We woke up in our bargain room and went and had our breakfast in Peggy in the hotel carpark, we packed our bags and set off to see Vegas.
The city that has 18 of the Worlds 25 largest hotels that hold the 35 million visitors a year is surprisingly quiet at 9am in the morning and we made the most of it. Wandering the deserted streets happy to be free of a hangover we really enjoyed our stroll. We really aren’t into big cities at all, nor do we have the cash to splash to truly get stuck into enjoying Las Vegas so we knew our attention span would wan pretty quickly. With that in mind we wandered in and out of the amazing hotels to enjoy the exuberant decor and to watch the rich check in.

Wynn Las Vegas is the new kid on the block and is stunning. It was built by Steve Wynn also responsible for building the Bellagio and the Mirage…he then sold those two fabulous hotels and with the profits built the biggest fish in the pond. The interior is like being in a box of Quality Streets. The riot of colour, the twinkling trees lining the paths and the fresh flowers planted in fabulous patterns suck you in the second you walk in the doors…that are held open for you of course!We walked through the brightly colored sparkling forest to the ‘lake of Dreams’which is a massive waterfall that constantly changes colour! It was lovely and only spoilt by people wandering around smoking huge cigars Las Vegas style. You can smoke inside all of the casino’s and hotels and it is the weirdest thing to see after years of smoking being ousted!

Next door was the Venetian which has its own Rialto bridge, gondolas and singing gondoliers on the lake outside which you watch from the balconies of the fake Venetion buildings..totally Vegas…and thats before you even get inside! We wandered the Venetian streets as the fake clouds in the ever changing fake blue sky above us wooshed by. We walked as far as the indoor lake, again with singing gondoliers whose voices fill the air around you. This lake is UPSTAIRS and quintessentially Vegas…why go to Venice? We will bring it to you!

We wandered past the Mirage and hoped we would be passing in time to see its Volcano erupt but alas we were not and the streets had started to fill at an alarming rate with very excitable tourists mostly wearing shorts, socks and sandles and armed with more camera equipment than the local movie studio.

Our afore mentioned city attention span had well and truly lapsed so we turned around to head back to Peggy for some lunch and to get on the road to the Hoover Dam…the place that gave Vegas its stepping stone to becoming the Vegas we know now. Nevada was the first state to outlaw gambling but it was legalised again in 1931 and the workers building the Hoover Dam flocked their to give away their hard earned cash. The Dam provided all the electricity and water needed and more and the infant city received subsidies to get it going. The mobsters got involved in building casino’s and by the 50’s it was booming. Faces like Sinatra showed up and before you knew it it was the place to be for live entertainment. The gangsters eventually left and Elvis arrived and the rest is well known history.

So I digress as per usual…black bean chilli and rice made, eaten and washed up we hit the road to the Hoover Dam…we drove the long scenic road around the enormous Lake Mead and this is when we started to get our first glimpses of the real Nevada desert. The hills spattered with green turned into red which turned into almost fluid red rocks all around us. We nipped into Arizona to the Dam itself which was impressive, at 760 ft high and built using enough concrete to build a 2 lane highway from New York to the west coast it provides low cost electricity and water for the southwest. Its one of those things you kinda HAVE to see after seeing it in so many iconic movies and hearing the stories about it being built etc so we wandered across it.

It was amazing to see such a fete of construction but at the same time its a big grey wall and isn’t anything special to look at, it doesnt inspire you to write poetry or anything and is far from beautiful…I will stick with ‘Impressive’ as my Hoover Dam descriptive!

We left there and crossed back into Nevada and thoroughly enjoyed the scenic view as we drove towards Utah to visit the Zion National Park. Little did we know that this stretch of road could in no way prepare us for the amazing rock formations we were about to see!

See what happens next on our wedding adventure!