We checked out of the hotel and were able to leave our bags.  We had a big American breakfast complete with pancakes, bacon and syrup and then headed out to pick up some final gifts.  We wanted to get to the airport early in order to see if there were any upgrades available on the way home.  We were still torn about whether the extra expense was worth it but the decision was taken when we arrived four hours before check in to find all the upgrades had been taken.

We did managed to get the emergency exit seats which turned out to be a perfect compromise – much cheaper but with lots of leg-room.  The only problem with our seats was the proximity to the toilets which meant our legroom became the waiting area – a problem exacerbated by an out-of-order toilet meaning long queues between films.

Despite a sleepless flight, we managed to get back to London and pick up our car (despite another date mix-up by me).  We found ourselves back on the motorway and heading for home.

Our trip was over but we had our memories, souvenirs and 4Gb of photos to help us relive the fantastic holiday.

After the miles of walking from the day before, we were determined to have a day in the sun since this was our last full day in the States.  We managed to get a couple of sunbeds by the pool and after piling on the Factor 50, we settled down to read, swim, laze and generally relax.  As our shade disappeared, the sun got fiercer and fiercer.  We both took a break inside to cool down but for the most part, we spent the day enjoying the 38 degree heat and the lovely pool.  We ate a club sandwich by the pool and marvelled at the number of people who were drinking beer after beer despite the raging heat – this was the point were we realised we were getting old!

In the afternoon, we went for another walk around some of the hotels we missed from the day before and we enjoyed the various entertainments on offer on the strip, like the Sirens of TI (Treasure Island), the Mirage volcano and the Bellagio fountains (as pretty and clever as people say).  Yet even though we had plenty of time in Vegas, we still missed out on the Luxor, the Freemont Street Experience, the Coyote Ugly bar and other sights for which we just did not have the energy.  We did get some lovely shots at night though and we think we had our fill of Vegas for that trip.  It is certainly a place we would visit again but not for a while and perhaps not at the end of a long trip, since you need a bundle of energy to be able to get the most out of it.  The travelling, the sightseeing and the sunbathing really started to take its toll and by evening we were shattered.  With the prospect of a long day out of the hotel the next day and an even longer flight home, we decided we would take it easy and pack our cases ready for our departure the next day.

We spent the whole day exploring the many hotels and shops of the Strip (also known as Las Vegas Boulevard).  Vegas is such a strange place.  Where else can you wander into a hotel and see a snow tiger sleeping in the reception?  Or lion cubs playing with a ball?  The casinos were all much of a muchness and for non-gamblers like us, not very interesting other than from the point of view of marvelling at the sheer scale of gaudiness.  We had toyed with the idea of playing a little Texas Hold ‘Em if we could find a suitably low-stake game but it was all very intimidating and frankly, we didn’t really want to part with our cash playing a card game.  There was enough to spend our money on!  The gondolars of the Venetian were fantastic – the gondaliers sang and the gondalers had seatbelts and the canal was upstairs on the second floor – only in Vegas!  The newest hotel, the Wynn, was fabulous but still very Vegas despite the Trailfinders guy telling us it was ‘classier’ than the other hotels.  Vegas is the only place where five star luxury includes gaudy carpets and slot machines.

We had dinner in a lovely restaurant in the Venetian which served traditional Mexican food (instead of the normal TexMex fare you would expect).  The food in Vegas was surprisingly good if you went to the right place but there was also so much fast food around which was so cheap, it is easy to see why obesity is such a problem.  Later in the evening, we took a taxi over to the Rio to visit the Voodoo Lounge – a fairly hip rooftop nightclub (not quite as hip as Pure but we weren’t hip enough to go there) with a spectacular view of Las Vegas.  There was a rock band playing to a perishingly cold air-conditioned room with about ten people and after sitting and shivering for a bit, we realised that most people were out on the rooftop where the air was warm, the tunes were upbeat and the drinks were flowing.  There was a large cordoned VIP area but we were disappointed that there was no sign of anyone remotely famous.

We woke anticipating a full day with no plans until we received a call from the tour operator regarding our Grand Canyon tour which was booked for the following day.  They had a last minute cancellation and asked us if we wanted to go that afternoon rather than the next day.  We decided to go for it and it was a good move.  The weather that day was perfect for being out in the desert – mild and overcast – and although it affected our photos, it meant we didn’t fry and dehydrate.

We were picked up by the tour operator from our hotel and taken over to the heliport.  After a lot of waiting around, we eventually got into our helicopter with four other Brits (it was a British firm).  The first thing we noticed as we took to the sky was the sheer size of Vegas.  Anyone that tells you that Las Vegas is just a small city in the middle of the desert is only half right.  It is indeed a city plonked right in the middle of the desert but it is by no means small.  Apparently, Vegas is growing at an alarming rate.   We flew over Lake Mead, enjoying a fabulous view of the Hoover Dam and the new bridge they are building to divert traffic off the dam itself.  We flew past Boulder City, the only city in Nevada where gambling is banned (although there are casinos right outside the city limits for those who can’t quite bear doing without!).  The desert was a rich brown and orange and as we flew into Arizona, we could see old trails used by Native Americans and pioneers.  The canyon itself was about 45 minutes away from Vegas and as we neared, the pilot played the music from 2001 Space Odyssey and it was rather fitting – it felt like we were about to attempt a lunar landing.  The helicopter dropped over the edge of the canyon and it was just amazing.  People say that you cannot really capture the size of this natural phenomenon with a camera.  You could go further to say that it is hard to appreciate even with your own eyes.  The section of the canyon we flew through was just fifteen miles long.  Helicopters are restricted from flying further down the canyon to protect the rock and the wildlife that lives in it.  However, the total length of the canyon is massive 277 miles!  It is mind boggling.

