Vegas, baby, from what I can remember, Vegas...

Leaving Yosemite was an obstacle course of mist, children and deer crossings. It also had us encounter the first of the many and varied design of petrol pumps. I think every petrol station in the states has a different method for making petrol come out of the pump. It was a continual challenge throughout the trip... But we had a nice lady who showed us how to keep our car going under its own steam.

It was about an 8 hour driving day. Needless to say we were bright as buttons when we left at 7am. The drive was uneventful, in a Californian desert interstate kind of way. The road trip pic earlier was pretty well standard viewing most of the way, once aforementioned children and deer had fled before us. But eventually we rounded a hill and had full view of Vegas spreading out like a concrete oasis in the middle of the dry plains.

Vegas seems like a bit of a blur of night lights and incessant bells and whistles from hundreds of thousands of pokie machines. The Strip is quite a place to see - particularly at night, and its electricity bill something to forever ponder. Our first night saw our travelling party split over conflicting entertainment options. Opting to avoid Celine Dion, Angie and I headed to catch Mystere, one of the many Cirque de Solei performances which was quite amazing. I've never seen human ability like it - highly entertaining; catch a show as soon as you can.

Unfortunately Vegas has some amazing shopping, so we filled in the daylight hours (yes, it felt like all 12 of them) at the Shopping Outlets, ensuring we would stretch our packs to breaking point. The days are quite in Vegas; its not until the neon fires up late afternoon that things get interesting. People watching is an awesome past time, there are brides wandering about, bucks and hens, and tourists covering any stereotype you care to impose.

Next day was our tour of the Grand Canyon about 5 hours drive away. We had a informative, yet irritating driver who shoved junk food in his mouth whenever he wasn't talking at us. We drove over the Hoover Dam wall which was more interesting than I had expected. Either side of the wall we stopped for military inspection, just to make sure we had left all portable explosives at home.

We viewed the Canyon from the south rim where its approximately 10-13 miles wide. It was an overcast day, so there were pools of light and shadow drifting across the rocks which made it look quite amazing, and managed to break up the haze. I was much more impressed than I thought I would be. I took a bit of a panorama to put together - its not perfect obviously, but I think it looks OK in showing the enormity of this massive tear through the Nevada desert.

(Click on the pic for a bigger view)

And that's about all I can tell you about Vegas - what can I say? What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas... So here are a couple of other pics.