Old Timer Garage

After the quiet day we had yesterday and a good night sleep, our batteries are fully charged again and we are ready to get on with our day.

This morning, two short hour drive to Las Vegas, then get the key to our hotel room in the Monte Carlo hotel and then visit as much as we can.

We have planned to spend about 24 hours in Las Vegas before carrying on to our next destination.

After having had our breakfast and fuelled up the car, we are heading through yet again more desert views towards Las Vegas. The scenery is a little more mountainous but there are still quite a lot of straight lines.
Eventually, Las Vegas appears in the distance with is very recognizable Stratosphere tower. It is very surprising to see such a big city lost in the middle of a desert with absolutely nothing around it. As we are getting closer, we can start to recognize a few of the famous casinos.

I am lucky enough to work with an American who spent a part of her life in California and is a big fan of Las Vegas. She had advised me to get a room at the Monte Carlo hotel right on the Strip. It was of course more expensive than if we had taken a hotel in the suburbs but we could leave the car for free in the car park of the hotel instead of having to take a bus or a taxi to get to the city centre. Plus it was my wife’s dream to be able to sleep in a nice hotel during this trip at least once and to be completely honest, the prices of the rooms in the Monte Carlo hotel weren’t completely stupid. Off the top of my head, the room with view on the Strip cost us 220 dollars.

Once the car parked in the Monte Carlo car park, we are dragging our luggage through the hallways until the reception desk of the hotel. Nothing to do with the small and cheap hotels we have been staying at up until now. There are a lot of people there and gambling machines are everywhere. It is noisy and there is a lot of smoke too.
We get quickly to the reception desk and after a few minutes wait, we get the magnetic card to open our room on the 22nd floor. I think it is the first time in my life I will sleep so high up.

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A very fast lift ride up the floors and quite a long hallway later, we are in front of our room door. The ceiling is not so high. I am 6”1 and I touch it easily. I guess it gives them the possibility to put more floors in the same building height…
It is a great room with a big bathroom which looks new. I open the curtains and we turn the air conditioning on because it is already pretty hot in the room. Everything is so huge outside that in comparison, being on the 22nd floor doesn’t feel like so high up in the end.
In front of us is the Coca Cola store and the MGM Grand, on our right a rollercoster and the Ex Calibur casino and in front of us… window cleaners hanging in their basket… I wouldn’t want their job.

After having left our luggage in the room, we are back into the car park. My brother in law is a big fan of the Pawn Star TV show and we promised him that we would go there and take a picture in their shop.
The address is in the GPS and after about 20 minutes we are parking the car right next to the Pawn Start building. The building itself is small and a long queue of people are waiting in line to get inside. The car park is free and two guys are guiding us to the last free spot.
It won’t take long to get it but it is seriously crowded inside. It is hard to move around from one side to the other of the shop. It is just a pawn shop though so not very interesting for us apart from taking a couple of pictures and getting back out. We will just buy a T-shirt for the brother in law and head back to the car.
Another quick ride in the car later, we are parking it this time for the next 24 hours. We will do all the visiting walking.

First stop on the Strip is at the Venecian casino. All the hotels on the Strip are doubled with casinos. Generally speaking, casinos are on the ground floor and the rooms are above them. Everybody can go inside and so that’s what we do. Not to gamble but rather to get an idea of the atmosphere in there. It is not really an atmosphere that I like but it is something to see at least once.
Coming out of the first casino, we walk by a bar where an Elvis doppelganger is singing. His name is Big Elvis and it is not for nothing, he is huge. He is sat on a bench and sing in the microphone while an old guy plays the guitar next to him. He is good and his voice is very similar to Elvis’. I have looked him up online later on when we got back to the UK and he seems to be pretty famous over there.

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We take advantage of walking by a McDonald’s to stop and order something to eat. It is our first American McDonald’s. Not much of a difference from the ones we are used to in Europe except two things: the choice is much more limited than in Europe and the quantities are much bigger. For example, it is not possible to order one single cheeseburger, the minimum is two… I will have to eat two. Then when it comes to drinks, the quantity in Europe for a large soft drink is half a litre whereas in the US it is a full litre straight away… not surprising that they have an obesity problem. Anyway, I am not a big fan of fast food restaurants but it is cheap and for once it won’t kill us. We eat outside sat at a table that overlooks the Strip while we watch the flow of people walking up and down the sidewalks. It is a mix of pretty much every kind of people there: tourists from everywhere, half naked women advertising the casinos or strip clubs…

Once our meals eaten, we carry on walking on the Strip and going inside every casino we find on our way. The pedestrian bridges over the Strip come in handy to pass from one side to the other and we take advantage of them to go over and watch the water jet show in front of the Belaggio.

For those who have only seen them in the movies, these shows are every half hour and last for 10 to 15 minutes each time. The music that goes with them changes every time too. It is really nice and even more so at time with the lights.

 

Right in front of the water jets is the « petit Paris ». An air balloon and a mini Eiffel Tower overlooks the entrance of a casino that is a reconstitution of the atmosphere of a Parisian café. It is pretty accurate in my opinion and the music inside is very French too. Even the small table make you think that you are on the terrace of a Parisian café.

By the time we get at the end of the Strip, the night is starting to come in. We walk past our hotel and cross the Strip once more to go to the MGM Grand and cross over once again to the Ex Calibur.
We won’t go any further. Just 2 weeks ago, there was a shooting at the Mandalay Bay just a few hundred yards from our hotel. I assumed that this part of the Strip would be empty at least out of respect for the people who died there just a few days before but I was chatting to an American in the lift and he told me that they had been there and it was packed of people who wanted to see where it had happened. As far as I am concerned, I don’t see the point in doing that and won’t go.

The colours of the beginning of the night on the Little New York are splendid and the pictures we take are really nice. From this place, you can see almost the whole Strip.

I enjoy the view and all the cars driving by underneath the bridge I am standing in. It is a nonstop dance of cars, tourists, taxis and limos that go and pick up VIP hosts and tourists from the hotels to the casinos. It is a mix of engine sound, music, people talking and lights from headlights, street signs from all the stores, casinos etc… that goes along the Strip. A sense overload for sure.

There are two things that we won’t do in Las Vegas. First of all my wife wanted us to rent a limo to visit the city but we left it too late and prices were too high. And the second thing we didn’t do it to go see a show in one of the many places there. 24 hours in Sin City is not enough by far to see everything so we had to select what we wanted to see the most.

My personal take on this city is that it is absolutely too much at all levels. It is too big, too weird, too isolated, too rich, too much of everything but it is also something that is worth seeing at least once in a lifetime. Generally speaking I will always prefer visiting a big empty space than walking in an overcrowded city but it is still very interesting to see how tacky this city is and what it is possible to do when money is no object.
It is not a city I would go back to as a tourist unless it is to bring someone with me or see a show though.

The rest of the day is spent in the same way. We have set apart a certain amount of money to try and gamble in the casinos (10 dollars) and we end the day next to the water jets once again to see a few more of that show.

We will be back in our room around 1 am after having walked about 10 miles and we won’t be long to fall asleep.

Tomorrow morning, we have a few things to go and buy and of course refuel the car before we head to the Hoover dam.

To be continued… here: 13- Las Vegas, Hoover dam and Pahrump

 

 

 

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