Las Vegas trip

This was  my second trip to Las Vegas. First time I went there in the year 2008. Though the city is not for children, but I always take my son everywhere I go, so this time it was also not an exception. 

Mojave desert forest

It was a much awaited trip to us. Past two years we had been planning to visit the city. At last this June we able to make it. Traveling from Northern California to Nevada is a minimum 12 hrs driving. We decided to drive, rather going by flight, though driving is extremely tiring task to do. We booked room in the hotel, Stratosphere. We started from home at 4 in the morning, as we wanted to reach in the afternoon. We actually wanted to spend sometimes on the strip of Vegas after reaching there. The Sin City has its own charm at night, and we didn’t want to miss that. At 8 in the morning we reached Kettleman City, where we had our breakfast. The road was so flat, that sometimes I felt that extremely boring. I wanted to see some hill, some green forest and many more. However, in the desert of California and Nevada, it is an utter foolishness to expect lush greenery. Anyway, the nice pistachio fields gave me some rest to my eyes. Soon we entered the Mojave desert forest. And our almost entire journey was through that desert forest.

 The entire Mojave was very unexciting to me. The barren desert was full of small rock and few cacti. As long as I could see was the straight two lane road went through the heart of the forest. The journey was awfully tiring. So, after 12 hours when we could see the strip from distant we became excited like a child. However, it was really a good distance, because it took another hour to reach our hotel. When we reached the hotel we were dead tired. After waiting long in the lounge at last we got our room. Though we were too tired to walk. But nothing could daunt us. We got ready fast and went to join the others on the strip of Las Vegas.
Yes, Las Vegas, the Sin City, the city where everything is ‘Legal’. The main feature of Las Vegas is the Casinos. All the hotels have casinos. The tourists usually play whole day and night either on slot machines or pokers, or may something else, whose name I don’t know. The city never sleeps. My son didn’t know what exactly a slot machine, and he is too small to know that. He desperately wanted to play on a slot machine. With great effort I could convince him that, that was not a video game, but a game of the grown-ups. Anyway, though he was interested to play on the machines, but when he came to know that, those are not video game he just lost interest to play on that. Rather he started doing his usual mischief. 

Actually we went there on a long weekend. We avoided to go there on Saturday, to get rid of the madding crowd , but all our effort went in vain. When we came down from our hotel room, the strip was full of people. Everybody was going here and there. As the night was progressing, the flood of people were increasing on the street. Everybody was mad. Whether, I would watch the hotels or fashion, I was really confused. I decided to see both of them.

 

I don’t know much about fashion, but though I’m a fashion naive, still I can tell that, I was really amazed by the fashion of the women. Women in Vegas were ready to endure  any level of uncomfortableness to do fashion. Even, I saw ladies were walking on more six inches stiletto shoes. I saw a lady who was in extreme pain in her leg, (I could understand how much pain she was enduring, because the veins in her both legs swelled up so much, that they could be visibly seen.), still walking on stilettos.

Gondola at Hotel Venecia

Anyway, first we went to hotel Bellagio to ride Gondola. But…….. After seeing the price, we thought it would be wise  to take photos of Gondola. :-)After spending some time there, we went to Caesar’s Palace hotel, to watch the volcano show. We waited there , but we couldn’t see it.Actually we didn’t know the exact time of the show. We were already getting late for the fountain show, we rushed there to get good spot, from where we could watch the dancing fountain. After watching the magnificent show, we just couldn’t move anymore. On the top of that, my son was dead tired and he became very cranky. It was time to go back hotel. But without food ?? no. no. no. We decided to have dinner at Chipotle. But my son was too tired to walk, so my husband went to take dinner from there. After some time he called me, and to my horror, he told that, it would take to get food minimum 1 hours. It took him to get food more that one hour. But the story didn’t end there. He was waiting in the traffic to reach to us for another hour, where the restaurant was just across the street. It was really a tragic drama. We had no idea when he could enter the parking garage of Caesars’ Palace to take us. At last he dropped that impossible idea, and just stopped for 2 minutes at the side of road, and we literally jumped into the car and drove away from the sight. In this hodgepodge , my husband missed his dinner. After reaching hotel room, he flatly denied have the cold burrito , and went to bed in empty stomach.

Next day was Monday, and everything, was very calm and quite. It was really hard to imagine people had been rushing here and there at the previous night. Usually Las Vegas stays in sleepy mode in the morning. The city gradually wakes up as the sun goes from set to west. The nights become alive with flashing lights and dazzling dresses. People start pouring down to the casinos. Anyway, next morning we went to the top of the Stratosphere Hotel. There were many activities to do at the top, like Bungee jumping, and other activities.

 However, we are not so courageous, to do all the activities. We went there just to watch others who were participating in all those activities. I always try to find the answer, why people love to be scared by spending so much money? Our next destination was hotel Circus Circus to watch one circus show. The show was extremely short but spectacular.   How much can you expect from a free show!! :-) But it took a lot of times. 

At Flamingo Hotel 

Luckily my husband order pizza before coming to the show. When we came out of the show we were hungry like wolf. We just rushed and grab our pizza ,and gulped it down. We didn’t want to do any more thing, as we were going to David Copperfiled magic show that night. So, we needed some rest. In the evening we dressed up to match the mode of Vegas night and went to the magic show. I was completely spellbound. Still I cannot understand how a person could appear with a bike on the stage out of nowhere. I think it is a must-watch show in Vegas. When the show was finished it was dead of the night, and we just dragged our selves to the hotel. Next day it was again the same 12 hours  journey back home. 

Hotel Cesar's  Palace