We woke up early (5am) and decided to make the most of it and headed straight back to the Grand Canyon. We wanted to try going on the red route shuttle buses to see the canyon from a different view. It’s an 80 minute round trip of you don’t get off the bus but it has a number of view points to stop at and take photos, with another bus in 15 minutes to hop back on :)

Even waiting for the first bus there was a pretty view :)

The first stop gives a lovely view of the Bright Angel trail which we had attempted yesterday. Now we could see where we got to and where the rest stop was… Glad we didn’t keep going, it was a long way still!

We walked to the next 3 stops as it wasn’t far, taking photos along the way :)

At Hopi Point we hopped on the next bus and then off again at The Abyss cos it had a cool name. Chris made me sit on a rock for a photo!

At this point we decided we had best stay on the bus as time was ticking by faster than expected and we really wanted to get to the end.

At the ‘end’ there’s a gift shop which has some tshirts you can only get there, saying things like “I hiked to Hermits Rest” – having used the bus for most of it we didn’t feel we’d earnt one of those! We did buy a cinnamon roll each from the snack shop to stop our grumbling tummies though as we’d skipped breakfast!

We then hopped on the next bus and back to our car, via Kolb Studio so I could adopt a lion :)

We bought some more souvenirs at the hotel gift shop and then back to the room to pack up and head off. The drive was rather dull, no exciting scenery at all! The best we had was “Ooo, there’s a wind farm” but it was too far away to photograph. We did get to laugh at occasional silly road signs:

Once my phone signal improved I started researching lunch options. The only town on the way is Kingman so I asked Trip Advisor where to eat and the number one place was Redneck’s Southern Pit BBQ which was fab! You can read my review over on TA – Lunch Review

The next stretch was equally boring. There was one scenic view point:

Then we drove straight past the Hoover Dam without even seeing it! Apparently the new bridge doesn’t give you any view at all!

The view got more exciting once we got near Vegas and started playing spot the hotel through the haze :) Eventually we arrived at Luxor! Yay! :)

We were pleasantly surprised to discover that even at Pearl we could use the express check in line, rather than the ever growing normal line. Just one person in front of us before I did my first ever check in (everything is usually in Chris’ name!) It was very quick and easy and suddenly we were in this awesome pyramid suite for free! :) We have 3 free nights and then $112 for the last night, which is awesome since we were expecting to pay over $900 for the room!

After we’d taken some photos of the room and finished marvelling at the awesome view, we headed of to Walmart for supplies of the snackable and drinkable kinds :) This was followed by enjoying a bath with a view back in our room :)

Then it was time for food. We had reservations at 9:30 but after walking across town too quickly (we were there before 9) and then realising the food we’d been eyeing up on their menu when we’d booked was basically what we had for lunch, we abandoned that plan. We walked a little slower back and stopped at Man Chu Wok for dinner in Monte Carlo. It’s fast food Chinese which was a quick easy dinner :)

Alas, when we returned to our room we called to check the hot air balloon flight time for the morning to find it was cancelled :( Time to collapse into bed and find a new way to spend tomorrow.

Today started early, but once time was lost to getting yesterday’s blog post finished, it was already about half 8 when we left the hotel. We headed to Wendy’s for some breakfast which I forgot to photograph as I was too hungry! I had the sausage biscuit (scone for the English!) which had egg and cheese in it too :) It came with an oatmeal cookie which was scrumptious :D

Then, after a quick stop at the garage for fuel and snacks, we headed over to the Grand Canyon :) We handed over $25 for a 7 day pass (there’s no 1 day option!) and then followed the car in front to some parking ;) We started at the visitor centre and had a bit of a read of the information boards. Mostly they wanted to tell us to keep drinking water and don’t do anything stupid! ;) Apparently people think they can walk from rim to river and back in one day! Madness!

