So I promised an announcement today… and here it is!
As I mentioned in the previous post, we visited the Grand Canyon yesterday…
What I didn’t mention, was that I took this opportunity to ask Chantale to marry me… And she said yes! So now it is official! Here’s a shot of her new ring enjoying the view of the Grand Canyon from the spot where I asked the question…
We started our fifth day with a trip to the Silverton, which is quite a bit farther south than the strip. The Silverton is famous for it’s HUGE 117,000 gallon aquarium and the Bass Pro shop attached to it. We stayed for a while and watched the fish, gambled a bit on the slot machines, and then got out on the road towards the Grand Canyon.
It was about a 5 hour trip from Las Vegas to the Grand Canyon, and the road led us back over the Hoover Dam. We arrived at the Grand Canyon National Park at about 5 PM. Walking to the edge of the canyon, we were awestruck by it’s amazing colours and size. We spent 3 or 4 hours walking along the rim of the canyon before heading to Flagstaff (Another hour and a half drive).
Tuesday, August 12th marks the first day of our trip that we actually stayed in one place for the entire day…
We got up early, and drove to the Hoover Dam… About a 45 minute drive from Las Vegas, and well worth the trip! For $7 parking and $12 each for the tour, we got to see a movie about the Hoover Dam, and then tour down to the generating area of the hydro-electric plant. Afterwards, we went up to the obversavation deck and took some pictures of the dam and Lake Mead behind it.
We then drove back into Las Vegas to enjoy an evening on the strip. First, we walked over to the Sahara and bought two monorail passes for $9 with a coupon, which gave us unlimited rides for 24 hours. This was a great deal, as single ride passes were $9! I highly recommend getting a monorail pass for getting around the strip… Walking it can take hours… time better spent in casinos or seeing shows! We took the monorail to the Imperial Palace station, and then walked to Caesar’s Palace. We decided to go to Rub BBQ again for supper (Yeah, it was that good) so we walked to the Rio on the opposite side of I15. This was a BAD move. It’s a LONG ways from Caesar’s Palace to the Rio, and in the desert heat, it was not a fun walk. After finishing supper, we discovered an amazing thing… FREE shuttles! From the Rio to Caesar’s Palace (And back again)! That would have been nice to know a couple hours earlier. If you need to get around the strip, between the monorail and shuttle service, you are pretty much covered. After riding back to Caesar’s Palace, we visited some of the casinos in that area, such as the Bellagio. We stopped to watch the water show in front of the Bellagio, and then headed back to catch the monorail back to the Sahara. We then went back to our hotel (The Stratosphere) and saw the show “Bite” in the Theatre of the Stars… A great (Somewhat erotic) show about vampires, mixed with some rock and roll, dancing, and acrobatics.
One more important thing I’d like to mention about Vegas… Watch out for all the Tahiti Village time share scammers… they are EVERYWHERE. They are like a parasite, as you walk through the hotels they approach you with lines like “Have you received your free show tickets yet?” “Are you staying at this hotel?” “Would you like some free slot play?” “Where are you from?” They don’t leave you alone… I’m sure this is where a major part of revenue for these places is coming from. My question is this… If time shares are such a great deal, why do they use such forceful sales tactics? Ugh.
Stay tuned, in the morning I’ll write up a story for our Wednesday trip, and you won’t want to miss it!
We’re finally here!
We paid for a room for two nights at the Stratosphere right on the strip, and got a great deal, $132 total for two nights! The Stratosphere is a VERY nice Hotel/Casino, and is located at the North end of the strip, with easy access to a variety of Casinos including Circus Circus, the Sahara, and several others.
For supper, we drove to the Rio, and had some southern BBQ at a place called “Rub BBQ” in the Casino. Excellent food, and a great price! I highly recommend it!
After supper, we drove back to the Stratosphere, and went out for a walk along the strip. It’s amazing how long the strip is… We walked for an hour and didn’t even make it to Treasure Island or the Mirage. We visited the casinos close to the Stratosphere, and decided we’d drive farther south tomorrow to visit more of the casinos in that area.
I must say, the one thing that is easily available in Las Vegas is parking… Every casino seems to have their own parking garage, and they are all free! It’s easy to just cruise to a casino, park in their garage, and then go walk around visiting the nearby casinos.
Tomorrow, we plan to sleep in, then drive out to the Hoover Dam for a visit… We expect we’ll be back in Vegas by shortly after lunch time, so we can plan which shows and casinos we want to see in the evening.
I won’t have internet access for a day after 6 pm tomorrow, so it will be the day after before I get another update done! See you then!
Our second day of traveling has been fairly uneventful… We tried to make up time lost the day before so we’d be closer to Vegas…
First thing, we stopped at Wal-Mart in Helena and loaded up with some food… That place has everything! And it’s sure handy having a 12V Cooler in the car so we can prepare food on the way, instead of spending a bunch of money on fast food.
The path through Idaho and Utah was extremely scenic as we got into the mountains… The van was having a hard time climbing some of those hills!
We stopped for lunch at a rest area that had a nearby trail, called “Hell’s Half Acre”, so we walked around that and snapped a few pictures of what was a lava flow a few thousand years ago… Pretty interesting to see all the hardened lava and holes where the rock was so heavy that it caved into the ground below…
We plan to head into Vegas today (Monday) and check out the sights… We will upload more pictures when we get there!
Hey everyone!
So our first day of travel is over, and we didn’t get quite as far as we would have liked… We were aiming for Idaho Falls, Idaho, but ended up in Helena, MT. A late start, coupled with a shorter day of driving brought us up a little short. But that’s ok, we’ll make it up on Sunday!
The first day was mostly uneventful… My test of Tom Tom guidance software running on the Palm was mediocre at best… The Palm would frequently run out of memory and randomly crash, and when it did so, it seemed to corrupt the map data for whatever area you were in… When this happened, every time you would load Tom Tom while you were still in that area, the map would just crash… Tom Tom will no longer navigate Medicine Hat, AB, Taber AB, or Helena, MT… it just crashes if I try!
We had no trouble getting across the border, aside from some remarks of how we were traveling to the city of Lost Wages… The inspector did ask why we were travelling with invalid passports, to which we replied “Huh?!” He then showed us the passports, with our unsigned signature lines plainly visible, and jokingly said “You’re government puts a signature line there for a reason!” Oops.
We found the trip through Montana to be quite scenic, especially after passing Great Falls and moving on to Helena. The twisting roads through the mountains were an entertaining ride, and had Chantale freaking out (I do NOT drive too fast, really). We snapped lots of pictures from the car, and stopped at a scenic area to grab some more… The picture above was taken just after Great Falls at a scenic point.
We finally ended up in Helena, MT, one of the most confusing cities I’ve ever driven around… Just trying to find a hotel was a nightmare… The Quality Inn and Super 8 would not honour their coupons from the book, stating that the rooms at those rates were all gone. Extremely annoying, especially considering their parking lots were almost empty. What, do they have three rooms at that rate? The Motel 6 right across the street though was happy to see us, and gave us a room for their advertised price, which ended up being less than the other two hotels! And I must say I’m quite impressed with the room… small, but clean, and very quiet here! I recommend Motel 6 in Helena if you’re passing through… Only about $60 per night after tax!
Anyways, time for another day of driving… Will check in tonight!
Yep, it’s a new toy all right… stay tuned, I’ll tell you more about it later… for now I just thought I’d put up some drool-worthy pics 
Chantale took a vacation in July (without me!) and visited her family in Quebec… You can view the pictures by clicking on the album link below:
