This morning's schedule is much the same as yesterday's; breakfast is from 7am and we're leaving at 8 from just outside the rooms. As seems to be the norm the breakfast buffet contains a lot of bread, eggs, bacon and potato. It's cold and grey, and there's a band of darker clouds just behind the building we've been staying in. As we start to pull out of the parking lot there's some form of precipitation falling from the sky. First snow? No, it's apparently a light hail / ice shower. But maybe it counts as heavy snow if you think creatively. It's followed by rain as we make our way back into Bryce Canyon National Park where we stop at Sunset Point. There's time to wander around and take photos but it's freezing out this morning so I find that keeping my hands in my pockets is a good idea. I'll need to find some gloves. The light this morning is a lot more orange than yesterday afternoon and it highlights the colouring of the hoodoos spectacularly. On the way back onto the bus Kerry, Pina and I pass a French tour group who attempt to convince us we should join their group. We decline, but mention it to JP as we get back on our bus in an attempt at bargaining but come away empty.
Our plan for the day is to drive back through Red Canyon and over the Wasatch Mountains (which are technically part of the Rocky Mountains but they're treated separately) and up to Salt Lake City. Just outside the Bryce Canyon area we do come across our first legitimate snow of the tour, but it again changes to rain and loiters this way for the next hour or so of our drive. The rain finds a leak in the roof of the bus just over Pina's head (who today is sitting in the front right seat) which is solved with the use of some towels, but it's stopped by the time we stop for a restroom / coffee break at around 10ma in Beaver, UT. Macca's have really nice baked cookies (I like the choc chip better than the oatmeal).
There's a lot of sage brush along the way (where there aren't farms with other vegetation). Apparently it's a pretty nutritious plant (no, I didn't eat any) and this is one of the reasons the area used to have a large number of deer and buffalo in the area. For those not interested in watching the scenery out the windows we had Forrest Gump on DVD, and got almost all the way through it before stopping at Provo for a lunch break. There's a bunch of tech companies in the area (I think it was Novell we passed just before stopping at the mall). The hour break was long enough for me to have a quick lunch (chatting with Trudy and Hans today) before heading off to look for gloves. I found some (and a scarf - all on sale) in JCPenney, which is also where I re-ran into Trudy and Hans.
We then headed back onto the interstate for the 45 minute drive to Salt Lake City but detoured past it to visit the Great Salt Lake. The lake smells a bit funky (and "tastes like it smells" if you listen to Andy's opinion). There's also some fairly large mining operations in the area - across the interstate is a giant copper mine.
We have about a 90 minute break around the hotel area in Salt Lake City before we're picked up again and driven around town to the Capitol building and Temple Square. Apparently there are actual city blocks which the Mormons have bought from the city - I believe around the mall area as they're planning on building a roof over it. We're walked around the Temple Square area by a couple of guides and are shown the auditorium and the Tabernacle, and the outside of the Temple (as non-Mormons aren't allowed into a Mormon Temple once it's been consecrated). Dinner is at the Lion House Pantry (which has fabulous rolls with yummy honey butter) before we get a tour of Brigham Young's house next door. We get back to the hotel around 8.30pm and as we're getting off the bus JP asks if we're heading out again - Kerry, Pina and I all indicate we're not really planning to, and despite my intention from this afternoon of wandering to the brewhouse a few blocks down the road I end up calling it a night once I get back to my room.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Monday, October 19, 2009
Scenic Parks Explorer Day 2 - Las Vegas to Bryce Canyon
So sleepy! We're leaving at 8am this morning and breakfast is from 7 downstairs so when I get up I look around for the usual in-room coffee supplies and realise there aren't any. That's right, this is Las Vegas and we don't put anything in the room which will keep you away from the casino floors.
I run into Kerry and Pina on the way into breakfast and sit with them. Our waitress person puts us in a back corner rather than anywhere near all the other tour people and we wonder briefly if there's a reason (because the area is mostly empty). The waffles are good. The coffee is so-so, but it's coffee.
