Honeymoon - The middle section

Saturday 23rd January

We checked out of our hotel around 9:30 ready for the next part of our adventure.

Now at this stage you should have read Part one, if you haven't go ahead, I'll wait... Part 1 ...Okay so you know the weather situation so you will understand we were very surprised to see these as we left our hotel this morning...

Mountains in the distance! we had no idea due to the bad weather. We had some more sandwiches made up in the deli then went to McDonalds for breakfast because we had a 10% off voucher. We left around 10

We decided to take the long route to drive through

We stopped in a very small town called Kelso and sat out having our sandwiches

Before we were back on the long roads

For a stretch we noticed that when looking ahead the road was red but when looking in the rearview mirror it was black... not sure if it's easy to see in this photo

After a while we came to the final stretch

about 3pm we had arrived

We checked into the Luxor hotel

After getting acquainted with our room we headed out to explore. We walked the strip as far as the Venetian where we stopped for dinner. We chose La Italiana which was very similar to Sbarro. We both had Stromboli and breadsticks with a marinara sauce

Having looked around a lot of hotels we decided we would stay at the Venetian if we ever came back

We left around 6 and started walking back stopping at the Hard Rock Cafe and M&M world.

I know, only a week after our wedding and he has it hand on Greens knee! We got back around 8:30 and decided to get an early night - the long drive had worn us out. Plus we have an early start tomorrow.

Sunday 24th January

Up at 7 and collected from the hotel 45 minutes later. We were taken to Boulder City where we boarded a tiny plane

We flew over some breathtaking scenery, hoover dam, lake mead and something unexpected

Snow! We were going to the Grand Canyon, we had not been expecting snow!

We arrived just after 10 and walked by snow that was up to my shoulders in some places!

We boarded a coach and headed into the park via the South Entrance

Our first stop was at the Bright Angel Inn where we stopped for an hour and were given lunch boxes which included ham and salad croissant, plain lays crips, an apple, cheesestring and a honey and oat bar. We took in the views and had a gorgeous hot chocolate with cream

Back on the coach we learnt a lot of new things. It is one of the only national parks to have a school, you can only live there if you work there and you can only be buried there if you worked there for more than 5 years.

The next stop was Mather point for more breathtaking views

I was wearing bumbags before (and after) they were cool

At this point the group split up. Half went on a Helicopter tour and the other half went to the IMAX theatre. When I booked we weren't given the option so sadly we were in the latter group.

From there it was back to the airport and a 70 min flight back to Boulder city. Our hotel was the first drop off and we were back around 4:30.

We got ready for a night out and headed out just over an hour later. We walked through Excaliber and New York New York where we picked up yard long frozen cocktails. Carl had Pina Colada and I had Coral Crush (Mango & Vodka)

We then watched the fountains at the Bellagio

We walked as far as treasure island 3 miles ish where Carl bought a Pina Colada in a giant skull cup (which we still have 9 yrs later). Then we headed back up the other side of the trip.

By the time we got back to our hotel our feet were killing us!! we got back to the hotel just after 9 where we chilled after a very long day.

Monday 25th January.

Up at 7 grabbed a quick breakfast from Starbucks - Lattes and Chocolate Croissants. At 9:15 we were taken to a timeshare hotel for a tour - I know I know boring right. Well we weren't doing anything else this morning and for 3 hours of our time we got breakfast, $120 worth of Criss Angel Believe tickets (with Cirque du Soleil) and $75 of food vouchers to spend at our hotel. Had we not just spent a fortune on getting married we might have been tempted!

On our return we drove the the Vegas outlet centre where we had some lunch - we shared a Hot Dog, Sbarro stuffed pizza slice and a large Dr Pepper. We both bought new trainers then headed back to the strip. We drove all the way down to the downtown area where we picked up some yummy frozen custard

Once back at the hotel we picked up the aforementioned tickets and vouchers, had showers and got changed. Went out to pick up some developed photos.

Back at the hotel we took advantage of the vouchers and had dinner at the Pyramid cafe. We both had 6oz Steak medium with fried eggs and hashbrowns washed down with a couple Heinekens. Cost to us was $15 which was mostly tip. We bought a huge bottle of Corona and headed back to our room. We stopped at the slots for a little while, played a dollar, won a dollar - Hey big spenders!

We got back to the room around 9:30 where we enjoyed our beer and watched how to play various casino games (maybe we will win our $$$$$$s tomorrow)

Tuesday 26th January

Up a little later this morning at 8 and went for breakfast downstairs at McDonalds. We then went to the box office and bought a triple show pass for $54 each. First stop was Shark Reef in Mandalay Bay

It took an hour to walk around and see all of the creatures. However it was not quite as good as the Sea Life Centre.

Next stop was back in the Luxor for the Titanic exhibition. In my notes I have written "We were in there an hour and a half and it was completely amazing and I strongly recommend a visit - it's at the Luxor until 2018. I may even try to come back to see it"... ooops

We then walked through excalibur where we grabbed some lunch - a dog and a draft for $4.50 each. We then headed onto the strip for some shopping. Having spent most of our daily allowance we went to New York New York for our 3rd and final attraction from the pass

The Rollecoaster! this was a lot of fun. We then bought 2 large bottles of beer and a delicious ice cream from cold stone creamery inside NYNY and headed back to our room where we ate and drank and played cards

We also used this time to start packing as we were leaving early the following day.

5:30 we got ready for a night out in our hotel where we watched Criss Angel believe with our free tickets. This was a combination of Criss Angels Illusionist work with Cirque du soleil and it was incredible. Better still when we arrived we got an upgrade from the seats at the back to being 3 rows from the stage!

We played some slots for a bit. I put $1 into a blackjack machine and got up to $20, instead if betting one more dollar I went all in and of course lost the lot.

Vegas was fun and I would recommend everyone visit at least once. The major downside was smoking in the Casinos which left me with a really nasty cough.

The end of part 2

The final act