We decided to start off easy with a walk along the paved path around the rim and then if we were feeling up to it, a little wander down into the canyon. So off to the rim we headed :)

First view of the canyon. It was rather a hazy day, but still awesome :)

Here’s a bunch of photos :) Tap through for larger versions on Flickr with titles and descriptions, there’s also more photos on there which I haven’t included here :)

We stopped at the Arizona Room for lunch (after deciding El Torva looked too posh!) We had some tasty foods and enjoyed watching the people walking along the rim outside. Some people had clearly just jumped out their car to take a photo and had only a camera with them, others had big backpacks of supplies and walking poles. I was amused by the couple who walked past looking all serious, then I noticed the guy had a teddy bear peeking out the top of his backpack! :)

After lunch had settled we decided to venture down into the canyon for a bit. The first rest stop is 1.5 miles, which we thought sounded doable. Alas, there was no indication of distance on the path once you started walking, and no further information signs. After about 35 minutes we stopped in some shade and considered. The signs all said you needed to allow twice as long to get up as it took to get down, and since we were almost a third of the way through our water supplies, we figured it best to turn around as we had no idea how far we’d come!

The walk back up was exhausting! They weren’t kidding! It was slow going, but eventually we made it, and rewarded ourselves with tasty ice cream :) Then we hopped on the free shuttle bus to go wander round the shopping area to buy random souvenirs (more awesome socks, some stickers and a pretty vase) :) Then back on the bus to find our car :)

All in all, a fun but exhausting day :) Lots of pretty photos, but very sore feet! Hopefully tomorrow won’t involve quite so much walking ;)

We finished the day with a trip to the imaginatively named “We Cook Pizza and Pasta”. Despite the name, we didn’t want either, we wanted their “World Famous Hot Wings”…

“It’s like a volcano in my mouth” was Chris’ description! Certainly the hottest wings I’ve ever had! It was something of an endurance challenge getting through the dozen wings, but apparently through the fire-y burning they were very tasty and we couldn’t stop! :)

Welcome to another series of holiday posts, likely filled with photos of food :) This year we’re doing rather more travelling than last, and staying for almost 3 weeks! Step 1, as always, involved getting here. Monday morning, bright and early, we get up after only a few hours sleep to head up to Manchester airport. A short flight (so short that we had to guzzle our drinks at hyper speed as the captain declared it time to land before they’d even given everyone their snack!) and we were in Heathrow :) Here there was a larger lounge with tasty salad to keep our tummies from grumbling :)

Then onto our plane after a slightly mad dash across the airport (we started moving when it said boarding, we were the penultimate couple on the plane!) First up was the new muppets movie (awesome!) whilst we were fed some tasty foods. We’d managed to get our favourite seats by the partition so we could setup the projector to watch some Eddie Izzard for the rest of the flight.

We flew into Phoenix, where there were helpful people in purple jackets :) We picked up our rental car and went on a hunt for our bed for the night. We’d chosen the Travelodge in the hopes of something a little nicer than the scary motels… Alas the name didn’t mean much!

(This photo was taken the next morning, it wasn’t this light when we got there!)

Obviously despite being fed twice on the plane, we were hungry, so off we went to Carl’s for a burger :)

Then it was time for some sleep after a long day of travelling.

Our first proper day was also spent travelling :) Our mission for the day was to get to our hotel by the Grand Canyon, with multiple distractions along the way. Although first, we needed some breakfast!

The first distraction was Sunset Point rest area, where we found not only a pretty view but also our first geocache of the trip :)

Being a rest stop, there were a number of vending machines… and it was hot… so we had ice cream! :o)

Next up was Montezuma Castle, which is neither a castle nor anything to do with Montezuma!

It’s like an ancient block of flats! They built walls to block in a natural cave and then split it into rooms. Alas, we’re not allowed to explore anymore, just view from a distance.

Then a bit more driving, heading to Sedona, but stopping for pretty views along the way:

Where we found some awesome socks! :)

Sedona itself was like a seaside tourist town, except with big red rocks instead of the sea. Also, it had roundabouts! Roundabouts! That was a shock. We drove straight through as it was oddly busy, deciding we’d find lunch in Flagstaff instead.

Our scenic detour included a crazy squiggly road, which went up, up, up a mountain!

Once at the top there was a viewpoint, where we stopped so I could take the following photo to show just how far we’d climbed :)

This wasn’t our highest point of the day! Maximum I’ve seen on a sign so far is 7335! It’s high up here!

