Desert drive and on to Vegas

From LB to Las Vegas is a drive of roughly 4hours 45min - if you put the right address into the Garmin before you leave ;-)
Well anyway...
... the first sign of approaching heat was the road sign that advised us to turn off the AC in the car while climbing, to avoid overheating! We obeyed, and managed, just about, until we had levelled off at 4000ft. Then it was downhill again into the desert:

There were miles and miles of these images












Eventually we needed to stop, to give Aidan a rest from the constant driving - especially with an automatic transmission, when you don't ever have to adjust gears, your hands stiffen up! Well when we stepped out of the car, the heat felt as white as this photo looks!!

We drove on for miles and miles more, passing signs for various towns and roads to them, such as Ghost Town!

Another was Baker. We could see from the road, the world's tallest thermometer - no wonder it has to be high, to register the temperature in this place!
The most interesting sign though was for a place that must qualify as the last town in the world - alphabetically. Must remember this one for Bill's Quiz ;-)

As we drove along we were surprised to see gathering clouds ahead - in the desert! We couldn't believe it, when it actually rained!!

                                                         Just a brief reminder of home!

Well, we finally hit Vegas. What can I say? The place is awesome! I think the first sight of it is what you would expect - bright lights and skyscraper hotels. Then you begin to think...
Where does the water come from to supply all those showers, fountains, kitchens...?
Where does all the waste water go?
How do they generate enough electricity to keep the bright lights lighting? And the rest of the electrical devices working?
If every room in the place was occupied, where would al the people fit?
How did they possibly think of building this place in this place!?
How many people work here?
How do they meet the budget? (Aidan says that with people throwing money at them 24/7 that shouldn't be a problem!)
Well, I'd better show you a few pics to illustrate what I mean. Some street views, mostly taken at night:



Taken from a pedestrian bridge.

Now here's an example of a hotel - no not a town, a hotel. The New York New York hotel (so BIG they named it twice!)

Yes, that's a hotel. See Liberty in front? The Empire State & Chrysler Building? And you can't see the Brooklyn Bridge with its roller coaster, or so much more I can't remember them all...
Here are a few views of our hotel, the Paris Las Vegas. The hotel has 36 floors, divided into 4 wings. I took a shot of one of the wings, or most of it. The pool is on Floor 3, and overshadowed (thankfully) by the Eiffel Tower. There are many restaurants in it, along the 'Paris Boulevard', one of them is Gordon Ramsay. Average meal costs $85. We decided to give it a skip - Gordon probably wasn't even there anyway;-) Of course every hotel has a casino at entry level and Paris is no different.



So glad of the shade in 109F heat!