We journeyed from Vegas in our Jeep (another upgrade from a compact!) to The Hoover Dam and booked ourselves onto a half-hour tour. It costs $8 for visitor centre admission and an extra $3 gets you on a tour, so we figured we may as well do the tour!

It starts off with a propaganda style 10 minute video explaining how the dam came about, those important figureheads involved and the importance of the Hoover Dam to the surround states. This was followed with a slightly messy group being taken down into the generator rooms and the diversion tunnel areas with an explanation by a witty lady as to how things operate. It was interesting even for Helen! We ended the tour at an observation point on the top of the visitors centre followed by a brief trip around the museum. It managed to fill a good hour or so being there and walking across the dam and back to take in the enormity of the project.

Our journey to Zion from this point would still take a further 4 hours or so and we went through a slightly more scenic route of the Lake Mead Recreation area. More park passes to buy but you get rewarded with constantly stunning views of the landscape. This continued throughout the Lake Mead area and then along Interstate 15, we stopped a few times to take in the canyons we drove through. Red rock was the theme!

We eventually arrived in Zion at our time 7pm but mountain time 8pm, we hadn’t realised the clocks had gone forward an hour. The campsites were full in the National Park and we were informed by the friendly ranger at the south entrance that we’d have to be at the park campgrounds early the next day to get a spot, 8am early!! So we went back into Springdale and found a campsite located as part of the Quality Inn. They had sites for $32 so we took this with the intention of getting into the park early the next day. We were back in our little tent again! The first time in nearly 2 weeks and there we cooked a great camping meal on our one wok stove!

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f/2.0, Leica 90mm f/2.8, Zeiss 18mm f/4 ZM processed in Lightroom 3)

Vegas Vegas Vegas! Where to start? Well firstly if you’re on a budget, which we so definitely are this was a pretty difficult place for us to be! We’re no gamblers, smokers or heavy drinkers! We did though find much to explore and enjoy! We stayed at Circus Circus, mainly because the boys had booked to stay there and they do pretty good rooms at very low prices! For 3 nights our total was just over $100 and we didn’t spend anything other than $2 in their slot machines!

To sum up our time in Vegas we didn’t spend too much time at Circus Circus other than to sleep and we did make use of the gym one morning. We ate pizza there on the first night, but it wasn’t very good! On day two Helen made it to a yoga class taken by Cheryl Slader who was on the same Erich Schiffmann course back in August. She has a donation only yoga studio called Blue Sky Yoga at the Arts Factory closer to down town. The class was a lunchtime one and lasted 45 minutes, so Dave explored the area and got some great shots of interesting buildings and spaces. We then walked to Fremont and got some lunch there whilst taking in some of the lesser known sights of Las Vegas. Fremont is old Vegas and the main street is now under a permanent canopy. We’ve heard this place is better to explore by night. That night we explored the bigger casinos using a 24 hour bus pass that cost $7 each, it goes all the way down the strip and back and covers more routes throughout Vegas. We delved into The Venetian, The Bellagio, MGM Grand and Planet Hollywood.

On day 3 we used the gym, frequented Cheryl’s yoga class again and went to the airport via the bus to pick up our car. We had one booked for a week to take us away from Vegas and eventually land in Phoenix. We had book marked The Bellagio lunch time buffet which had been recommended as the best buffet on the strip. Parking at most casinos is free in the self park, so we parked up and got our $19.99 lunch buffet. The thing is we got in at 3.30pm and at 4pm there is a change to the evening buffet menu, so we started with the lunch time one and ended up on the dinner one! This is a good tip! They do bring out more specialist food and the puddings are fantastic! So here’s what we had – this was between the two of us!

Part 1:
Sushi, potatoe salad, salad Leaves, cous-cous and rice noodles.

Part 2:
Bok-Choi, Shrimp Pizza, fresh shrimp, mini hamburger.

Mains:
Mussels in tomato and basil sauce, potatoes, wild rice, sweet potatoe puree.
Medium rare rump steak, horseradish puree, polenta and herb mash, wild rice, asparagus.

Extras cos they looked fancy:
Crabs legs.

Desserts:
2x panacotta and strawberry top (excellent).
3x creme brûlée (excellent).
1x rocky road (not so good).
1x white chocolate parfait.
1x strawberry tart.
1x custard tart.

So the puddings were all pretty small, like shot-glass size portions! Where we managed to pack it all into we don’t know but it was very good value for money, and with soft drinks included!

After we had a rest from the food we later on met up with the boys at The Saxe Theater located at the back of Planet Hollywood where we had obtained tickets for Vegas, The Show. A friend of Cheryl’s very kindly helped us out with some very low cost tickets to the show courtesy of one of the main performers Joelle Righetti-Jenson. The show was really good fun, quite a tongue and cheek approach to Las Vegas from when it all began. This was the first musical any of the lads had been too!!

Our last night in Vegas so we ventured through a few more of the casinos, enjoyed The Bellagio water fountain show, had a couple of drinks and eventually said our goodbyes to the lads. They were leaving for LA the next day, whilst we were venturing further into National Park territory.

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f/2.0, Leica 90mm f/2.8, Zeiss 18mm f/4 ZM processed in Lightroom 3)