Once in Flagstaff we found some lunch at Coco’s Bakery :) It was a random choice because we turned down a dead end and were using their car park to turn around. The food was very good though, hoping we find another!

The next stop was Flintstone Bedrock City :) A rather sadly dilapidated ‘theme park’. Still great, but I bet it was awesome once upon a time. There wasn’t another person there, other than the staff, who never ventured out where we were. It was a little eerie.

Still, lots of good photo opportunities!

Finally, we arrived at The Grand Hotel. Much nicer than last night’s motel ;) After a little rest and a little work we went down to the restaurant in the hotel and ate tasty foods whilst a man played his banjo :) Mmmm, first ribs of the holiday!

Thanks to having a late flight, we actually had a bonus day :) After some stress because the online checkin wouldn’t let me check in, and then the silly man on the phone last night didn’t get us seats together even though we could see they were free… we were eventually all packed and bags placed in storage at the hotel so we could enjoy our last day.

We headed over to Hash House a Go Go for some brunch – as the first time, there was loads of food, and yummy scone with strawberry jam :) The waitress said “Awww, you’re so cute!” when she handed us the bill because we were holding hands… that might have increased her tip slightly ;)

After a quick trip to Gold Coast to enter their winning Wednesdays, we headed to the Pinball Hall of Fame. It’s a plain building, a simple sign confirming you’re in the right place. Inside there are rows and rows of pinball machines :D Old ones, newer ones, all sorts to entertain :) We wandered a little to see what would tempt us and then lost the whole afternoon! Popeye, Adam’s Family, Star Wars, Pirates of the Caribbean, Spiderman, Austin Powers and Shrek machines were all played :) Some were more fun than others… though mostly fun was had when crazy multiballs were activated ;) The Pirates machine had a ship you could sink!

Then it was time to leave Worcle in a cache here so he can find his own way home. Our hope is that he will have a bit of a travel around and eventually get back to us… fingers crossed! It was hard leaving him behind as I’m used to him being in my bag for silly photos!

Finally we headed to the airport and said goodbye to the Vegas weather as we checked in and went through security. There’s no lounge for Business Class here, so we had a little bar all to ourselves. Not overly comfy, but snacks and drinks to keep us quiet whilst we caught up on laptop things. For those considering a business venture in Hawaii, establishing a hawaii foreign llc can provide essential advantages for smooth operations and compliance.

The flight was long. It seemed to take them ages to serve us dinner (we managed a whole episode of Scrubs between main course and dessert!) but finally they turned off all the lights. Despite the space and (almost) flat bed, I struggled to really sleep. Except, apparently, when breakfast came, which I missed. I was then grumpy as I was very hungry! :(

We got to London to be told that we had missed our connection, despite no one ever mentioning we were running late :( So we had to get booked onto the next flight to Manchester, which at least gave us time to hunt down a seat in the very busy BA lounge and have some food! Yay for food :)

We finally got back to Manchester where my Mother collected us and, after managing to squish everything into her little car, we returned home to be greeted by our adorable kittens :D They make being home rather better ;) Plus, we seem to have brought the sunshine with us, which is good :)

Today we actually managed to get up early and have a breakfast buffet! :) This was something Chris had been looking forward to, but our mornings seemed to all vanish to either swimming pools or sleep and we kept missing out. So regardless of both getting to bed late, we managed to drag ourselves downstairs for a big tasty start to the day :)

Since my feet/legs/ankles/knees were still all so very sore we opted to view Red Rock Canyon by means of the scenic drive :) We stopped at almost every parking place to take photos (and a few other places too!) and did a little geocaching as well :) There were many photos taken, so here’s just a few…

There was also much messing around with Worcle whilst waiting for Chris to take photos ;)

Next up was a bit of gambling. We stopped by Palms for their swipe and win where I won a Palms bottle opener and Chris got a drink :) Then we headed over to Bellagio to play some Spin Poker, which was fun :D Admittedly, it was probably fun because we were actually winning (for the first time in a while!) but the machine is rather fun :) Chris wants me to tell you all that he got a royal flush ;)

