Viva Las Vegas

WOW Vegas what too say about it, it is too much. We have been there for almost 4 days and really enjoyed it. Coming from Springdale (Zion) we drove the I15 South towards Vegas. At Glendale on the I15 we took a D tour towards The Valley of Fire National State park. It was a good drove on a not to good road. But we had fun and saw a lot of nice scenery over there.
Our second stop towards Vegas was the Hoover Damn at the border of Arizona and Nevada. A reall toerist place that's for sure. We parked our car in de garage and walked into the Visitors centre. Before we entered we had to go thrue security just as at the airport. Everything for safety afcourse!! We had to pay $11,- to cane in and that was including a tour to the generators in the dam.

The tour started with a movie about the Hoover dam, it lasted about 10 minutes. After that we went down in the damn with a hight speed elevator which was pretty crowded. At the end of the ride we 'landed' on one of the tubes in which the water from lake mead comes down into the generators. The were massive things and the dam has got a couple of them on the Arizona and Nevada side.
After the Hoover dam we got back in our car and headed for Vegas. We arrived at the MgM grand at about 3.30 pm. We parked our car at the Valet parking and went inside the Lobby. It was massive and looked like and airport arrivals hall but than Vegas style.  Check in went pretty quick and we got a nice room on the 21th floor overlooking the Vegas airport and the Hooters hotel.
After showering and other stuff we headed to our TB meeting spot the Margarittaville restaurant/cafe right next to the Flamingo hotel on the Vegas strip. There we met with the partygang, Sall, Mell, Nancy and Kent. Sall we met at the Amsterdam New Years eve meetup and the rest we saw for the first time. We had to wait for a couple of minutes and then we were seated at a table. We orderd all our food and drinks a had some good chats. It was really nice meeting all of them.
After dinner we went right next door and got into a chocolate store and Mell and (i think Nancy) had some chocolate icecream. It was a nice quiet place were we could chat better. After the icecream we went to a outdoor rockbar right next door. To bad Nancy had to leave us for the rest of the evening. We had a good time at the bar and Me (Dennis) and Sall had some 1 dollar shots at the bar. Around 11pm Melland Sall went home and Me, Jasmyn and Kent went to the Piano bar across the rock venue. That place was fun. Two pianos 2 women and lots of song request, lots of fun. The place was packed and we had a good time at that place, we stayed untill closing about 2am in the morning. After that we went back to the hotel, because we had a pretty much long day coming from Zion.
The day after we got up at around 8 and went out exploring the strip and there hotels. The weather was pretty warm outside but it was ok. First stop was Subway for some sandwich for breakfest. Really good!! Then we visited the Venetian hotel with here canals it's amazing how they build that hotel, really nice. next stop the treasure Island hotel which has a Pirate show every evening in fornt of the hotel, pretty cool how the made that. For a good view of Vegas, we took the monorail to the Stratosphere tower and got to the top of it, on the way we stoped at the Sahara hotel wich is right next to the tower and made a phonecall to my parents back home and updated our trip.
The view was amazing on the tower, Dennis is not that keen on getting on high buildings so his knees were a little wobly once up there. But he managed. Amazing to say were the rides on top of the tower, not lot of people dare to right them. After a good 1/2 hour we went down again with some great pictures on the camera. Next tstop was the vegas swimmingpool at the MGM grand. It took us a good 20 minutes to get too the pool. We got in got some drinks and didn't leave the pool before 5 o clock. We met some great people and had some nice chats. To bad we had to leave but we had to go to the Wynn hotel to see a show of the Circe Du Soleil named Le Reve. It was a great show lasting 1 hour and 10 minutes. To bad we couldn't make any pictures, but i still managed to talk a few!! After the show we saw the Venetian fountains, very nice to watch.  Then we god some food and listen to some fake Elvises at a outdoor karaoke bar, we had a good time.

On friday it was 10.30 when we got out of bet, we forget to set our alarmclock for that morning. First thing to do was ordering roomservice for breakfest, we had the whole deal, eggs bacon, coffee thee, hasbrowns, jummie very good!! After that it was time to go too the dreamcar rental station to pick up our rental car for 1 day in Vegas. We rented a 1968 Pontiac GTO. A great looking car. After i did the payment (yes it is expensive!!) i got the keys and we left the parkingspot. First stop was the famous las vegas sign near the airport. We made some pictures there. After that i brought jasmyn back to the hotel so she could change closes, she was wearing a skirt but the black leahter seat was burning here legs in the Vegas Heat. In the hotel she got some long pants to were. After the close changing we headed out for Red rock Canyon. The drive is not far but took us a good hour because of dense traffic. The heat was pretty much killing us in the car but never the less we had fun with it. At red rock we drove the scenic route and i was getting worried about the fuel level, the car was a economic fueled car, but what can you expect from a V8!!! We managed to do the scenic route and back to vegas first stop was the gas station to fill here up again. Than another hour to the rental station we had to bring it back at 6pm as the total rent was 6 hours. We managed to bring here back in one peace which was a good thing!! We had lots of fun driving a car you will hardly see in our town drivin around!! Friday night we went out for a BBQ at Sall house together with Mell. Sall picked us up at the entrance of MGM at about 9 after he came bck from bottleling his red wine. At sall house we had a lovely evening and got a good break from all the excitment from the Vegas strip. Sall takes good care of his guests making them feel at home. We stayed till about 2am ( i think!!).

Saterday morning was time to leave again to bad, we had a great time in vegas. But the road was calling again, here we come Death Valley!!!