Everyone makes it onto the bus before 8am, and we find we've got little placecards with our names above the seats. Today I'm a couple of rows back on the driver's side. Pina and Kerry are in the two rows behind me, and further back are Liz and Jane. In fact, just about everyone has their own double seat except for those who are travelling as a couple. That being said, half of the bus remained empty so we weren't going to end up squashy any time soon.
Our plan for the day was to head north-east out of Las Vegas along the I-15 which cuts across the corner of Arizona (where we lose an hour) and then onto Utah. We were to visit Zion National Park around lunch time and then head onto Bryce Canyon later in the afternoon. As we drove along the scenery moved from the desert flats around Las Vegas to reveal a series of red mesas and JP explained that most of the tour would be spent at an altitude of at least 6000 feet (as a comparison, Mt Kosciusko is around 7300 feet) and that we should remember to drink enough water to help counteract any altitude sickness (should we experience any).
We will be driving through three different deserts during the tour (out of the five in the United States): the Mojave, which we will see parts of this morning; the Great Basin Desert; and the Colorado Plateau, which we will get to later today after visiting Zion.
Around 9.25am we roll through Mesquite and cross the state line from Nevada to Arizona and instantly lose an hour (it's now 10.25am). We wind along the Virgin River for a while as we pass through the Black Mountains - through the Virgin River Gorge - which rise up about 5400 feet seemingly out of nowhere and drop back to a flat desert before we cross into Utah a little before 11am. We stop at St George to collect supplies for lunch. I find a deli which makes sandwiches with your choice of any meat and cheese they have in the deli case - there's at least 50 of each and I elect for a smoked ham and provolone sandwich with salad and mustard. We spend about 45 minutes in the store collecting supplies before driving on to Zion National Park which is a little under an hour away.
The mountain structures which make up Zion NP are visible as we pass through towns which border it and once we pass through the entrance it's obvious that the canyon is different to anything we'd seen along the way today. Both sides of the road through the park are surrounded by towering sandstone walls in shades of reds, pinks and white. We leave the bus at the visitor centre a few miles into the park and are free for about and hour and a half. I catch the free shuttle bus up to the furthermost end of the park which is accessible by vehicle and wander around for a while on foot. There's not quite enough time to walk too far but I catch glimpses of climbers leading up some of the rock faces.
I catch the shuttle back to the visitor centre in time for our 2.30pm departure, but we're still sitting there around 2.40 waiting for two people. Initially we presume they're running late, but we end up figuring they may have forgotten to set their watches forward by an hour despite the numerous times JP had mentioned the change. Had we been somewhere where there was transportation to our location for the night (ie, anywhere but a national park) we would have left, but there really wasn't anything we could do but wait. Around 3pm they arrived on a shuttle bus having travelled mistakenly in the wrong direction twice before realising their mistake.
We leave Zion through the Zion-Mt Carmel Tunnel which requires the rangers to stop traffic on one side of the tunnel as the bus needs to drive on the centre of the road to avoid hitting the sides/ceiling of the tunnel. We stop to view the Checkerboard Mesa but otherwise continue on our way towards Bryce Canyon. Our surrounding change back to country farmland with some colourful fall foliage.
As we approach the Bryce Canyon area we stop along the way at Red Canyon which is a little like a mini/preview version of the hoodoos which Bryce is noted for. It's 5pm and it's noticeably chillier now than it was at lunch and most of us have pulled out jumpers after the photo stop in preparation. We stop briefly at our hotel for the night (Ruby's Inn) to drop off our bags before heading into Bryce Canyon and our first stop, Bryce Point, is about 8300 feet above sea level. This change in altitude from earlier in the day (we've now driven up onto the Colorado Plateau) along with the late afternoon breeze combine to make it rather chilly outside. This point is the highest we'll be at for the next couple of days, and is well above the 2000 feet Las Vegas sits at.
JP mentions that the Ponderosa pines which dot the canyon are a little like scratch-and-sniff trees and that they smell like vanilla (as long as you don't scratch a burnt tree). We all sound very doubting but do stop to smell the trees (a missed blackmail photo opportunity if ever there was one). They do, however, smell like vanilla so I think I lost that argument.