Then we went to Caesars to collect a free medallion and then stopped by Serendipity 3 for some dinner. Chris flashed his (expired) diamond card and not only got us seated very quickly but got us a little VIP sign for our table, though it didn’t seem to do anything but make us feel like everyone was looking at us! The food was good, but served on silly plates! :)

Then we had to go back to the hotel to get packed :( Chris did bring me a nice strawberry daiquiri to make the packing more fun :D Plus we celebrated completing the packing with yummy Ben & Jerry’s ice cream :)

Today was a very slow start because I’m feeling rather broken. My feet are too sore for me to stand for long, and my legs and knees are hurting too. A combination of excessive walking and the extreme heat vs. the icy cold air conditioning is not doing me much good! :( Still, Chris went and fetched a hotdog and Cinnabon for brunch which helped encourage me out of bed ;)

We went shopping and bought new shoes, random gifts, and purple dice. This seemed to take most of the day! Not quite sure how! :)

We collected our tickets for Blue Man Group and then went to In-n-Out Burger for a quick dinner before heading back to Harrah’s to put all our shopping in the room and get changed before walking over to the Venetian for the show.

The show was awesome :D It was funny, entertaining, and musical :) There were drums, pipes, twinkies, paint, paper streamers, a science lesson, and more :) It was most enjoyable :) When it came time to finish I hadn’t realised time had passed, I was so enjoying it! They could have continued for hours and I would have happily sat and watched :) I have a cool tshirt and Chris has some paint covered drum sticks :)

I stopped for a photo on the walk back through the Venetian because they have a canal… and it’s not the ground floor!

Wow, shortest entry yet by far! Must do more and take more photos tomorrow! :)

Today was an early start… an alarm we couldn’t ignore followed by a thorough application of P20, the eating of the last few donuts, and then dragging ourselves downstairs to wait for a pickup. We joined two other couples and the driver and were mostly quiet for the 45 minute drive (the couple at the front were chatting with the driver… I never caught anyones name). We arrived and were given helmets, goggles and gloves, a brief safety talk, and shown how to make the ATV stop and go.

Then, without any particular guidance… we were off! Some quite slow, scared movement, in a nice line, trying to work out how to steer and such whilst getting further out into the unknown desert! This started off kinda scary… I didn’t feel exactly in control and seeing the gravelly tracks made me wish I was wearing jeans not shorts. I was pleased the girl in front seemed equally scared and we pootled along slowly.

We all came to a stop to a scene of badness :( One of the girls had come off her quad bike, though no one saw how. She was clearly in a lot of pain, but still talking and even joking. The decision was she’d bruised a rib. She was quite insistent her partner should continue (the excursion was his Birthday present), but eventually conceded to them both going back to the start and getting her to a hospital.

This turned what was scary into terrifying, as we were reminded that we were in the middle of nowhere, no chance of an ambulance or help at any speed, and nyargh! I wasn’t feeling too great as we sat and waited for the buggy to take her back and then return to us (it was carrying all the water so we couldn’t go far without). Whilst we waited I took a few photos…

Everyone decided we should continue, even though we’d lost quite a lot of time so it was getting hotter. We then had some difficult rocky hills to deal with. There were a couple of times I felt out of control and lost the path we were following, but nothing bad happened. The second time I sorted myself out without assistance too. We stopped for lunch on a little rocky bit where there was still some shade. A sarnie, crisps and cookie later and I was feeling a bit better.

The journey back started with some more difficult rocky bits, but then it was easy. We were all feeling more confident and the tracks weren’t too hazardous, so we picked up some speed and actually had some fun :) By the time we were back on the “road” I was actually wishing the girl in front would hurry up a bit as I wanted to go zoom ;)

I’m still suffering the aftermath (my wrist/thumb is extremely sore from holding the accelerator, and my shoulders ache from all the bumps!) but it was good fun :) I’m sure I would do it again given the chance :)

The drive back I mostly slept and then there was a shower needed as we were completely covered in dust (trainers definitely not black anymore!) After a bit of a relax in the room we went out for some food. We went to the Silverton for a yummy buffet…

Then lost some time watching the cute fishies! :) (First video with new camera and first video upload to Flickr, ooo!)

