we make a quick stop at the dam to take some photographs. these then are they.
as you can see from the final photograph, the hoover dam is made from over eighteen thousand million billion tons of concrete. which j edgar hoover done with his own bare hands.
vegas is surrounded on all sides by desert and all of a sudden it's just there. last time i went it were at night and you can see it from miles away reflected on the clouds until all of a sudden it's there in the distance, big and bright. this time it weren't quite as mad but still, viewing the strip from a distance is quite a mad thing.
we decide to stay at new york, new york so we park and have to cart all our stuff through the casino to check in and then back through to get to us room. we freshen up and then get ready for a night of serious gambling, boozing and general mayhem.
first of all i lead the boys in the direction of luxor because i know from last time that they do a yard of margherita and that should just about set us up for the evening. luxor has an egyptian theme and it's shaped like the pyramid on the back of a one dollar bill. rather than an eye though it merely has a huge light beaming up into space. as we get towards the end of us yards we realise that we are starving and that we ought to eat before hammering the tables.
after we eat, we gamble and then we head to excalibur which is only mildly less tacky than the camelot suites in amarillo. we gamble and move on to the mgm grand. then back over to new york, new york and things are starting to get blurred. we make the mistake of going to tropicana where you can play tic-tac-toe against a chicken for crying out loud. mandalay bay i can barely remember and then we went back to the mgm grand. colin went back to the hotel with a new friend whilst me and ben decided to do some proper gambling.
we're gambling and drinking for hours and then stumble back over to new york, new york for more gambling and get back to the hotel room at eleven in the morning.
the twats lads decide to take a couple of snaps while i'm asleep. i don't know why there aren't any pictures of anyone else asleep. eh? y'bastards. i wake up with an eye infection which to be honest i'm not that surprised about. on the upside, i find a grand in cash in winnings in my pockets and then later another three hundred in chips from the mgm grand.
by the time i wake up it's seven o'clock and i want to get some breakfast. the lads are laughing until they realise i'm serious. me and ben head downstairs and get something to eat and then we go back up to the room and i look out the window and can't understand that it's eleven o'clock, we've just had breakfast and it's frigging dark outside. the boys think i'm taking the piss. nothing could be further from the truth unfortunately.
the boys head out and i stay in to watch some of the 9/11 stuff on, well, every single channel. at about four the lads return after skinting theirsens. while they were out, this is the photographs they took:
by the time we get up it's far too late for breakfast so i take the boys for an italian lunch to celebrate my winnings. we decide that we're going to take a helicopter ride into the grand canyon, so after we've ate we go on to the strip to book it. the first place we try, the grand canyon experience, is totally booked up so we try the next place along where a vampire lady sorts us out with a half-four pick up from the hotel. this gives us a bit of time to kill so we go to the bellagio where i lose a swift $200.
back at new york, new york and we're waiting for the papillon tour bus to arrive and pick us up. it turns up late because there's a problem with the helicopter so we can't do it, but we're rescheduled for tomorrow so it looks like another night in vegas. the boys go to the pool and i go for a bit of a lie down and then we head over to luxor to see tom cruise narrate space station 3d on the imax. woh! it's mental. right big telly and you wear a special helmet what makes everything 3d. the actual shows a bit pants, but still...woh!
eventually we get back to new york, new york for our last gamble of the holiday. i lose a swift $100 but overall i'm $700 up and over the moon. we go upstairs for an early night because we've got a big day ahead of us tomorrow.
we checkout of the hotel and load us bags into the car, have a quick continental breakfast and then go outside to wait for the tourbus. the bus takes us to mccallan airport where us chopper is and after a brief wait we get on board and we're off.
we flew over vegas, then out and over the hoover dam, across lake mead and then we stopped at an indian place for more fuel. after that it were down into the canyon itself which the movie clip below cannot really do justice to but gives you a rough idea. basically this were the best thing what i had even done in my life.
we stopped at the bottom of the canyon for a champagne lunch, and then we took off and flew back to the airport. i will suggest that anyone who takes this trip makes the diversion to vegas. furthermore i suggest that anyone who goes to vegas takes a helicopter trip into the grand canyon. evenfurthermorer i would suggest that anyone doing the helicopter trip goes with papillon. it were absolutely magic.
after the tourbus dropped us off at the hotel, we got in the car and set off on the road for (sort of) the last time. and we got lost again trying to get on interstate 15.
we stopped at a petrol station/casino before leaving nevada for petrol, food and water and then it was off again.