We drove back towards Ruby's and stopped around at Fairyland Point which has an excellent view of of a hoodoo known as Thor's Hammer. The hoodoos - the weathered spires for which this park is famous - are meant to have been named by the Native American tribes of the area (such as the Ute and Paiute tribes) and apparently they believed that they housed the spirits of the bad/evil dead. Also originating from the Native Americans was the state name - Utah. Anyhow, how Thor's Hammer ended up in Fairyland I don't know. But it's yet another impressive vantage point of the canyon (interestingly, it's not technically a canyon as it wasn't carved out due to a river a la the Grand Canyon). I don't expect that my camera (or perhaps that should be my photography skills) will do it justice.
It's cold and windy out in the late afternoon but apparently it's not as cold as it's going to get. I'm regretting not having packed gloves or a scarf, but presumably there'll be somewhere I can find some of these along the way (we're heading north for the next week so it's not going to get any warmer). Most of the group head into dinner at the restaurant at Ruby's Inn as we arrive back there on a warning from JP that it tends to get busy. The buffet has more than enough food, but the highlight has to be be icecream machine we found in the corner. Mmm... ice cream, crushed chocolate cookies, nuts, syrups, etc. As we leave we notice the line about 30 people long leading into the gift shop; early-ish dinner was an excellent plan. I end up purchasing a new memory card for about the same as I paid at home and the usual touristy magnet stuff before heading back out into the cold (which has developed a bit of a bite) and back to my room. There's free wifi in the rooms here so I get a chance to upload some photos and chat to people at home before calling it a night around 10pm.
I run into Kerry and Pina on the way into breakfast and sit with them. Our waitress person puts us in a back corner rather than anywhere near all the other tour people and we wonder briefly if there's a reason (because the area is mostly empty). The waffles are good. The coffee is so-so, but it's coffee.
Everyone makes it onto the bus before 8am, and we find we've got little placecards with our names above the seats. Today I'm a couple of rows back on the driver's side. Pina and Kerry are in the two rows behind me, and further back are Liz and Jane. In fact, just about everyone has their own double seat except for those who are travelling as a couple. That being said, half of the bus remained empty so we weren't going to end up squashy any time soon.
Our plan for the day was to head north-east out of Las Vegas along the I-15 which cuts across the corner of Arizona (where we lose an hour) and then onto Utah. We were to visit Zion National Park around lunch time and then head onto Bryce Canyon later in the afternoon. As we drove along the scenery moved from the desert flats around Las Vegas to reveal a series of red mesas and JP explained that most of the tour would be spent at an altitude of at least 6000 feet (as a comparison, Mt Kosciusko is around 7300 feet) and that we should remember to drink enough water to help counteract any altitude sickness (should we experience any).
We will be driving through three different deserts during the tour (out of the five in the United States): the Mojave, which we will see parts of this morning; the Great Basin Desert; and the Colorado Plateau, which we will get to later today after visiting Zion.
Around 9.25am we roll through Mesquite and cross the state line from Nevada to Arizona and instantly lose an hour (it's now 10.25am). We wind along the Virgin River for a while as we pass through the Black Mountains - through the Virgin River Gorge - which rise up about 5400 feet seemingly out of nowhere and drop back to a flat desert before we cross into Utah a little before 11am. We stop at St George to collect supplies for lunch. I find a deli which makes sandwiches with your choice of any meat and cheese they have in the deli case - there's at least 50 of each and I elect for a smoked ham and provolone sandwich with salad and mustard. We spend about 45 minutes in the store collecting supplies before driving on to Zion National Park which is a little under an hour away.
The mountain structures which make up Zion NP are visible as we pass through towns which border it and once we pass through the entrance it's obvious that the canyon is different to anything we'd seen along the way today. Both sides of the road through the park are surrounded by towering sandstone walls in shades of reds, pinks and white. We leave the bus at the visitor centre a few miles into the park and are free for about and hour and a half. I catch the free shuttle bus up to the furthermost end of the park which is accessible by vehicle and wander around for a while on foot. There's not quite enough time to walk too far but I catch glimpses of climbers leading up some of the rock faces.
