The amount of Starbucks cafés has improved since I was last here – they are everywhere. All the hotels in Vegas have them – and we even stopped off in Williams today, en route to the Canyon, and there in Safeways was a Starbucks – well it would have been rude to refuse a latte!
The flight was excellent, I can recommend Maxjet (if you can afford it). There was plenty of room, and the seat went right back, in fact I slept for most of the way. Linda kept waking me up for food. I had been up most of the previous night dealing with a job as I was on call! The food was reasonable, I had a nice shrimp dish and then we had scones and cream just prior to landing. As Linda hadn’t had a vegetarian meal provided, they gave her a bottle of champagne to take with us.
Its hot in Vegas it was 109 on the first few days. We did go for a walk the first evening, but after about 15 minutes we had to give up. It is ok in the hotels as they are have air conditioning and so you don’t realise how hot it is until you go out!
We have an excellent SUV, which only had 4 miles on the clock when we rented it – it has over 300 now. It does have 4 wheel drive, but I have found nowhere to test it out yet. Linda has become rather attached to it – and is talking about trading her Micra in for one. It is very nice, automatic with cruise control. So on the straight roads I can just set it up – and sit back and relax, as long as I remember to steer we are ok.
Las Vegas was ok – a lot more hotels and building, but still sin city. Linda didn’t like it at all – said it all appeared very false. I see on the Essex News web site – two PCSO got locked in the toilet, and then it was on fire. It would never happen to Linda – she would have got lost finding the toilet in the first place. She was meant to be navigating today, and when I asked where we were, she just put her hands in the air and said I don’t know! And she had the map in front of her! Fortunately we managed to get out of Vegas, and on the right road to the Canyon. It took about 6 hours to get here – although we stopped for coffee in Williams. Linda didn’t realise how far it was – as it didn’t look far on the map.
We saw Mama Mia at the Mandalay Bay last night – and it was good. I managed to stay awake for the whole performance – a miracle in itself. They were Abba songs which I recognised, although Linda didn’t like it when I sang along.
I am still 39 in America, although I would be 40 in UK! – and we are at the Canyon. We had a look around today, and Linda thought it was ‘awesome.’ It hasn’t changed since I was last here. We’re thinking of going at sunrise to see it (05.29) – watch this space to see if we get up in time!
There are some photos at http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/simon.werrett. The folder is America 07.