Day 6: Friday 19th June 2010: Death Valley National Park to Las Vegas (Miles to Date: 1260)
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We rose early as we wanted to get to Las Vegas in time to watch England play Algeria in the World Cup in Cape Town, also it gave us a chance to visit some more of the recommended overlooks in the Death Valley National Park during the early morning when the sun casts long shadows and before the heat haze reduces visibility. Our first stop is Zabriske Point which is around 2000 feet above the valley floor, providing stunning views deep into the valley across crenellated mountain slopes. Although it is early in the morning there are a number of other people admiring the views; primarily photography enthusiasts keen to capture the drama of the morning shadows. Not satisfied with this perspective of Death Valley, we climbed back into the car and took a detour up a valley and climbed further up the mountains, to a place known as Dante's View. Here you get some splendid views all the way along Death Valley and across Bad Water Basin, where we had spent last night walking out across the salt flats. It was truly stunning! We had an appointment with a television .jpg)
set and a football game between England and Algeria. Fortunately the journey from Death Valley to Las Vegas only took a two hours, so we arrived with plenty of time to spare at our hotel, the Tropicana. This hotel has traditionally been one of the lower-end establishments on the Las Vegas Strip, but they are in the middle of a re-model, and the room we were given was very well appointed – with a 42 inch plasma TV. Sadly the result of the game, a one-all draw, was less exciting than the TV itself. Our visit to Las Vegas was one of convenience rather than it being a “must-see” place for the Hoblets. We had collectively been here a couple of times before, and Mark had been here a dozen or more times on business. The novelty of wandering around the enormous hotels had long worn off, and this is really a place for adults rather than families. Nonetheless after the disappointment of the game we did decided to brave the hot sun and talk a walk down the Strip. .jpg)
We were surprised, or perhaps not so surprised considering the economic downturn, how quiet Vegas was. The streets were much emptier than we had ever seen them. This made the pedallers of sex-cards and drunken hen (bachelorette) parties more apparent, at least to Jack and Emily who had not really noticed them on previous trips, or perhaps they are just growing up! After an hour or so of walking we reached the Bellagio and Caesar's Palace hotels, by which time the male members of our party were becoming very grumpy due to low blood-sugar levels. The quickest and best tried remedy for this was to cross the road and visit the Flamingo hotel buffet, one of the best we had found in Las Vegas. As usual we all ate too much, and full to bursting we emerged back into the hot afternoon sun to continue our ramblings. During our last trip to Vegas we had gone to see the free “Fall of Atlantis” show in the Forum Shopping area in this vast hotel. This is an automated show, complete with automatons, fire and water. Sadly is was not working last time, so we thought we'd check it out this time around. We watched our way through the show, and whilst there was plenty of drama, the children found the story-line was c.jpg)
heesy. After this we needed something more classy to finish off our afternoon, so we went back outside to the Bellagio Hotel, right next door to Caesar's Palace, but still a 20 minute walk! Our favourite free show (or at least Mark and Karen's) are the fountains of Bellagio. Every half an hour or so there is a fantastic 'fountains-to-music' show on the lake outside the hotel. The music varies from the classics to modern day hits, but whatever the music the show is most definitely worth watching, so much so we spent over an hour watching the fountains go up. Jack and Emily were very insistent we left after an hour of fountain watching, so we ambled back to our hotel for a quiet night in, although the grown-ups did manage to slip out for a quick drink.
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We rose early as we wanted to get to Las Vegas in time to watch England play Algeria in the World Cup in Cape Town, also it gave us a chance to visit some more of the recommended overlooks in the Death Valley National Park during the early morning when the sun casts long shadows and before the heat haze reduces visibility. Our first stop is Zabriske Point which is around 2000 feet above the valley floor, providing stunning views deep into the valley across crenellated mountain slopes. Although it is early in the morning there are a number of other people admiring the views; primarily photography enthusiasts keen to capture the drama of the morning shadows. Not satisfied with this perspective of Death Valley, we climbed back into the car and took a detour up a valley and climbed further up the mountains, to a place known as Dante's View. Here you get some splendid views all the way along Death Valley and across Bad Water Basin, where we had spent last night walking out across the salt flats. It was truly stunning! We had an appointment with a television .jpg)
set and a football game between England and Algeria. Fortunately the journey from Death Valley to Las Vegas only took a two hours, so we arrived with plenty of time to spare at our hotel, the Tropicana. This hotel has traditionally been one of the lower-end establishments on the Las Vegas Strip, but they are in the middle of a re-model, and the room we were given was very well appointed – with a 42 inch plasma TV. Sadly the result of the game, a one-all draw, was less exciting than the TV itself. Our visit to Las Vegas was one of convenience rather than it being a “must-see” place for the Hoblets. We had collectively been here a couple of times before, and Mark had been here a dozen or more times on business. The novelty of wandering around the enormous hotels had long worn off, and this is really a place for adults rather than families. Nonetheless after the disappointment of the game we did decided to brave the hot sun and talk a walk down the Strip. .jpg)
We were surprised, or perhaps not so surprised considering the economic downturn, how quiet Vegas was. The streets were much emptier than we had ever seen them. This made the pedallers of sex-cards and drunken hen (bachelorette) parties more apparent, at least to Jack and Emily who had not really noticed them on previous trips, or perhaps they are just growing up! After an hour or so of walking we reached the Bellagio and Caesar's Palace hotels, by which time the male members of our party were becoming very grumpy due to low blood-sugar levels. The quickest and best tried remedy for this was to cross the road and visit the Flamingo hotel buffet, one of the best we had found in Las Vegas. As usual we all ate too much, and full to bursting we emerged back into the hot afternoon sun to continue our ramblings. During our last trip to Vegas we had gone to see the free “Fall of Atlantis” show in the Forum Shopping area in this vast hotel. This is an automated show, complete with automatons, fire and water. Sadly is was not working last time, so we thought we'd check it out this time around. We watched our way through the show, and whilst there was plenty of drama, the children found the story-line was c.jpg)
heesy. After this we needed something more classy to finish off our afternoon, so we went back outside to the Bellagio Hotel, right next door to Caesar's Palace, but still a 20 minute walk! Our favourite free show (or at least Mark and Karen's) are the fountains of Bellagio. Every half an hour or so there is a fantastic 'fountains-to-music' show on the lake outside the hotel. The music varies from the classics to modern day hits, but whatever the music the show is most definitely worth watching, so much so we spent over an hour watching the fountains go up. Jack and Emily were very insistent we left after an hour of fountain watching, so we ambled back to our hotel for a quiet night in, although the grown-ups did manage to slip out for a quick drink.
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