I catch the shuttle back to the visitor centre in time for our 2.30pm departure, but we're still sitting there around 2.40 waiting for two people. Initially we presume they're running late, but we end up figuring they may have forgotten to set their watches forward by an hour despite the numerous times JP had mentioned the change. Had we been somewhere where there was transportation to our location for the night (ie, anywhere but a national park) we would have left, but there really wasn't anything we could do but wait. Around 3pm they arrived on a shuttle bus having travelled mistakenly in the wrong direction twice before realising their mistake.
We leave Zion through the Zion-Mt Carmel Tunnel which requires the rangers to stop traffic on one side of the tunnel as the bus needs to drive on the centre of the road to avoid hitting the sides/ceiling of the tunnel. We stop to view the Checkerboard Mesa but otherwise continue on our way towards Bryce Canyon. Our surrounding change back to country farmland with some colourful fall foliage.
As we approach the Bryce Canyon area we stop along the way at Red Canyon which is a little like a mini/preview version of the hoodoos which Bryce is noted for. It's 5pm and it's noticeably chillier now than it was at lunch and most of us have pulled out jumpers after the photo stop in preparation. We stop briefly at our hotel for the night (Ruby's Inn) to drop off our bags before heading into Bryce Canyon and our first stop, Bryce Point, is about 8300 feet above sea level. This change in altitude from earlier in the day (we've now driven up onto the Colorado Plateau) along with the late afternoon breeze combine to make it rather chilly outside. This point is the highest we'll be at for the next couple of days, and is well above the 2000 feet Las Vegas sits at.
JP mentions that the Ponderosa pines which dot the canyon are a little like scratch-and-sniff trees and that they smell like vanilla (as long as you don't scratch a burnt tree). We all sound very doubting but do stop to smell the trees (a missed blackmail photo opportunity if ever there was one). They do, however, smell like vanilla so I think I lost that argument.
We drove back towards Ruby's and stopped around at Fairyland Point which has an excellent view of of a hoodoo known as Thor's Hammer. The hoodoos - the weathered spires for which this park is famous - are meant to have been named by the Native American tribes of the area (such as the Ute and Paiute tribes) and apparently they believed that they housed the spirits of the bad/evil dead. Also originating from the Native Americans was the state name - Utah. Anyhow, how Thor's Hammer ended up in Fairyland I don't know. But it's yet another impressive vantage point of the canyon (interestingly, it's not technically a canyon as it wasn't carved out due to a river a la the Grand Canyon). I don't expect that my camera (or perhaps that should be my photography skills) will do it justice.
It's cold and windy out in the late afternoon but apparently it's not as cold as it's going to get. I'm regretting not having packed gloves or a scarf, but presumably there'll be somewhere I can find some of these along the way (we're heading north for the next week so it's not going to get any warmer). Most of the group head into dinner at the restaurant at Ruby's Inn as we arrive back there on a warning from JP that it tends to get busy. The buffet has more than enough food, but the highlight has to be be icecream machine we found in the corner. Mmm... ice cream, crushed chocolate cookies, nuts, syrups, etc. As we leave we notice the line about 30 people long leading into the gift shop; early-ish dinner was an excellent plan. I end up purchasing a new memory card for about the same as I paid at home and the usual touristy magnet stuff before heading back out into the cold (which has developed a bit of a bite) and back to my room. There's free wifi in the rooms here so I get a chance to upload some photos and chat to people at home before calling it a night around 10pm.
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Scenic Parks Explorer Day 1 - Brisbane to Las Vegas
My flight from Brisbane to L.A. was fairly so-so; I was seated by one of the galleys so would occasionally be woken up by light from behind the curtain or people stopping for supplies. The plane landed on time, and as per usual everyone spends ages trying to file off the plane before spending ages waiting around in the customs queue. I don't know if they check the electronic ESTA form as we all still have to fill in the usual green visa waiver form as well. I was expecting to have to take my suitcase from terminal 4 over to terminal 1 and re-check it in (seeing as US Airways have a baggage fee that I hadn't paid) but the terminal 4 staff are positive they they transfer the suitcase for me. So I walk around to terminal 1 (yes, there's a shuttle, but I've been on a plane for 12 hours and the walk won't kill me) and reconfirm with the US Airways staff that they don't need me to do anything with my baggage. No, they inform me, the bags have already been checked all the way through to Las Vegas and I don't have to do anything. They don't seem to want the $20 baggage fee so I head on over to the security checkpoint.
