DAY 19 - LA Women

Day 19: we awoke and quickly packed our things ready to head to our final stage of the trip. Leaving Vegas for good, we head out on the long road to California.

Along the way, we stopped in the town of Primm for some breakfast at 'Whiskey Pete's Stateline Store'. I was extremely excited as Primm is a location in the game Fallout New Vegas which I have played a lot, and it really had a rollercoaster! Driving on, we decided to take a more interesting route to LA than the boring interstate, so took a detour through the Mohave desert. This involved lots of empty, bumpy roads sided by cacti and water-starved bushes. At most times we could see no other cars on the road - it felt very adventurous! The drive was a little boring, it is a desert after all, but got more exciting when we saw tumbleweed and an old train!

After leaving the desert, we followed the interstate on to LA, and boy was there bad traffic! For about the last 2 and a half hours of the journey I (notice mum made me do all the city driving again, huh!) was driving down super busy 4 or 5 lane roads, a bit different from the UK! We arrived to the Venice Beach area without incident however and settled in to the Encore Motel for the night, which although I had worried might not be great was perfectly nice.

A little short on time, we headed right out in the car to Hollywood, driving through Beverly Hills on the way (with much singing of Weezer of course) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4iTyHItFwg).

Finally finding our car park, we explored Hollywood Boulevard, seeing all the tourist sites! The Hollywood walk of fame...

(Julie Andrews is my hand twin!)

... along with the Hollywood sign and Grauman's Chinese Theatre. We even managed to catch a snippet of whatever musical guest was on Jimmy Kimmel Live by spying on the outside stage from across the street (apparently Laura Mvula?). Mum is a little annoyed that Bastille are playing the night after we have left!

After seeing all our favourite stars' stars and matching our hands to the celebrities', we headed back to Venice for dinner. We headed to a great place down the street from us called 'Eddie's Italian', heralded as a big lover of garlic and boy were they! We were served free bread with massively delicious garlic oil and my food had about 20 whole garlic cloves in it! The place looked a little dive-y when we arrived, but true to the online review we didn't judge a book by it's cover and it turned out to be a real hidden gem. The portions were large enough we kept half for the next day's lunch!

Full and tired, we head back to the motel ready to travel up the Pacific Coast Highway the following morning...

DAY 17 - 20 Gallons of Blood

Our first full day in Vegas!

We decided to have a relaxing day today since we had been driving such far distances for the past week or so. We spent our morning by the pool at the Rio, swimming in the pool and having to sit in the shade as it was so so hot!

The hotel has 3 free pools, all in different shapes. We particularly enjoyed the one with a waterfall!

After it got too hot outside, we returned to the indoors of the hotel for the afternoon. After sharing a burger king for lunch (there's not much cheap food available here in the hotel!), we returned to our room to update the blog and sort out finances and accommodation, after our stint in Arizona with no WiFi. We knew we'd be out late in the evening, so a quick afternoon rest/nap for me was in order!

Well rested and dressed for the evening, we headed out around 7pm to catch the shuttle to the strip. This time catching the shuttle to Harrah's, we got a bit lost inside there and the Quad: neither of which seemed as nice as our hotel! We checked out the Paris for a quick spot of gambling, but were disappointed by the apparent lack of free drinks this time! We headed back over to the Excalibur for dinner, this time snapping a few photos on the way such as the New York New York below. 

For the first time in 13 years, we got Popeyes chicken and biscuits for dinner, delicious as ever, then headed to the floor in the Excalibur for a bit more video poker. And this time, the house didn't win! We spent 3 dollars to make 5, and got 2 drinks for free, aw yeah! Happy with our success, we claimed our money and headed back towards the Planet Hollywood hotel for our evening show.

We had booked 2 VIP tickets to see the Evil Dead Musical, involving sitting in the notorious 'splatter zone' which basically involves having fake blood being thrown over you for 2 and a half hours! We were given our souvenir t-shirts to 'protect us' (like that worked) and taken to our seats, where we were somehow given the center of the front row! I had a bad feeling about this...

The show began and was hilarious, it had a really low budget feel with cheesy costumes and regular breaking of the fourth wall to acknowledge the tongue in cheek script. Filled with terrible puns, dance routines and hilariously written songs, we were pretty much constantly laughing or screaming. And why the screaming? Because we were having that 20 gallons of blood thrown all over us.

Out of everyone in the splatter zone, we proudly took the awards for most covered with blood. Mum, because in the first act she was chosen as the one to have one characters intestines spout all over her for about 3 minutes, covering her head to toe! I laughed considerably at this, but then in the interval it became my turn...

One of the actors came to the stage to chat to the crowd, and upon finding out I was from England chose me to stand up and have my photo taken. I had even more of a bad feeling about this and stood nervously as the count down for the picture ticked down. Facing the audience and unable to see the stage behind me, someone snuck up and poured an entire cup of blood over my head! Now totally covered in the cherry-coke-smelling stuff, I did at least get a free poster and mug!

The second act continued in  much the same way, only with more blood. By this time, we were pretty much immune to it! I won't ruin any story-line, but I will say that I can thoroughly recommend anyone seeing this show if they  get the chance! And to definitely get splatter zone tickets, but not to wear your best clothes! Their website is http://www.evildeadlasvegas.com/ for anyone interested.

The show finished at 2am, and after an odd walk through the strip covered in fake blood, we returned to the hotel on foot and luckily were allowed back in! The blood proved a little difficult to wash off and as we speak all our clothes lay drying around the room, trying not to get any red anywhere....

DAY 16 - VEGAS, BABY!

For day 16, we woke up to a beautifully hot day in Jacob Lake, Arizona. After fresh peaches for breakfast, we began our journey to Zion National Park. Arriving in a town called Springdale (kinda like Stockdale!) on the outskirts of the park and after a kerfuffle with the main car park being full, we were able to catch a shuttle bus into the park. With over 3 million visitors per year, Zion is one of the USA's  most popular state parks and so cars are not allowed within the canyon during peak season: instead we ride the shuttle back in and out with a recording giving interesting information and stops to explore some areas by foot.

In the panorama we see a view of the Court of the Patriarchs, 3 mountains named after, from left to right, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (the white peak just visible behind the redder one in the foreground).

Something I (Jessie) was excited to see were the narrows, an area where the cliff faces come really close together so the path through the canyon narrows to only a river which you can walk upstream through. But apparently I had never read up on this and the route into and through them involves an 8 hour hike which requires relative planning, uh oh! So instead we take the roughly half hour hike to the entrance of the narrows and have a peek down there, me making a promise to come back in the future! We saw plenty of squirrels along with dragonflies and lizards, though unfortunately still no California Condor!

After a few hours in the park we decided we had had our fill as it was getting to be one of our hottest days yet. We stopped for a mega-salad at a deli back in Springdale, only eating half and saving the rest in the cooler! Continuing on, we joined the I15 for the 3 hour drive to Vegas. Part very straight highway, part super windy mountain roads, we witnessed again the slightly crazy American  driving style of slow on straight roads, 20mph over the limit on bendy hills. Over taken by everything, including massive trucks, in the hills, I was then able to do a bit of catching up on the straights, though mum refused to stick her tongue out at the cars we caught up!

As we hit Nevada, the landscape changed to undeniable desert with casinos every 2 minutes! The road into Vegas was a little scarily busy, but nothing compared to the grand exiting of Salt Lake City (see: 2 days ago) so I obviously handled it like a pro and before long we arrived at our lodging for the next 3 nights: The Rio Suites Hotel and Casino.

Parking in what turned out to be the worst choice of car park, though we thought there was only one, we wheeled our suitcases all the way through the massive Rio hotel looking for the registration desk. We went through parking lot, shops and casino before we were finally in the right place. This place really is massive!

Upon check in, we headed to our room to find this place is not only the tower you see above, but also a whole extra tower where we have our room. The room is much bigger than we expected, and you can see it below:

2 queen beds, a sofa and an armchair, a dining table, a large dressing area with wardrobe and a sizable bathroom, our room has floor to ceiling windows with a grand view of the strip which we are just off. So far, we can thoroughly recommend this as a place to stay in Vegas. With a free shuttle to 2 hotels on the strip, it's slightly off strip location is no problem as we are roughly the same distance from the strip's center as you would be staying at a strip hotel at either end you also get a great view of the whole street from the room. 

So, our evening. After the second half of the salad for dinner, we explore our hotel's own casino for awhile, doing our first bit of gambling with 1$ in a one-armed-bandit! We don't win however :(

We headed out on the shuttle to the strip: heading first to Planet Hollywood for collection of our show tickets for tomorrow night (more on that next time!), where we take a look around their casino and shops, buying some delicious brownies for dessert! From here we take a walking trip down the south end of the strip: exploring the amazing New York New York, Excalibur, Luxor and Bellagio hotels. We walk/ catch free trams between these and wow they are amazing! In the Bellagio (where we really wanted to stay but alas, very expensive!), we decide to do a bit more gambling and sit down to play a little video poker. Margaritas in hand, which like all drinks in the casinos are free so long as you are gambling and tip the waitress $1 or so, we actually manage to make ourselves $5! Amazed at our luck, we decide to try a few other games but apparently we are only poker wizzes as this causes us to lose our money again. But oh well, free margaritas and fun!

After a lot of walking around the strip, we have tired feet and after a brief excursion to see Caesars Palace and a little watch of some street  hip hop acrobatics, we catch the shuttle home and head off for bed, me very excited for a my first trip lie in the next morning!