Vegas baby!!! Days 55 & 56

Cruising 320miles from the South Cal. coast to Las Vegas, we both watched watched the temp gauge in the car rise sharply from a bearable 68F to a whopping 109F (43C!). We hadn't really felt the heat yet because the Ac was working overtime in the Prius but, about 40miles short of Vegas it was time for a pitstop for water (note Dawie: NO petrol required yet) Holy Crap, 43C is hot! Vegas really is the middle of nowhere; driving out of the Mojave mountain range on the I-5 interstate a valley which the gambling capitol of the world has been built. On Niel and Mich's recommendation booked at least 2 nights at the MGM Grand on the famed Las Vegas Strip. At $90 per night, it kicked the sh*t out of the ridiculously over priced hostel in San Fransisco. Our room was 4 times the size with aircon, marbled en suite, cable TV and a palatial king size bed that probably won't have even made it into our San Fran room!
Most of the 1st night was spent walking The Strip just to get a real feel for the place. It definitely lived up to the hype, a city lit up like a Xmas tree, casino's the size of Cape Town in abundance and the (highlight for me) the water fountain in front of the Balaggio synchronised to a Frank Sinatra tune. 24 Hour gambling is obviously the main attraction - At one point we watched this poor middle aged lady blowing $200 on the slots in about 2 minutes flat - She wasn't even looking at the machine! just nonchalantly pushing the dial listening to her $1 units progressively disappear into the thirsty trinket. Scary! Most of you know my theory on gambling: THE HOUSE ALWAYS WINS, and although very tempting, watching the poor schmucks lose blowing their cash all night convinced us that our unit was going to be the 5c piece. As expected our $15 budget lasted all of 20minutes.......I'll come back here one day when I have enough not to have to worry .......

The Grand Canyon was few hours away and Kimmy and I were both keen to get a few decent snaps of one of the great natural wonders of the world. BE WARNED! this is a "Tommy Tourist" trap from hell. A 2 and a half hour drive East of Vegas to the Sky Walk(a vantage point for tourists to get photo opportunities) is well sign posted all the way but, at no point is there ever an indication of costs (not even on the brochures in Vegas) - So we finally turn off the interstate onto a 20mile gravel road (that our Prius is NOT thank us for) and an ominous sign pops up that we can expect additional charges over and above the $20 parking.....Mmmmmmm? We're both thinking, "how much can it be to get to the sky walk and take a few photo's?" 300miles of interstate, 40miles of dirt road, $20 to park, $30 each to catch a 10minute bus ride to the the Sky Walk, $35 each to get onto the thing and wait for it....................!!! You CAN"T TAKE YOUR OWN CAMERA!! $150 + petrol and you still have to buy the photo's from them - we promptly turned around to go back to Vegas.