As with most airports, there's not really anything to do in there, but there is a Starbucks with coffee and enormous muffins. There's also bathrooms with automated everything; I'd forgotten how wacky it is to have automatic flushing, soap, water, paper dispensers etc. I end up chatting to an Israeli guy who's heading to Las Vegas for a conference (I had my laptop out and apparently I look like the kind of person who goes to IT conferences even when I'm on holidays). But I did learn how to write my name in Hebrew (not that I can do that without copying).
The flight to Las Vegas is meant to take an hour but we've landed in about 45 minutes. I join a long but fast-moving queue for a cab and arrive at the hotel around 12.30. Check in isn't meant to be until around 4pm but the desk clerk advises me that the tour people are all down in the East Lobby, but that I can leave my suitcase with the baggage check in if I don't want to carry it around. After checking in my back I wander around to the other lobby (which isn't really a lobby for the hotel as much as a place they throw the tour groups to keep them out of the way). There's two Trafalgar tables set up - one for a Trailblazer tour and one for Scenic Parks Explorer, which is the one I'm looking for. I catch the tail end of a discussion about leaving at 8am in the morning with a couple from Warwick, QLD (Brian and Denise) who were already missing some of their party somewhere in the hotel before sitting down to hear the rest of the conversation with another couple from QLD (Hans and Trudy).
Our Tour Director's name is JP, and the driver, who we'll meet in the morning, is Steve. There's not a lot to remember at this point: breakfast is anytime from 7am at the buffet behind one of the casino sections, and we're leaving at 8. There are welcome drinks at 5.30 upstairs, but other than that we're free to do as we like. Hans and Trudy disappear quickly as they filled out the online forms. I, however, have to provide address and emergency contact details. While I'm answering all the questions another person walks up - Liz, also travelling by herself, is from Melbourne. I find it's a little odd that so far, everyone I've met is from Australia. JP sorts out some room keys and Liz and I arrange to grab some lunch and head out for a wander before the thing at 5.30.
Around 2pm we grab coffee (woohoo!) and a sandwich from the coffee shop inside the Hilton before going to check the temperature outside. It's a lot hotter now that it was around midday so we wander around the hotel looking for the monorail which we be air-conditioned and can take us out to the Strip. We run into a couple of ladies from Hawaii (Carol and Shirley) who are also on our tour but part ways at the MGM Grand stop at the southern end of the monorail. After walking through what seems like the entire casino floor Liz and finally find our way out to the lobby of the hotel and back out onto the street. It's still really hot, but we wander around the set of pedestrian walkways which connect MGM, New York New York, Excalibur and Tropicana.
In search of some air-conditioning and a restroom we wander into the Excalibur and end up navigating our way over to the Luxor with its funky pyramid interior. Obviously the interior of the pyramid exterior of the hotel, I attempt to find the main entrance so I can get a photo from the outside but we end up heading out a side door because it's the first exit we can find that's not a fire door. At around 4pm Liz declares she's not feeling like walking back to the monorail station so hails a cab and we part ways. I find my way back across the walkways to the MGM and spend about 20 minutes trying to find my way back to the monorail (which is signposted, but there's no way to walk in a straight line to get there). I end up back at at my room at about 5 with a little time to come up with a sightseeing plan for later in the evening.
I'm a few minutes late for the welcome drinks, but apparently aren't quite the last one to arrive. There's maybe15 people in the room. There's pretzels and chips (way too many for the size of the group unless they're planning on hanging out and drinking all night, which they won't be), and beer, wine and softdrink. After a quick scan of the room I elect for a white wine (something that's already open) and wander off to chat. Most of the people are the age group I expected to find - probably 50-ish and up - with the exception of two girls from Adelaide who'd be about my age.
Apparently there are 20 people signed up for the tour, and on a bus that seats about 50 we won't have an issue with space. There's a quick round-the-room introduction - along the lines of "Hi, my name's Nicole. I'm from Brisbane, and I really want to see Bryce Canyon, Arches, etc" - before we follow it up with a go-and-work-out-who-has-your-nametag game (turns out Denise and I had each others so we quickly switch and are done with it). Half of the bus is from Queensland (which is just plain odd), and with three Aussies from other states we easily outnumber all the other nationalities. There are also 4 people from Hawaii, two from the UK and 1 from Guatemala.