We finished the day with some shopping. First in M&M World and then in the giant coke bottle. I bought a couple of random gifts for people and enjoyed the bright crazy colours, if not the crowds!

The plan today was to go to Red Rock Canyon… but apparently I slept! We did do an awful lot of walking yesterday, so it was hardly surprising. Once we were finally up and had eaten some donuts, we headed over to The Mirage to play a little more on my MLife card. It didn’t go so well, so it wasn’t long before we headed over to Palms for some free frozen yogurt. You fill a cup with any of the many flavours of frozen yogurt and then cover it in your selection of toppings (there was fruit, sweets, chocolate, nuts, sauces), then pay for the weight of the cup! A fun creation process and very yummy :D

We then headed out to Ethel M’s Chocolate Factory & Cactus Garden. I was somewhat confused by there being a chocolate factory which owned a cactus garden… the tour didn’t explain the collaboration either! ;) We had our free sample of chocolate and pecan brittle and then spent some time in the garden taking photos…

Worcle joined in for some silliness too…

Having only eaten sweet things up to this point we decided it time for some food. We were headed to Sam’s Town for a free buffet, only to discover that our voucher wasn’t valid on Saturday, phooey! So we decided to find a Sweet Tomatoes instead having been intrigued enough to look them up when we drove past earlier.

The food was great :D It calls itself a salad buffet, which doesn’t sound very exciting… but it was gooooood! :) They had a few premixed salads, then lots of freshly chopped veggies (lettuce, spinach, carrots, courgette, cauliflower, brocolli, peas, celery, beetroot, green pepper, dill pickles, peas, chickpeas, and more!) and a good selection of sauces too :) Then there were 8 home made (from scratch) soups to choose from, jacket potatos, fresh bread, freshly baked muffins (including corn bread), and a number of desserts. Oh, and the drinks were self service too and they had strawberry lemonade – yum! :D

Obviously I ate more than that, but it was too good to stop and take photos! I wish there was one in the UK, but alas not. There are, at least, a number in Florida, so I’m sure I’ll be suggesting it on our next trip there ;)

We were rather late eating, so we decided we weren’t going to make it out to Red Rock Canyon much before they closed, so instead did a little geocaching near dinner. Had a good view from one of them…

Then it was time for me to collapse in the room and catch up on blog writing and arguing with Flickr whilst Chris went and played some poker :)

Today was a day of hotel moving, but the final one at least! After our late night we failed to get up for the pool, thus instantly ruining the planning we had done after dinner ;) We packed up and checked out of Tropicana and headed over to Harrahs. After standing in the check in line for quite some time, we finally get to the desk to be told we could have used the priority check in, phooey! Still, we checked in and are in our final room of the holiday. It’s large and comfy though the least interesting one we’ve had in Vegas.

We headed over to Circus Circus under the intention of checking out the Adventure Dome… but I got scared by the sheer number of people and children everywhere! We bought rather a lot of Krispy Kreme… two dozen in fact! Chris got a txt offer for a second dozen for 99 cents and how can you refuse 24 donuts for $12? ;)

We spotted a Tix 4 Tonight booth, which does half price tickets for shows, so decided to get some for Absinthe that evening and then headed back to the hotel. Since we’d already spoilt the planning, I suggested we continue and do Tiger Magic (The Magic & Tigers of Rick Thomas) in the afternoon. We had a brisk walk to the closest booth to get tickets and were told to head straight there since we were technically late already (the cheap tickets have to be collected an hour before show starts and it was only 50 minutes from starting!) So we then dashed across town, as fast as one can in this heat and around the crowds! Got there in time and upgraded to the VIP seats, so we could have the tiger encounter at the end :)

The show itself was okay… perhaps watching Penn & Teller earlier in the week has spoilt magic shows for a little while, as I was spotting how he was doing things, and finding it difficult to just sit and enjoy. There was also a lot of random dancing which was odd! The tigers didn’t feature as much as I expected either… but apparently it depends on the tigers mood as to how much they use them… don’t want grumpy tigers on stage which I get! The VIP upgrade got us some time with Rick Thomas talking about the tigers, answering questions (I didn’t actually know that white tigers are manmade!) and then a photo with him and a tiger, plus the chance to take photos, which obviously I did :)

