Las Vegas, via Zion National Park

Left Bryce and headed south-west, back out of Utah. Only one night! We hoped to see a bit of Zion National Park on the drive to Vegas, and we drove in hoping to see a few things. Unfortunately for us large parts of the park were closed to vehicle traffic (ie shuttle bus only), and the parking situation was looking fairly dire, so we opted to continue on. A shame, since it looked nice. Maybe we'll come back another time.

Pressing on we arrived in Vegas in the early afternoon. Drove out to see the Hoover Dam, but realised the queue of traffic we found ourselves was the security queue and would likely take an hour or more to get through! I was interested to see the dam, but not that interested! We opted to drive past on the freeway bridge, from which we saw - nothing!

Headed to our Airbnb - first in quite a while! Staying in the spare room of a middle-aged professional lady. She was heading for a conference in the room and settled down for a nap, so we hit the town.

Because daylight savings had just finished, it got dark surprisingly early - around 4:30pm. Not a huge problem in Vegas I guess! We drove up and down the Strip looking at all the lights, then decided to have a wander around. Randomly chose Treasure Island casino as it mentioned free parking, which we drove straight into once we found it! Left Schnitzel in the car, as we decided the excitement would probably be too much for him.

Walked through the casino which did nothing for either of us, then got out to the strip and wandered around. Visited the exteriors of a few different places including the Venetian, Caesar's Palace, and of course the Bellagio fountains. Had a drink at a random bar someone gave us a drink voucher for, and had foot-long hot dogs for dinner rather than one of the colossally expensive buffets.

Eventually by around 8pm we'd had our fill and wandered back to the car, having not placed a single bet! Took ages getting back home, but we made it and then crashed out not long after arriving.Read more