Ken & Christine's USA trip 09: We wanted it hot

Up & ready to go to breakfast when Bob knocked on our door to say there were more Elk on the front lawn. Two big stags and a doe, quite happily munching away at the grass in front of our rooms. Again, they were quite content to let us all take heaps of photos. What a send off! As we headed off to have breaky we took one final photo of the early morning suns rays coming over the canyon. Beautiful!

We headed out of the National Park & followed the highway, stopping off at a little town called Williams to get fuel. What a wonderful little place, full of odds & ends, including the most beautiful Indian dolls. Just gorgeous. We continued on, then turned off to continue on the old Historic Route 66. Stopped at a place called Seligman, a town that has been decked out with everything pertaining to the movies, an area full of Hollywood memorabilia. Very very famous.

The country slowly changed to plains and the odd mountain range, with the temperature slowly rising, but quite comfortable for Ken & me. Temperature at that stage was reading 113F on the bike. As we got closer to the Hoover Dam, the traffic started slowing. We were moving at a snails pace (when we were moving) with it getting very uncomfortable. When we finally got to the point we could see what was happening we could see miles of traffic just stopped. Luckily Ken saw a parking area / shop & we shot off there & parked. The 4 of us raced in to the little shop, so much better. Temp reading was 126.8 F as per the guage in the shop. We spent about 1/2 hr there before we set off again, took over an hour and a half to get through the area. Traffic on the other side was stopped solid for over 5 miles. (According to the lady in the shop there had been an accident at the bottom, but we saw no evidence of it).

The bridge being built over the Hoover Dam has been in progress for many years, & is an absolute masterpiece of work - incredible to see. Once we got past all that it was onwards towards Las Vegas.

Very dry & dusty, the city in the middle of nowhere and nothing. We managed to find our way to The Strip, where we rode until we saw the Paris, where we were staying. Straight into a car park, grabbed our helmets and jackets & staggered to the first bar we saw. We were all exhausted, dry, hot, very parched and oh so happy to have made it. After a beer for the guys & a lemon, lime & bitters for Kerry & me we started to relax, & then had to face the enormous line up of people waiting to check in. Talk about crazy. Anyway, finally all done, in our rooms, & ready to check out the area. Had a good walk round The Paris, delightful.

We were up early yesterday morning to havve b'fast, then headed off again to check out all the casino's. As the temperature has been in the low 100's F with a very hot wind, we decided to do the tour using the Monorail. Great idea, as we could get on & off anywhere it stopped (we paid $12 ea for a 24 hr pass). We didn't get to all the casino's, but did see Bellagios, Caesars Palace, The Sahara, flamingo, Bally's, Harrahs, The Imperial, MGM (where they have live lions in a display), just to name a few. Think ours (Paris) was probably the pick of them all as the area of gambling, shops, restuarants & bars were in an area that had a high painted ceiling & it felt as tho' we were outside. Lovely (& expensive of course). But, that is part of Las Vegas. After having a good look around again last night we headed off to bed ready for an early departure this morning.