Not having any plans for dinner I end up meeting up with Liz and Jane (from the UK) at the buffet downstairs before I head off again in search of sightseeing time on the Strip. I catch the monorail all the way back to the MGM Grand and again spend ages getting out of the hotel, but this time notice the signs for New York New York and follow those instead of the signs for the lobby. This brings me out onto the pedestrian bridges where I spend a while walking a lap and taking night photos of the casinos I saw earlier in the afternoon. Not wanting to get stuck inside the casinos I head down to street level to wander north-bound along the Strip. I knew from previous reading that the Strip runs for miles, but it's not until you start to walk along it that you realise just what that actually means. Each "block" is essentially one casino, and they just seem to keep going. The pedestrian traffic doesn't move very fast, but neither do the cars, really, despite it being Sunday night. It's crowded, but it doesn't ever feel unsafe simply because there so much light and so many tourists around.
I walk past the Monte Carlo, the construction of the Yves Saint Laurent building, and up to the corner with the Bellagio and Paris hotels. After arriving outside the Bellagio midway through one of the fountain shows, I wait around to see another two for photos (they run every 15 minutes and are different each time and I was enjoying the music between shows). I spot Caeser's Palace just north of the Bellagio so continue on my way. By the time I actually get to Caeser's I'm beginning to feel a little droopy and notice it's nearly 11pm. It's been getting on 28 hours since I flew out of Brisbane, and with only a little sleep and not quite enough coffee I figure it's probably a good time to head back. I know Bally's (across the road from Paris) has a monorail station so I head in that direction. Again, I have to walk through the entire casino floor (and smoking inside is apparently ok here?) to get to the monorail, but it's a quick ride back to the Hilton. I haven't really unpacked, but I need to reorganise things for the morning so end up finally switching off the light around midnight after double checking the timezone and alarm on my phone. The bed's really comfy - had I known that, I may have been convinced to head back earlier!
As with most airports, there's not really anything to do in there, but there is a Starbucks with coffee and enormous muffins. There's also bathrooms with automated everything; I'd forgotten how wacky it is to have automatic flushing, soap, water, paper dispensers etc. I end up chatting to an Israeli guy who's heading to Las Vegas for a conference (I had my laptop out and apparently I look like the kind of person who goes to IT conferences even when I'm on holidays). But I did learn how to write my name in Hebrew (not that I can do that without copying).
The flight to Las Vegas is meant to take an hour but we've landed in about 45 minutes. I join a long but fast-moving queue for a cab and arrive at the hotel around 12.30. Check in isn't meant to be until around 4pm but the desk clerk advises me that the tour people are all down in the East Lobby, but that I can leave my suitcase with the baggage check in if I don't want to carry it around. After checking in my back I wander around to the other lobby (which isn't really a lobby for the hotel as much as a place they throw the tour groups to keep them out of the way). There's two Trafalgar tables set up - one for a Trailblazer tour and one for Scenic Parks Explorer, which is the one I'm looking for. I catch the tail end of a discussion about leaving at 8am in the morning with a couple from Warwick, QLD (Brian and Denise) who were already missing some of their party somewhere in the hotel before sitting down to hear the rest of the conversation with another couple from QLD (Hans and Trudy).
Our Tour Director's name is JP, and the driver, who we'll meet in the morning, is Steve. There's not a lot to remember at this point: breakfast is anytime from 7am at the buffet behind one of the casino sections, and we're leaving at 8. There are welcome drinks at 5.30 upstairs, but other than that we're free to do as we like. Hans and Trudy disappear quickly as they filled out the online forms. I, however, have to provide address and emergency contact details. While I'm answering all the questions another person walks up - Liz, also travelling by herself, is from Melbourne. I find it's a little odd that so far, everyone I've met is from Australia. JP sorts out some room keys and Liz and I arrange to grab some lunch and head out for a wander before the thing at 5.30.
