Last day in Vegas

Hard to believe a week has gone by.  It has been a busy week, we did not have a lot of down time and are really happy we saw so much of the area.  We have been to Vegas twice before around 30 years ago and never set foot outside of the city, so we were long overdue to see some of the beautiful desert that is so close by. 

Andre and I are leaving on the redeye tonight at midnight, then arrive home around 1:30 PM tomorrow afternoon.  The others are all leaving on a noon flight today scheduled to get home at midnight tonight.

After seeing all our Vegas friends off on the airport shuttle we head over to Harrahs to cash in our cheap ticket voucher for real tickets to Menopause the Musical which we will see at 2:00 this afternoon.  Again what we thought would be a quick walk took us about 1 hour back and forth.  Back at the hotel to check out and we decided to move the car to Harrahs as we would be spending most of the day around that area.  Parking on the strip is all free, guess they want you in their casinos.  

We spent some time in Harrahs casino.  If you sign up for their free loyalty card they give you $20 after you lose your first $20.  So, we took turns playing slots with $40 that cost us $20.  We tried using Lucilles method of betting $5 at a time then moving on, but we didn’t have the same luck.  While here we also received a text from everyone at the airport that their flight was delayed and they weren’t sure when they were leaving, but they would not make their connection in Toronto so they would not be getting home until the next day, OK, maybe our redeye flight wasn’t such a bad option. 

We went to the show at 2PM, this is a pretty tiny theatre and we had bought cheap seats so were seated way at the back.  Hardly anyone was there so the usher came and asked us if we wanted to move closer.  Sure, but closer was really close, we were basically on the stage.  Luckily no one sat behind us so we were able to move back one row when the show started.  Lots of laughs, but there were so few there that it was kind of sad, I am not even sure if there were 50 people in the audience.  We were told that it is the longest running scripted show in Vegas, 10 years now, maybe it has run its course, or maybe it is just that a 2PM show on Saturday is not a big draw. 

 

At the Menopause musical, probably a tad too close to the stage

 

We have now heard back from everyone at the airport, they are all getting to Toronto tonight, some are going through Montreal and on to Moncton tomorrow, and others are leaving after us tomorrow on a direct flight from Toronto to Moncton.  We will all get home eventually!

We walked around looking for somewhere to eat supper after the show.  We had seen a couple of places we wanted to try, but after standing in line at one place for a bit we decided to walk down to Planet Hollywood and go to Gordon Ramsay Burgr place.  So glad we moved the car from right behind here earlier today ha ha.  There was quite a long line up, but we decided to wait as we had lots of time to kill before we needed to leave for the airport.  We had a good dinner, burgers were yummy and always fun to watch such a busy restaurant at work.  

Suspended in mid air with only the pole touching the ground

There must have been 200 of them biking down Las Vegas Blvd.

Supper tonight is at Gordon Ramsay Brugr

Most $$$  I ever paid for a burger and fries were extra

Open kitchen

One last fountain visit before leaving for the airport

 

Back to the airport, easy to return the car.  $215.00 for 8 days rental, wish it was that cheap in Canada!  We’ve had a great time in Vegas, thanks to flights on points, the certificate for the hotel for the week,  and groupon vouchers it made it quite an affordable vacation.  Probably wouldn’t do Vegas again for a week, but would definitely include a couple of nights here on a trip around the area. Next year we are so hoping that Andre is finished his project and he can do income averaging again, but who know where we will end up? 

 

Red Rock Canyon

Today Andre and I have plans to go to Red Rock Canyon.  Jackie decided to join us this morning for taking some pictures.  Red Rock Canyon is only about 30 minutes outside of Las Vegas, hard to believe all this natural beauty so close to such a big city.  The drive is set up one way around a paved road with about 11 different scenic viewing points to stop at.  They also have a very nice information centre where we picked up a map and information at the beginning.  We spent about 3 hours touring this area.

At the information center.  Map and panel shows you what you will be seeing up close.

Lots of hiking trails

Another dry river beds

Abandon quarry

Strange looking cactus

Mountains climbers

 

After the Canyon we went back to the chocolate factory so Jackie could use her groupon voucher as their bus tour earlier this week did not stop there as they had advertised.  Chance for some more free chocolate samples!

While Jackie was shopping for chocolates, I took advantage and took a few more pictures after I got my free samples

 

Next we moved on to the Premium Outlet stores for a little shopping.  The others had all taken a bus here this morning and we met up with them just after lunch.  Everyone was able to unload their bags into our car and take the bus home.  We stayed for a couple of hours to shop, harder to find bargains when you have to consider nearly adding 25-30% to everything for exchange.

Tonight Bernie, Lucille, Andre and I have tickets to Barry Manilow.  Again another groupon find, tickets for $25.  I found this while in Florida and when I asked if anyone wanted to join Andre thought he should be paid $25, not he would have to pay, this standing joke went on all week.  The concert was at the MGM Arena, a huge arena, and our $25 seats were WAY up top.  I really enjoyed the show, Barry Manilow is a real showman and I thought did a great job, hard to believe he is 71.  

