Woke up in St. George Utah then started driving to the Grand Canyon in Arizona. We went to the north rim. I hear its not as nice as the south rim, but the south rim was a little out of our reach for the trips plans, being another 3 hours south. It was much greener than I had imagined it would be. I think because it was spring, or perhaps its because of what part of the canyon we were seeing. We spent a few hours there, picked up lunch and then headed to Vegas. We arrived in Los Vegas around 5pm and ate our last chinese buffet of the trip. The only good think is that it was indeed one of the better of the buffets we had all week. I ate too many steamed peach buns and sesame balls. Then fruits and veggies. Gary pointed out this is the first buffet we had been to all week that had tofu. Strange, but he was right.
Weather was pretty nice at the canyon. t was cool and comfortable. Once we ate in Vegas we headed to the hotel, i changed into warmer weather clothes, and we headed for a guided tour of the "strip." We saw 3 free shows. A show at ceasers palace about some roman gods (statue like thing with fire and water), then some short volcano eruption, and a fountain show. I was more impressed by all of them than I expected. We toured the inside of some of the Hotels and casios briefly on the tour, the Venician and Ceasers Palace were 2 of them.
After the tour we were dropped of at the Ballys Hotel Casino to see a show we paid for called Jubilee. This classic vegas show was.... spectacular and beautiful. There was classic dancing, fantastic sets, some acrobatic and percussion demonstrations. It was the classic Vegas show girls type show. Everything after this show seemed muted. It was that great. 90 mins of non-stop action that came from 360 degrees around you and from the ceiling.
After this the tour left for the hotel again but greg and I stayed out after the bus left and toured the strip. Pretty much all of it. We went into most every major casino and walked around. We hit a couple slot machines, but didnt win anything. I didnt much expect to. We did this for about 4-5 hours, caugt breakfast at one of the casinos... it was not great food but the mix of being starving at the time, and the fact that it was not chinese buffet it was pretty darn good. We basically crawled back to the hotel room around 5 am slept an hour and then got up to finish up the tour. This was probably the worst morning for me. I wanted to die, i think that a week on end of 3-4 hours sleep had just cought up with me, and i had really pushed myself over the edge with this last night.
The last day we headed over at dawn to a chocolate facotory just out of Vagas, I was not that impressed with the factory tour, as it was extreamely brief, but the chocolate was much better than I expected. Attatched to the factory was a cactus garden. It was very pretty and there were a bunch of lizards chasing bugs around and sun bathing on the rocks in the morning. A couple of bunnies were hopping around the garden as well. It was a neat little ecosystem.
The bus then dropped us off in Vegas at 10 am and this was the end of the road for our guided tour. From this point we caught a taxi with gregs family to the hotel they had reserved for a couple more nights in Vegas. We dropped off our luggage lounged around for an hour then caught lunch at the Hilton that was a couple blocks away. There they had the Star Trek Experience, I didnt have time to tour it really but I played around in the gift shop and took pictures with some of the dorks in costumes. I was smiling in embarassment that i was actually kind of happy to be there. My shameful dork pleasure. I am even still somewhat embarassed to admit I am a die hard trekie.
From there we caught a Cab to the Airport after leaving Gregs family there at the hotel. The plane ride was from 3pm till mindnight with a 3 hr layover in houston for me. I hooked up with my Dad for a late dinner in houston which was really nice but all too short a visit. I talked non-stop for the 3 hrs i was there!
So that was the trip. My highlights were Jubilee, playing with princess fuzzy feet, the sea monkies, seeing the various state parks, and the beautiful countryside of the western US. There were a few more moments of greatness, and over all I would do it again in a heart-beat. Despite all the whining done about the various inconvienineces of the trip, they were not so bad as to keep me from repeating the experience. Although... i think thats the last chinese version I will be taking of this type of touring :P