Las Vegas Or Bust

After a good night's sleep, I headed downstairs for Marriott's breakfast buffet to fuel up for the day ahead, where the destination was The Aladdin Casino Hotel in Las Vegas. A relatively easy drive from Los Angeles.

I packed (well, I had barely unpacked!) and headed off to the airport. Which was a very short journey. I even found a parking spot in the garage almost directly in front of the American Airlines terminal, which is where the Qantas plane pulled in.

As I was on time (i.e. arrived at the time the plane was scheduled to land) I had some minutes to wait while Yvonne and Peter cleared Customs and Immigration. After the usual formalities, it was off to the car and we were on our way.

Not too surprisingly, my guests were amazed at how long it takes to escape from Greater Los Angeles. Again, not something I'd care to live with. And there was the usual "wrong side of the road" humour: Peter was in the front seat beside me, and looked at the car in front and said "There's no driver". I could see one, and was a little surprised Peter couldn't. I said "Yes, I can see her". After a little while, it dawned upon us that Peter was looking at the passenger seat! Which was empty. Well, they had just come off a 14 hour flight going the wrong direction!

After finally escaping Los Angeles we stopped in Victorville (on I-15) for a leg break, among other things, and some coffee and cake. Of course, being the US and a fast food place, it was more food than we really wanted...

We resumed our journey to Las Vegas, stopping at the rest stop on the Mojave National Reserve. I have some photos of this area from 2004, and I'll insert a link here when I have those on the web. No expected time for this!

Of course, it was Saturday, in summer, so Las Vegas traffic was pretty chaotic. But we eventually checked in at The Aladdin, and had a chance to freshen up.

We decided to have dinner in the hotel, mostly just out of convenience. So we wandered down and asked for a table. There would be a short delay (we had no reservations, but then the restaurant wasn't full!) so we have these two photos of Yvonne and Peter just out the front of the restaurant, overlooking the main gaming floor.

Just to complete the family trio, with Yvonne at the entrance to the restaurant. You can see there is no great crowd there, yet! And the building visible through the windows is probably the second tower of The Bellagio.

This was the Italian Restaurant (curious in an Arab themed hotel!) and we had a quite enjoyable meal.

After dinner, Peter and I went for a walk along this part of The Strip. It truly is a sight to see. And was a good way to digest dinner.