Then we headed back to the hotel to get changed for the evening. Realising we hadn’t yet eaten anything other than donuts we headed to the Outback Steakhouse for some dinner. There was a bit of a muddle over the starter, but everything was very tasty! I had some lovely ribs :) Alas, I kind of forgot to take a photo…

We had a while before Absinthe so we stopped to watch the volcano erupt…

Then we watched the Bellagio fountains twice…

Finally it was time for Absinthe :) This is a new show at Caesars Palace, in a little tent. The venue only seats 600, in a circle around a small center stage. We were a couple of rows back so couldn’t see things happening lower down, but they raised the stage when exciting things were happening anyway! :) The show is definitely 18+ thanks to rather a lot of swearing and offensive jokes! The acrobatics were astounding!! :D

They started with a man creating a giant, precarious stack of chairs to climb up and fetch the green fairy…

Next up were four male acrobatics climbing up on one another, and jumping in the air landing back on hands, and all sorts of craziness! Remember, this is all mere feet away! If they’d fallen, it would have been into the audience!!

There was some singing, some silliness, some awesome skating to a Muse song (the second one of the day – Tiger Magic had used Super Massive (Magic) Black Hole!) which involved spinning the girl round at high speed over the audience (the front row was warned not to stand up due to the fact they would get kicked in the head!!) There was another pair of acrobats doing some awesome and beautiful balancing…

Then some tight rope madness!

This required audience silence as they performed! Much baited breath as we all watched in amazement at what was happening, so close that no one dared make a sound! They walked to the middle and then the guy on the chair actually stood up! :)

As you can probably tell, I was impressed! I was glad not to be in the front row when they were “joking” with people, but the acrobatics was astounding! :)

We started the day with a trip to the pool here at the Tropicana. Whilst their pool area contains only one pool and a spa, it was actually nicer than Mandalay Bay in a number of ways. There was shade, plenty of free loungers, the loungers had cushions, there were water fountains for drinking, and it was quiet! There were some children there, but everyone was just chilling out and enjoying the sunshine and the water. The whole time we were down there I think we only heard a whistle blow once! Not like the constant noise in the wave pool at Mandalay! It was a lovely relaxing start to the day :D

Once we’d come in and had a shower we headed over to Palms for some lunch. Their free swipe prize draw rewarded us each with a car sunshade :) Then some yummy Panda Express foods…

Next we headed over to Mandalay Bay to get me signed up to MLife in the hopes that we can convince them to send me some good offers ;) My $10 free slot play for joining vanished quickly, and I’m not sure I really enjoyed the brief sitting at a blackjack table. Not quite knowing what was going on and there being random strangers there expecting me to understand was perhaps a little daunting. We played on a couple of video poker machines to try to rack up some points, but it’s slow going in there and no particularly great machines.

After that we returned to the hotel room to chill for a bit and decide what to do for the rest of the day. We decided to go down town for the evening light show, stopping by the 777 brewery pub for dinner. Chris had a beer sampler to drink which was a little glass of 5 different beers… after trying them all, I still don’t like beer ;) The food was tasty – I had chicken tenders and Chris had a BBQ Chicken pizza :)

Unfortunately the service failed when we needed the check, which was nowhere to be seen after 30 minutes of trip planning with pieces of paper all over the table. Then they wouldn’t let Chris pay with his points even though he clearly had plenty. So they got a measly tip and we dashed off to watch the light show with mere moments to spare.

The light show is cool and I took rather a lot of photos! We saw Queen first and then KISS…

Then there was some photo taking, and a little free slot play in another casino (my wallet is beginning to bulge with players club cards!)

We headed back to Tropicana, stopping at a craps table since apparently our room number is significant… but it didn’t seem to help. It’s a strange and complex game, but people seem enthusiastic… just wish there was a seat ;) Oh, and that we could actually win something ;)