Up at 8.30, out of the door ~10, on the road heading for the south rim of the Grand Canyon and then onto Flagstaff, Arizona.
We decided to travel down some of Route 66, just to say that we had, but it turned out that there wasn't much to see there apart from desert, desert. And some more desert, with a bit more desert thrown in for good measure. It was exceedingly beautiful, at least at first, but after a while the brain stops noticing things that don't change so much - and you do get used to it after a few hours of seeing nothing but the road stretching out in front of you in a straight line to the horizon with huge expanses of brown dirt and/or grass in every direction.
Route 66 is famous because it was one of the original trans-American highways and originally ran from Chicago due south before bending towards the west coast in the midwest and then pretty much arrow straight towards Los Angeles and the Pacific coast covering a total of 2,448 miles. Good ol' wikipedia.
We were hoping to see some of the old towns that used to be vibrant and no longer - so called Ghost Towns - but there was nothing completely derelict. This may seem a peverse wish, but there is something fascinating about it - there are a lost of great resources on the intertubes with superb photos of these ghost towns and simply looking at photos is really eerie. Actually being there would be something else! Some towns did seem half dead - as you drove through them there were many many buildings un-lived in and businesses closed, but there were still people living there at the other end of town; these tended to be Indian towns in the main (in reservation areas) and it was sad to see the living that some people were only just scratching out.
It was reasonably warm when we left Vegas (~14-16C), but the further and higher towards the GC that we traveled, the colder it became.
First stop was the Hoover Dam - an incredible structure that was almost overshadowed (in my mind) by the interstate bridge which was ginormous. The concrete support arches for the bridge were as wide as a car is long and about as thick. The Dam itself however, lived up to expectations. It had looked tiny from the air, but was fully 800-odd feet high, with either end in a different timezone as the site chosen was more or less on the border of Nevada and Arizona, the latter being in the amusingly (to my mind) named 'Mountain time' zone. The overflows of the dam were gigantic. Hard to describe the size of them - perhaps twice the length of a football field and as deep as a 30+ storey building. Looking down that famous curved face of it was great experience. Aware that time was pressing (and the up until now completely neglected time zone meaning we effectively 'lost' an hour), we jumped in the monster and zoomed up the highway.
We arrived at the GC national park at about 5pm, just as the sun was starting to sink to get some pictures and check out the monstrous gash in the planet's surface, although we definitely thought that it was a shame that we hadn't managed to get there earlier - even 30 minutes would have been better; however on the plus side to see the shadows cast across the ravines and the sun setting behind us lent the visuals something that we otherwise maybe wouldn't have seen. It was really *really* cold up there, snow and ice everywhere, especially when the wind blew hard. It went right through you - rather like when we get the wind from Siberia coming across the UK.
The cost of getting into the park was $25, and lasted for 7 days - shame we only had about 45 minutes before the sun set. It was just getting dark as we left the rim and to drive to Flagstaff. The roads were a little icy in places, and in one place in particular, the ice covered the road for a metre or so. This was a pretty weird experience, considering that a mere 3-4 hours previously had been driving across a baking desert.
We were both flagging badly at this point and didn't arrive at Flagstaff until around 8.30 - part of the reason for misjudging the time so badly was aforesaid timezone issue as well as the large detour that we made to the south rim of the GC.
We stayed in an local hostel, which was fine for the night at $44 for a private room. Pretty much crashed out as soon as we arrived and fell asleep shortly afterwards around 10.30.
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Showing posts with label Las Vegas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Las Vegas. Show all posts
Friday, 25 January 2013
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.
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.
San Diego - Las Vegas - 18/1/13
Up at 8.30, got ready and packed. Felt very sad to be leaving San Diego, as it was a lovely place to stay with a great atmosphere, helped in a great part by our hostess.
Before we left, we had breakfast at a local Cafe called 'Newbreak' - B had a Californian Omelet (bacon, tomatoes, onions wrapped up with slices of avocado on top). Best one that she's ever had, and she's not usually a fan of omelettes. I had a breakfast burrito - bacon, scrambled eggs, tomato. Delish.
Finally left at 11.30, most of the journey was through desert, and arrived at 6pm, 328 miles later. Traffic was dead busy, then we realised that it was Friday so that there was a lot of folks heading to Vegas as well. Later found out that it was a public holiday on the Monday. There was a couple of accidents on the freeways as well, which caused jams - rubbernecking is as popular here as it in the UK it seems.
As we approached Las Vegas, we could see our hotel from the freeway, as it was (probably) the only pyramid in America with a searchlight shining from it's peak. The Luxor. Walked through the hotel to the reception, which led us past the gaming floor. Hundreds of slot machines, black jack, poker, craps and roulette tables dotted around. Very loud and an assault on the senses.
Our room was on the 9th floor, large with 2 big beds and overlooked the desert with the mountains in the background. Great view, all told. Chilled for a bit after our drive and headed down to the gaming floor to see what was happening. People were gambling. Have since found out that 'Casino' means 'Almost Never'. We got some beers and I played a little on a roulette table and was viciously cheated out of some money. There was every possible choice of food to eat, so we had a delicious ramen each, and then were unable to carry on. Bed by 11.
View San Diego to Las Vegas in a larger map
Before we left, we had breakfast at a local Cafe called 'Newbreak' - B had a Californian Omelet (bacon, tomatoes, onions wrapped up with slices of avocado on top). Best one that she's ever had, and she's not usually a fan of omelettes. I had a breakfast burrito - bacon, scrambled eggs, tomato. Delish.
Finally left at 11.30, most of the journey was through desert, and arrived at 6pm, 328 miles later. Traffic was dead busy, then we realised that it was Friday so that there was a lot of folks heading to Vegas as well. Later found out that it was a public holiday on the Monday. There was a couple of accidents on the freeways as well, which caused jams - rubbernecking is as popular here as it in the UK it seems.
As we approached Las Vegas, we could see our hotel from the freeway, as it was (probably) the only pyramid in America with a searchlight shining from it's peak. The Luxor. Walked through the hotel to the reception, which led us past the gaming floor. Hundreds of slot machines, black jack, poker, craps and roulette tables dotted around. Very loud and an assault on the senses.
Our room was on the 9th floor, large with 2 big beds and overlooked the desert with the mountains in the background. Great view, all told. Chilled for a bit after our drive and headed down to the gaming floor to see what was happening. People were gambling. Have since found out that 'Casino' means 'Almost Never'. We got some beers and I played a little on a roulette table and was viciously cheated out of some money. There was every possible choice of food to eat, so we had a delicious ramen each, and then were unable to carry on. Bed by 11.
View San Diego to Las Vegas in a larger map
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