31 January 2009

Vegas & The Grand Canyon [Day 10, 11 & 12]

For all those out there suffering from nealandrochellesoe.com withdrawal... never fear! Here we are again with an update. I will apologise for the length of time since our last update – but we have been very busy! Besides – it’s only been 3 days! Take a seat, its going to be a big one...

Before I share with you what we have been up to these last few days, I will let you in on a couple of observations I have made while in Las Vegas. This place lives up to the name Sin City. I walked into a dairy to get change for a $100 bill – and were confronted with rows of 'pokie' machines. I went into a gas station to ask for directions and all that was in the fridges was beer and spirits – really cheap too. You can buy cartons of cigarettes from the supermarket. A pack is only about $3 and you can smoke ANYWHERE! Pretty disgusting really – you can never get away from the smell of cigarette smoke. Instead of newspapers in those automatic pay dispenser machines on the footpath, there are porn magazines. You cannot get away from people offering you flyers for "escorts" on the street. We also saw two people being arrested (separate occasions) on the first day we got here. So on the whole – its mental.

Wednesday 28th Jan (day 10): What a stressful day! The root of this stress: our rental car company. Believe me, these guys are **** (insert your best insult here). Apparently because we had the tires replaced, they could not authorise any further repairs. I was also told that they knew for a fact that the car was fine and had no problems – I was being paranoid. I was also told that I was expecting too much, and that if I wanted a new 2009 model vehicle I would need to go and see another company. I proceeded to tell them that 1. All I want is a car that runs well and is safe. THAT’S IT! I don’t care if its 20 years old! 2. They should never have hired a rental vehicle that had tires that were completely bald and dangerous to drive on. And 3. There is something seriously wrong with the car and I do not feel safe driving it.

So they gave me 2 options – drive it as it is, or they will drive out to Vegas and replace it – but if the car makes it back to LA without causing a horrific accident or breaking down, I will have to pay for their time/gas etc for the trip. I tried reasoning with them and explain that if anything were to happen to us while driving an unsafe rental vehicle, they would be in a lot of s**t. But they didn't want to hear it. So I said to them – look, I will go to a mechanic and get the car checked out at my expense. If there is nothing wrong with it – then perfect! But if there is, you either pay to get it fixed or drive out to Vegas and replace it. Finally they agreed.

I managed to find a mechanic. They took it for a test drive, and reported that it was a wheel bearing that had failed. While continuing to drive it MIGHT be OK, there’s also the chance that the wheel falls off at 70mph. Not a risk I was willing to take. Looks like the rental guys thorough checks of the vehicle pre-rental, and their crystal ball that told them there was absolutely nothing wrong with the vehicle weren't as good as they thought. I rang them up and explained this all to them and they finally agreed to pay for the repairs. What was even better was the mechanic was able to fix it the same day! Finally we were getting somewhere.

While the car was in the shop we walked down to Fremont Street – which is a big area about 5 blocks long that is closed off to traffic. There are quite a few big casinos there – including the first casino in Vegas - The Golden Gate. Also the famous neon cowboy Las Vegas Vic. We went into a couple of casinos and played some pokies. Lost a total of $10.


That evening we planned to go out to see the bright lights of the strip! But first we stopped in at Fremont Street again to see it all lit up. We were really impressed...until the whole roof lit up, then we were blown away! The largest big-screen on the planet! Was crazy. Pictures do not do it justice.


Then we headed to the strip. It is hard to believe what you are looking at is real. I have never seen anything even remotely close to this in my life. The amount of money spent on that strip is just out of this world. Everything is so detailed and the lights are amazing. Some of the famous casinos we saw were the MGM Grand, Excalibur, New York-New York, Paris, Monte Carlo, Aladdin, Bellagio, Caesars Palace, Flamingo, Mirage, Sahara, Riveria and Treasure Island. We saw the fountains at the Bellagio which were so cool! I have got a vid of it that I'll upload at some stage...


Thursday 29th Jan (day 11): We were up bright and early for our trip out to the Grand Canyon. The land is basically desert the whole way - huge wide open roads, complete with cactus and tumbleweeds. We passed the Hoover Dam (more about that later) and drove down Route 66. We were steadily climbing the whole way and before we knew it, we were surrounded by snow again! But this time, the place was blanketed in the stuff. We got into the park and checked into our lodge (about 20m from the canyon edge!) then went out to catch the sunset over the canyon. Again - pictures do not do it justice. The canyon just looks like its a picture before you and you cannot grasp how wide and deep this thing is... Its monstrous! And we only saw a tiny part of it. It just blows your mind how big this thing is. We also saw some cool deer just wandering around the place.

