Fabulous Vegas!

Vegas has definitely lived up to expectations! This is the consumer capital – there's gambling everywhere you look, shops, touts, tarts, tacky souvenirs, shows, restaurants, bright lights – Vegas is all about spend, spend, spend. Fortunately I have exceptional talents at being a tight-arse and ridiculously thrifty – so we have not succumbed to the bottomless pit that Vegas so wants us to be :-) It's brash, in-ya-face and so completely tacky & fake, and yet in it's own way – it's really quite appealing! Very fun.

We stayed in a mega-complex last night on the Vegas Boulevard called 'Circus Circus'. Weird name, but was also a rather unusual place! 3500 rooms, 3 pools, a huge sprawling casino, 10 restaurants, a daily circus act, an indoor theme park including a super fast rollercoaster (I couldn't walk straight afterwards, knocked my socks off but had us both grinning), a wedding chapel (no we didn't :-) ) and a zillion shops. I think our accomm was more on the budget side, as we realised when we walked further down the strip last night that some of these mega-hotel

complexes are insane, and just OOZE opulence and excess. Caesers Palace, The Mirage, Wynns, MGM, Treasure Island (see pic of me in front of their ship), New York New York (a phenomenal mini-NY built as a hotel complex) and Bellagios...amongst others. Pure extravagance and OTT everything! The atmosphere and energy that comes out of this little city in the middle of the desert is awesome. It blows me away just how many people are in to gambling though – there must have been 1000s and 1000s of pokies, games and other money-wasting devices, but people just couldn't get enough of them. I can't even work out how to work a pokie machine. They look complicated!! Ha ha

Back in Boulder City tonight, just down the road from Vegas. Hoover Dam was interesting – built over 5 yrs and completed in 1935 during the Great Depression and gave 1000s of people lots of work. Awesome piece of engineering and located in quite a stunning canyon. Still struggling with HOT temps at the moment (43 deg at the Dam) so not feeling too energetic to truly explore places! Hopefully will get used to it soon :-) Going to try and go for a mt bike ride at the local Bootleg Canyon tomorrow morning...see how long we last!

Brent had to get a root canal yesterday for an absyss on his tooth, so sticking around here for another few days so the dentist can finish the treatment on Monday. All went well...so no worries there. Just been a bit of a yucky toothache for a few weeks, so thought we better get some proper advice. The health treatment here has been fab – awesome customer service and so professional! After the weekend, we'll start heading towards the Grand Canyon.... yeehaaaaa

 (PS American accent is coming along nicely. Have nearly perfected 'y'all' and 'ahsum')