Around 2pm we grab coffee (woohoo!) and a sandwich from the coffee shop inside the Hilton before going to check the temperature outside. It's a lot hotter now that it was around midday so we wander around the hotel looking for the monorail which we be air-conditioned and can take us out to the Strip. We run into a couple of ladies from Hawaii (Carol and Shirley) who are also on our tour but part ways at the MGM Grand stop at the southern end of the monorail. After walking through what seems like the entire casino floor Liz and finally find our way out to the lobby of the hotel and back out onto the street. It's still really hot, but we wander around the set of pedestrian walkways which connect MGM, New York New York, Excalibur and Tropicana.
In search of some air-conditioning and a restroom we wander into the Excalibur and end up navigating our way over to the Luxor with its funky pyramid interior. Obviously the interior of the pyramid exterior of the hotel, I attempt to find the main entrance so I can get a photo from the outside but we end up heading out a side door because it's the first exit we can find that's not a fire door. At around 4pm Liz declares she's not feeling like walking back to the monorail station so hails a cab and we part ways. I find my way back across the walkways to the MGM and spend about 20 minutes trying to find my way back to the monorail (which is signposted, but there's no way to walk in a straight line to get there). I end up back at at my room at about 5 with a little time to come up with a sightseeing plan for later in the evening.
I'm a few minutes late for the welcome drinks, but apparently aren't quite the last one to arrive. There's maybe15 people in the room. There's pretzels and chips (way too many for the size of the group unless they're planning on hanging out and drinking all night, which they won't be), and beer, wine and softdrink. After a quick scan of the room I elect for a white wine (something that's already open) and wander off to chat. Most of the people are the age group I expected to find - probably 50-ish and up - with the exception of two girls from Adelaide who'd be about my age.
Apparently there are 20 people signed up for the tour, and on a bus that seats about 50 we won't have an issue with space. There's a quick round-the-room introduction - along the lines of "Hi, my name's Nicole. I'm from Brisbane, and I really want to see Bryce Canyon, Arches, etc" - before we follow it up with a go-and-work-out-who-has-your-nametag game (turns out Denise and I had each others so we quickly switch and are done with it). Half of the bus is from Queensland (which is just plain odd), and with three Aussies from other states we easily outnumber all the other nationalities. There are also 4 people from Hawaii, two from the UK and 1 from Guatemala.
Not having any plans for dinner I end up meeting up with Liz and Jane (from the UK) at the buffet downstairs before I head off again in search of sightseeing time on the Strip. I catch the monorail all the way back to the MGM Grand and again spend ages getting out of the hotel, but this time notice the signs for New York New York and follow those instead of the signs for the lobby. This brings me out onto the pedestrian bridges where I spend a while walking a lap and taking night photos of the casinos I saw earlier in the afternoon. Not wanting to get stuck inside the casinos I head down to street level to wander north-bound along the Strip. I knew from previous reading that the Strip runs for miles, but it's not until you start to walk along it that you realise just what that actually means. Each "block" is essentially one casino, and they just seem to keep going. The pedestrian traffic doesn't move very fast, but neither do the cars, really, despite it being Sunday night. It's crowded, but it doesn't ever feel unsafe simply because there so much light and so many tourists around.
I walk past the Monte Carlo, the construction of the Yves Saint Laurent building, and up to the corner with the Bellagio and Paris hotels. After arriving outside the Bellagio midway through one of the fountain shows, I wait around to see another two for photos (they run every 15 minutes and are different each time and I was enjoying the music between shows). I spot Caeser's Palace just north of the Bellagio so continue on my way. By the time I actually get to Caeser's I'm beginning to feel a little droopy and notice it's nearly 11pm. It's been getting on 28 hours since I flew out of Brisbane, and with only a little sleep and not quite enough coffee I figure it's probably a good time to head back. I know Bally's (across the road from Paris) has a monorail station so I head in that direction. Again, I have to walk through the entire casino floor (and smoking inside is apparently ok here?) to get to the monorail, but it's a quick ride back to the Hilton. I haven't really unpacked, but I need to reorganise things for the morning so end up finally switching off the light around midnight after double checking the timezone and alarm on my phone. The bed's really comfy - had I known that, I may have been convinced to head back earlier!
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