time and my stack of chips grew from $80, to $120 to $200 to $340. Then 'moment' around the Craps table seemed to fade as some people left the table as well as the people that we had been playing with - next to, alongside, whatever you want to call it. We decided to call it a day after I'd maxed my winnings around $340 and dropped back down to $303 after a final punt, so I cashed out a fraction up.

The casinos in Vegas give you free booze while you are playing, assuming for judgement related reasons to encourage you to play more and more. We retired around 1, slightly pissed having had a brilliant day.

Craps is great fun, particularly if there are a good group of people around the table, whooping and hollering, high-fiving etc. Sometimes it can be a bit serious with some folk being quite morose, but it's easy enough to leave and find a more fun table and far more preferable. However when someone gets on a roll (i.e. when the point has been established and is not rolling a 7), everyone bets on their dice rolls; pretty soon the whole table is up and cheering, high-fiving everyone else as chips pour into punters hands. It really is quite something to experience.

It's easy to see how gambling can get the better of people.