Grand Canyon to Las Vegas

Today is Monday July 28, 2008 according to my laptop and right now it is 1:58 at home, I know that because I haven’t changed the time on here, it’s my way of keeping touch with home. It’s about the only way… my body and head are quite far from home and reality.

Yesterday after watching the sunrise, we went back to the Lodge and cleaned up… yes we had just jumped out of bed, got dressed and headed out to see the sunrise without cleaning up… without coffee too, which John said he could never do. After breakfast and checking out, John said he wanted to see it all again, from beginning to end, so we drove the 26 (or what ever it is) miles to the Desert View and then all the way back again.

Eventually we were on our way, stopping in Williams for gas and would you believe laundry… yep. Next door to the gas station was a little laundromat so we washed our week’s worth of dirty clothes and then hit the road again. (Laundry was not a highlight of the trip but a necessity.)

The next highlight of the day was Hoover Dam, and the traffic leading up to it. Bumper to bumper crawling at 5 miles an hour for about a half hour (John says at least an hour..) But the slow traffic was worth it I think, because we got to check out the construction of the new bridge, which will be fabulous when finished for traffic, and the view. This trip we were on the old road, and were able to take our time and lots of photos too, crossing the dam.

Before we knew it, we were in Vegas and another adventure began. By that I mean finding the hotel entrance, unloading the car, finding the parking, then finding the way through the casino to the lobby, then finding the right hallway to the right elevator and lastly and finally, finding our room. We are staying at Mandalay Bay, the last place on the strip, and the first off the highway. Convenient, but that means that someone only gets to look at the highway from their room…we are two of those lucky people of course. But our room is all the way at the end of the hallway, as far away from the elevator as you can get (and the ice machine too) so there is little to no noise here. First thing I heard today was housekeeping doing the room across the hallway, so I asked if I could peek out the window. Those people get to look at the airport, so I think my view is nicer, at least I get to see mountains.

(Side note- I just now went the long trip down the hall to get ice, and when I came back housekeeping was in the end room…. gasp…end suite. There was a living room when you walked in, complete with a bar and a TV bigger than the one in our room, which is as big as my whole TV cabinet at home… and beyond the living room is the strip… I’ll let the photo show you)

So, John is now off conferencing, and I think I will go out and see what I can see. There has to be something for me to do around here other than slots… I’ve already lost $11 there!