You know you are not near the stage if you can rent binoculars

Opening act was also good

Barry Manilow

Rainforest Cafe

 

We had planned to all meet at the Rainforest Café following the show for supper at the MGM.  Well, Barry Manilow had an opening act that took about 1 hour, then change sets, then he started and played a lot of his hits.  We knew we would never make our reservation, but luckily for smart phones and texting we were able to let the others know we were going to be very late.  We did finally all meet up at 10:30, another late supper.  Most of the shows start at 7:30, which is too early to have supper before, but makes for very late suppers.  Oh well, in Vegas nothing really has a time does it? 

Death Valley

oday we went to Death Valley.  This is about a 2.5 hour drive from Las Vegas, but this is the only day that we knew we were not in a rush to get back to Vegas for any plans tonight.  The others are all doing a bus tour today to Hoover Dam.  We don’t have time for any long hikes, but hope to get out of the car a couple of times to at least stretch for some short walks.

Death Valley has lots of contrasting landscapes.  Death Valley is in California and is the lowest point in North America. 

Our first stop was at Dantes View, which is at 5475 ft.  We nearly froze up here.  Gorgeous views over to Badwater, which is the lowest point at 282 ft below sea level, and we will visit later.  

 

Hot Air balloons as we exited Las Vegas

The only man made attraction we saw but it was not open

No big hikes today, lots of stop and go and short walks

Driving up to Dante's View

Looking down from Dante,s View.  Little dot on the road is a car, white areas is salt.

 

View from 5,476 ft

Next stop was Twenty Mule Team Canyon.  This is a short one way drive that is not on paved road, very curvy and really nice views.  Still not sure if we should have had the rental car here.

One way loop of Twenty Mule Team Canyon

We were told that they use some of the background for some of the Star Wars movies

 

Next stop was at Zabriskie Point for another nice view.  Lots of tourists are starting to arrive now, and it is starting to warm up.

Amazing views at Zabriskie Point

Converted bug

 

Our next stop is at the tourist information centre in Furnace Creek.  Here we get a map and talk to a ranger who gives us more ideas for how to spend the day.  We can only cover a small portion of this National Park, and he warns us not to venture too far from the route he suggests. We stopped at a small canyon which had a 2 mile hike but we only did a small portion of it.

Strange feeling going below sea level.

This is as far as we got as it was getting hot

Only sign of life we saw today

Our next stop is called Devils Golf course.  This is a large salt pan that someone had a very good sense of humour to name Devils Golf Course. 

Not a golf course but if it was only the Devil would like me.  There are miles and miles of lumpy Salt & Mud clumps.

 

On we go to Badwater which is the lowest elevation in North America.  We took a short walk out on the salt but it is getting really hot now, I can’t even imagine how awful it would be in the summer months.

 

282 feet below sea level.  Lowest point in the Americas.

Very happy to be here in April and not July

The white path is all salt.

 

Next we go on to Artists Palette which is a beautiful one way road of the main road with many beautiful scenic pullouts.  What looks like a short drive takes us a while as there are so many photo ops.  

 

Many colours everywhere

Dry river bed

 

We had 4 more little stops to make to finish off our day.  First stop was at the Salt Creek Interpretive Trail, we thought we would see lots of fish as it is springtime, a bit of a bust, we saw fish but they were the size of a baby toe, and again very hot on the trails.  

Abandon house

20 mule wagons

Tiny little fishes.

 

Next we were on to Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes, this stop was not a bust.  Beautiful sand dunes here, reminded us of Morocco except no camels.

The Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes from a distance

Some of the dunes were over 100 feet high

 

Our next planned stop was Hells Gate, totally missed the turn off somewhere so that was a bust.  We had circled around this way through Death Valley especially to see Rhyolite, a ghost town.  Wow, what a disappointment, I think I was expecting some old town like you see in the movies, it was just a few buildings spread apart, some with a wall or 2 left, some just the foundations.  Maybe my expectations were a little high, but a big waste of time.

Not too exciting, good thing it was only a short detour.

 

We thought from here we were about 1.5 hours back to Las Vegas, I nearly cried when we turned on the GPS and it said 2 hours, I was nearly done with driving for the day and that extra .5 hour was a killer.  

 

Area 51

As we got closer to Vegas, we started seeing cactus.

Finally back in Las Vegas at about 5:30, time for quick showers and we meet up with Bernie and Lucille to walk around the strip.  The others have all gone to see Terry Fator tonight, but we weren’t sold on going to see him, and not wanting to rush back today so we passed.  We walked around for ages before deciding what to do for supper.  Good thing was we spent a lot of time walking in and out of casinos which lead to Lucille winning $18 for her and Andre towards supper on the slots.

 

We saw Elvis playing for tips.

Excalibur Hotel & Casino

Inside the Luxor, where the elevator goes up and down at an angle since the hotel is shaped as a pyramid.

 

After lots of debating finally decided in Chilis for supper.  It looked like it was right across the street from where we were, but turned out to be a long walk by the time you cross over the streets on the pedways.  This is one of the major changes since last time we were here, you used to be able to just cross the streets, not so much any more.  We were so long in finding where to eat for supper the others were finished their show and were able to join us as well.