Day 6 - Viva Las Vegas!

After two days in California, it was time to hit the road once again. We got up early in hopes of beating the notorious LA rush traffic. Not so. LA always has tons of cars jammed up on the highways. It was so smoggy we couldn't see past the traffic signs. Oh well. What is there to see anyways? :)

Driving through the Mojave desert was NOT a pleasant experience. By all means, it was interesting to see and I wish we could have taken some detours to see several points of historic interest... but when you have no air conditioning in the car.... we wanted to get to Las Vegas as soon as possible!! We tried as best as we could to keep cool with a misting bottle and cold towels. I drove the last leg, and got the pleasure of trying to locate our hotel. Somehow my google directions scribbled on a post-it finally managed to get us there. We stayed at Bally's - conveniently located on The Strip.

Las Vegas is a city for the rich and famous. For us mortals, it's merely a punch-in-your-face reminder about how poor you are. Sure, it's fun to walk around and see the sights.. but with temperatures in the 100's we preferred to stay inside. There were slot machines everywhere, and surveillance cameras are everywhere so that the managers can pin point who's winning, who's losing, and who needs an extra drink so he or she can spend more money in their casino. We had fun trying out the slot machines, but we didn't win much.... We did, however, score some free drinks!

We also checked out the famous Caesar's Palace and the Bellagio. After a fantastic dinner at the Japanese restaurant Ichiban ,we retreated to our chilled room.

Here's a bit of trivia... did you know that most of Las Vegas Blvd., (aka The Strip) is not technically a part of the city of Las Vegas? It's in an unincorporated area south of the city called Paradise. That means, thousands of tourists going there to gamble spend thousands of dollars on slot machines without ever actually visiting Las Vegas!