Wednesday 25th May 2011

So we arrived in Las Vegas at obout 4pm on Sunday evening after stopping at a shopping mall  in "Pahrump" the first town we came to after leaving Death Valley. We found a Radio Shack there and managed to buy a small 75watt inverter to charge Judy's camera.  It only has a mains charger and twice we have had to run the large and noisy 2.5 kw generator just to charge this tiny battery not only noisy and inconvenient but a bit expensive.
Arriving in LV we drove down the strip from one end to the next looking for somewhere to park.  Judy remembered that somebody had mentioned parking at Circus Circus Casino so we headed there and sure enough about 5 acres of parking out back with a few campers there already.
So blinds up and "let's hit the strip" we ambled along taking in the spectacle, tagged on to a German tour round the Venetian which was amazing, even went about three floous below ground to the conference centre, the corridors were bigger than some conference halls we had been in!  The size and scale of this town is just breathtaking.  Through a door and stopped just in time to avoid being hearded onto the bus with the Germans.
Back to the Strip and quite a bit of josteling from the crowds and Judy suddenly realised that her handbag was open and all her cards were gone!!  There was nowhere to sit quiet to considder things so we had a long and fretfull hours walk back to the Camper.  We hadn't realised how far we had walked.  Steve had left the details of "Sentinel Card Protection" in the van anyway.  Finally back at the van Judy went through her handbag to find what else was missing while Steve started writing out the information he needed to ring Sentinel. Suddenly Judy found her cards right at the bottom of her bag not in the pocket she usually put's them in, it was only a small bag but like the "Tardis" with what is has in it.  Panick over and time for a drink to calm down,  what a relief!!  But a lesson to us to sort out things into different places, just in case.
It was now about 11pm and we had not had a meal so again to the strip to find some food.
After the fright we had a good night's sleep and decided in the morning to search out "Down town" which we had been told had a fantastic laser show.  It wasn't lasers but "The largest Video screen on the planet!" but a fantastic sight the whole roof of this quarter mile mall was a video screen.
We found an RV park near to where we had parked so went in to find out whether they had space so we could park there for the night.  Had a chat with a very nice lady who told us where to get a good steak that night.  It was only about 3pm so we decided to go to the "Stratosphere" which we had been told was a must.  It was fantastic with an incredible 360deg panorama.  We spent quite a while watching the "braver than us" people doing tethered free fall jumps from the top 866ft.
It was 6:30 by the time we got back to the van too late for the RV park but we decided to eat in Downtown and enjoy the evening and lights there.  The meal was great, prime rib, not a steak as we had expected but an inch thick slice off what we would consider a Sunday Roast but extreemly tender and tasty.  The evening in the mall was fantastic with a much better atmosphere than the strip, much more friendly, three different groups playing and the night time show on the roof screen amazing.  We headed back to Circus Circus to park for the night but encountered a Security Gard on a bike saying "you can't sleep here"  but we could park while we walked the strip.  So another three or four miles walking to watch the show at Treasure Island amongs others and arrived back at the van at about 2:30 am by which time the guards on bikes had gone home so we stayed and had another good nights sleep with a few other campers nearby.
Tuesday we moved the van to the Central Car Park behind "Excaliber" and had another good day's walking, we saw the MGM Lions, the rain and fountains in the "Mile Long Mall" at Planet Holliwood, The dancing fountains at Bellagio, the Sphinx and Egyptian Relics at Luxor, New York, just too many to list.  But the strip was too frantic and noisy so we headed “Downtown” again to eat and “Hang Out”  the Steak at a different Restaurant was disappointing and the waiter realised and didn't let Steve give him a tip!  Not what we had been led to believe.  
We raced back to our parking place and even with our sore feet limped the mile and a half to see the dancing fountains at Bellagio at night, the last show was supposed to be at midnight but we arrived at one minute past just as it had finished and everybody was leaving, what a disappointment.  But we must move on tomorrow.
Wednesday 25th May another good nights sleep so woke early to type this and now heading off to Hoover Dam hopefully to find a McD's on the way to send it.
Sorry if there is just too much information here but we are doing this blog for us really and others to enjoy if they wish.  I will try to put up some pictures if we can get a good connection soon.  Unfortunately I have not encountered enough bandwidth to update the Google map yet and may have to try a different system.  We are constantly plotting our route with Autoroute (Streets & Trips) so I may be able to upload that
Just an update before I send this. We popped into Cruise America the company we hired our RV from just to ask a question,  five miles down the road when we pulled into the parking to send this as we got out we saw a large coach screw in our front tyre!  So back to Cruise America and they fixed it with a new Tyre while we waited, so just a bit of shopping for essentials then on our way again which will be 3:30, lucky we have 2 1/2 months left ...............................

Steve & Judy