Random men dressed up in dog suits


Friday 30th Jan (day 12): As Arizona is an hour behind Nevada, we had to get up at (what our bodies was telling us was...) 6am! Madness! And sheesh was it cold. This is the coldest I think I have been... EVER (Yes I do realise we are going to Canada in 3 days). But it was definitely worth it. But I wont bore you with more pictures... except these two (second is our car windscreen).


As we were in no rush to get back to Vegas, we stopped at the Hoover Dam. Rochelle was not game to do the power plant tour so I had to go alone. This thing is HUGE! A truly amazing site. For the tour we went down to the base of the dam and into one of the turbine rooms. These things are massive! Very impressive. We also went into one of the tunnels that was blasted out by dynamite when the dam was first built to divert to flow of the Colorado river.


We got back into Vegas and decided to go into the strip again and see the things we missed on Wednesday night. Mainly - the pirate show at the Treasure Island, the Flamingo enclosure at Flamingo, the anamatronic show at Caesars Palace and I wanted to check out Circus Circus. The pirate show was cool and there were alot of nice girls dancing on stage! The flamingos were also very cool but most were asleep when we got there. Anamatronic show - meh. But Caesars Palace is amazing! And Circus Circus had a pretty average circus show, but the lights were awesome!

Oh and we also snapped this one on the way home!


So you are all up to date! Tomorrow we head to San Diego. Main attraction being the Zoo. Should be fun :)

Oh and before I forget - heres a photo of us under the HOLLYWOOD sign :) A couple we met from Aus took it for us as our camera was flat :P


Next Post - 'Keg Party! San Diego'

28 January 2009

The Wonderful Las Vegas [Day 9]

We made it! What a mission...

Before I start telling you all about our wonderful journey, I need to fill you in on a few details about our rental car... its been making this really strange noise. It only makes it when you go above ~50mph - so really only on the freeway. We first noticed it travelling to San Fran and decided it must be coming from the tyres. We didn't have much time to do anything about it because we were so busy! But yesterday afternoon I took a closer look - to find that yes the tyres were completely bald and that we did not have a full sized spare. AWESOME! I called the rental company and they gave me the name of a place to go to and get them replaced early the next morning.

This brings you up to speed. So we get there bright and early at 8:30am and are told that we would have to pay (rather than the rental company) as they do not accept credit card payment over the phone - alright I guess, we can handle that. We are told it will take about an hour. THREE hours later at just after 11am we are finally ready to go. Keeping in mind that we have almost 600 miles to drive.

Annnyway, we finally get on the road... and the noise starts up again. We decide it is not too bad and keep our fingers crossed that nothing major happens. Thank god it didn't!

The trip was amazing! From wide open deserts to snow capped mountains to the bright lights of Vegas. Just outside San Fran it is so flat you can see for miles in almost every direction. The highways strech out forever. The only bad thing is there are so many big trucks on the road. Thankfully they learnt to drive unlike alot of the truck drivers in NZ.
(You'll need to click on these pics to enlarge them as you cant see the detail when they are so small!)


We then headed up, climbing to about 4000 feet. It was icy cold and there was even snow right on the road-side. The hills looked amazing all white, and most were covered in huge wind turbines.


Then we hit Nevada. There is only one word for it - crazy! The bright lights start basically as soon as you hit the boarder. Even these small towns have huge billboards and bright lights you can see for miles. We didnt get any pictures as the camera is not too good at night, and by this stage we were pretty keen to get into bed! They got brighter and bigger the closer we got to Vegas. In Vegas they are just unbelievable. We were both blown away. I cant wait to go out tomorrow night and have a better look!

This brings us up to about 9pm and the end of our journey. 580 miles in 10 hours. We also hit a milestone of 1000 miles on our trip so far. By the time we got to Vegas I think we had clocked up about 1200 miles (1931kms - about 100kms short of the length of NZ). So we found our motel, walked up to the door, and the receptionist (a guy) was making out with some girl on the couch! Only in Vegas eh? We check in, get our keys... lug our packs up to our room - not expecting alot after the last place we stayed in... but WOW! The room is HUGE! Has a king bed, heating, TV, bathroom... it is heaven. And we are paying HALF what we were in San Fran... I LOVE VEGAS!

With the car trouble we have decided to put our whole trip back one day and have it repaired. Its not worth the risk breaking down or even worse, causing an accident. It means we 'loose' a day which is a bit disappointing, but we will adjust by traveling into LA Monday morning rather than Sunday afternoon.

I have made a little map to show you all our journey so far and what we have planned.



We are currently at point C.
Point D is the Grand Canyon.
Point E back to Vegas
Point F is San Diego
Point G is back to LA

So as you can see - today's drive (point B to C) is definitely the longest. I feel good knowing the worst is behind me =) Just a bit more useless information - we plan on traveling approx 2400 miles, or approx 3800kms. That's almost the length of NZ twice! =/

Next Post - 'Vegas & The Grand Canyon'
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