Day 20 - Rachel, Nevada to Las Vegas!

It’s a relatively short drive to Las Vegas – only a hundred miles or so. Just before setting of I went off to take a few more photos and returned to find Mark talking to a local by what looked like a weather monitoring station. The local man had casually mentioned that the radiation level was high today!  That sort of comment kind of gets your attention! The monitoring station outside the motel had a digital display for levels of gamma radiation and also had equipment to measure wind speed, wind direction, rainfall, air temperature and ground temperature; possibly other stuff as well. The man pointed to a map showing a series of these monitoring stations located in a large circle around Area 51 and Area 54.  Area 54 was a testing location for nuclear bombs in the early days. There was also a printout showing the data collected from each of these stations and this one, being the closest to Area 51/54, consistently recorded the highest levels…. And people choose to live here?!

Time to hit the road again. After stopping at the Sinclair garage for more muffins, we continued towards Las Vegas. We'd planned to visit The Valley of Fire State Park as it sounded suitably enticing.  There was a Virtual there so all the more reason to go.

The entrance/payment booth (there’s a $10 per car entry fee), was down a well-surfaced road about ten miles from the public road. Once through the entrance, we drove to the signposted named rock formations in order.

After doing all the Earthcaches we decide it was time to head into Las Vegas.
This was about another thirty or forty miles down the I15 highway and despite very heavy traffic, we were soon turning onto The Strip and into our hotel carpark.

We’d booked into the Best Western on The Strip primarily as it appeared to offer the best value for a Strip location.  It had its own free multi story carpark at the rear which was surprising sparsely occupied.

Our hotel in the middle

To get to the check-in desk, we had to walk though the casino. The smoking laws in The States vary from state to state but are roughly the same as we are used to in the UK.  However, although smoking is not allowed in most enclosed public places (and indeed many open-air public places) it is allowed in casinos! This came as a bit of a surprise to us and traipsing through a smoky casino in order to check-in was not the best first impression of the place.

Anyway, our room on the third floor (they call it fourth floor) was pleasant enough although the window overlooked a yard where staff took their smoking breaks but luckily we weren't planning on being in the room too long. There was also an ice making in the corridor just a few metres from our door. Although we were pleased to see it was working, we were not so pleased to be able to hear people using it throughout the night.  Amazed how many people needed ice at 3am.

Having checked in, we went to make a start exploring the area first heading to the totally surreal Venetian Hotel Grand Canal Shoppes. This complex is a sort of condensed copy of Venice complete with bridges, towers, canals and gondolas all under a perfect blue sky with fluffy white clouds. You can even have gondola rides! Gondola rides around a shopping centre!!!

Apart from petrol, most things seem to be expensive in the US. However, clothing seemed to be reasonably priced and I was keen to buy some new Skechers as my best ones were now looking a bit worse for wear having worn them for tramping about in the desert. Incredibly they worked out about 30% cheaper than in the UK! Super!

Yay new shoes!