After flying around the canyon a bit, we were taken over to the ranch for the next part of our tour.  The Grand Canyon Ranch was a little hokey but essentially a sweet place.  We were fed delicious barbeque chicken, potato, beans and sweetcorn.  After lunch, we had the option to go on a horse ride.  We were the only ones up for this (I had been very excited about playing cowgirl all day!).  We were given a riding hat each and then  were introduced to our horses.  The ranch was definitely set up for the tourists, although it was a working ranch too and the cowboys were completely authentic.  The guy who took us on our horse ride was a taciturn fellow who spoke little Spanish and even less English but the horses liked him which was all we cared about!

The landscape was surprisingly rich with vegetation and variety – hundreds of cacti and other scrub-like bushes.  The horses like to eat these prickly plants so we had to encourage them along with our heels on several occasions.  On our return, we were treated to a little gun display where two of the ranch workers dressed in Old West gear and pretended to have a show down at the fake saloon.  We were then taken back to the helicopter by horse-drawn wagon.

On the flight back to Las Vegas, we had another fantastic view of Lake Mead – the water was turquoise and it was like looking at photos from a satellite.  We could see the different strata of the rocks around the lake and where the water level was low, a bright white band wrapped around the lake.  The pilot took us over the Strip and we spotted all the famous hotels.  When we finally got back to the hotel, we didn’t have very long before we needed to get ready to get out to the show booked that evening.

We went to see Penn and Teller at the Rio.  The show was superb – funny, clever and irreverent.  The tricks were impressive and whilst they happily showed us how some of the simpler tricks were done, they kept the big tricks secret and we were unable to crack how they were done.  Penn and Teller really seemed like decent down-to-earth guys and they stood in the foyer of the theatre after the performance to sign autographs and chat to the audience.

We checked out of the hotel and drove over to Griffith Park – another landmark I recognised from a favourite TV show.  Griffith Park nestles in the eastern Santa Monica Mountain range (we never knew LA was so hilly!) and is over 4,200 acres of natural terrain and landscaped parkland with picnic areas, hiking, mountain biking, horse riding and tons to do.  It is huge and slap-bang in the middle of LA (apparently it is the largest municipal park with urban wilderness in the States) with a huge hill and the Griffith Park Observatory on the top.  This recently refurbished 1930s observatory was quite stunning.  We parked at the zoo and took the shuttle up to the observatory (the only way you can visit it) and admired the views of Los Angeles through the smog.  It was such a shame that we couldn’t spend more time here – we had a lot of miles to cover to get to Las Vegas at a decent hour (if there is such a thing as a decent hour in Las Vegas!).  The museum itself was probably very good but we only whizzed round one floor and didn’t have time for any shows.   We had something to eat in the cafe, took a load of photos and then we caught the bus back to the car.  If we were to visit Los Angeles again, we would definitely want to go back to explore the park as it is beautiful.

On the road out of Los Angeles, we again appreciated just how big LA’s urban sprawl really is.  We drove for over an hour until finally the houses, shops and warehouses gave way to scrub and desert.  As soon as we drove through the mountains that surround LA, the persistent cloud cover gave way to brilliant sunshine and the temperature shot up by at least ten degrees.  We drove as far as Barstow and then stopped for some food at a rather bleak Denny’s (is there any other kind?) where the staff were understandably apathetic and not in the slightest bit interested in whether we had a nice day or not.

We arrived at the outskirts of Las Vegas just as the sun was setting.  The sun’s flare on the shiny buildings made the city shine in the valley.  It was quite strange driving into a place for the first time with everything seeming so familiar.  The hotel casinos of Las Vegas are so iconic and are in so many films and television shows that seeing them is rather surreal.  The whole city is a surreal place and a constant building site too.  We managed to find the hotel car park eventually (poor SatNav could not manage the diverted roads and various building sites that surround the Strip).  Our hotel, New York New York, was ridiculously brilliant.  Or brilliantly ridiculous.  We weren’t quite sure which.  The assault of noise and lights was quite startling, especially after a long drive through the desert.  We checked in, shouting over ring of the slot machines and proceeded to our room in the Century tower.  The hotel rooms of New York New York are in the various towers of NYC – the Empire State, the Chrysler, the Century and so on.  The hotel room was not as swish and large as we had hoped but it was still very nice and perfectly adequate.  Our view was of the Monte Carlo hotel and the rollercoaster which ran around the hotel.

After unpacking, we took a stroll through Central Park (a.k.a. the casino) to the streets of New York where there are various restaurants and bars.  We chose a Mexican restaurant for dinner and ate delicious food and drank yummy margaritas.  After dinner, we stopped for a ‘pint’ of Caffreys in the Irish pub Nine Fine Irishmen complete with live Irish band and crazy dancing lady.  The latter was NOT part of the show, although she should have been!.