Vegas Baby!!! We were very sad to leave LA having had a really lovely week there. For reasons we couldn’t understand the kids have been excited about Vegas since before we left the UK. Despite us telling them that it really wasn’t a family destination and that there might not be too much that they’d enjoy there…

We were now just under 4 weeks away from John having to fly back to the UK for work. So he needed some time and more importantly Wi-Fi to do some work in preparation for that. As the last few destinations on our itinerary between here and Tucson, Arizona where the kids and I will hole up for the weeks he is away, are all National Parks and Canyons it seemed that Vegas may be our last chance for some ‘civilization’ for a while. So we planned to spend a ‘working week’ here at a campsite with great Wi-Fi, phone reception and a pool – with John getting up early to communicate with the UK for a few hours each morning.

We headed across the edge of the Mojave Desert on the afternoon of Sunday 26^th October, having finally dragged ourselves away from LA. Delighted to see that we were going against the traffic. Not so delighted to see signs for Salt Lake City, which once again reminded us of the big zigzag, we have done in the last few weeks. All getting into the Vegas spirit we were listening to the radio and quickly called up to answer a quiz (the answer was Elvis in Viva Las Vegas) to be told we had won two tickets to a Vegas show – whoop de woo!! We arrived just as the sun was setting so got to see the light pollution in all its glory.

Our campsite was a couple of miles from The Strip and called itself an Oasis Resort. They weren’t joking. We entered through huge gates down a driveway lined with palm trees dressed in lights to a huge fountain on the forecourt. The reception, instead of the usual small hut with a few moldy loaves of bread and bottles of overpriced RV Sewage Treatment Fluid, was a marbled affair complete with a concierge desk. Gym, 2 pools, fully stocked mini market and Conference Facilities!! Brilliant!

We spent 2 days in Vegas proper. Visited all the big hotels and gawped at the sights. Ticked off the Eiffel Tower, Statue of Liberty, Caesar’s Palace, Excalibur and of course the Bellagio water fountains. The kids loved it all. Blew the budget on eating out but other than that managed to avoid any of the hugely expensive shows and exhibitions. (Oh our ‘free tickets’ won on the radio show turned out to be for a comedian that seemed a little too ‘adult’ for the kids so we politely turned those down!!).

Vegas seemed bigger and brighter than the last time we were here. We were told that only 45% of the city’s revenue now comes from gambling, the rest from the restaurants and shows etc. I think unless you are a ‘high roller’ the cheap hotel rooms and free drinks etc. may well be a thing of the past. There also seemed to be an awful lot of people on the streets too and I don’t know that I remember that side of Vegas being so on display last time. (We did have to laugh at one witty guy who had the following sign next to his collection pot “My girlfriend got kidnapped by a ninja. Need money for Kung Fo lessons!).  We spent a lot less time in bars and casinos and a lot more time in M & M World and Hershey’s world than when we last visited – but I guess that’s another thing that’s changed over the intervening years!

I do need to point out however, that we didn’t exactly partake in much gambling ourselves. The kids spent an hour in an amusement arcade where I think we may have spent $20 in total (mainly on the Deal or No Deal machine) and the 480 ‘tickets’ we won bought the kids some lovely plastic rubbish – Chinese yoyo’s which they used to annoy the hell out of us for the next few days. Actually I lie. John put $1 into this fruit machine – we didn’t win!

One meal out we had was in a restaurant in Excalibur hotel called Dicks Last Resort. As we walked past it seemed like everyone was having a good time, singing along to Sweet Caroline and wearing funny paper hats with writing on them. The lady at the front desk did warn us that the waiting staff are liable to ‘cuss’ you but we thought the kids could cope with that.

We sat down and the waiter came over, threw our cutlery onto the table and said, “Here’s your stuff. Make it neat.   I’ll be back when I can be bothered.” So began 2 hours of being ignored and insulted by the waiting staff. The hats we’d seen were made out of paper tablecloths and then the waiters wrote messages on them. Charlie’s said, “I have an itchy butt and smelly fingers”, Williams said, “I just farted.” Mine was rude and I won’t write it here but some of the others we spotted around the room were…. “I still wet the bed” (on the head of an 8 year old), “Moses was my first” (on a lady in her 60’s) and John’s said, “I fart dust”.

The kids absolutely loved being insulted and roared with laughter the whole time we were there. A group of girls on the table next to us got some really very rude messages on their hats and the waiter stole her camera and took photos of half the restaurant including this shot we recreated again because William thought it was so funny. The waiter took our orders starting with William and saying “You first Princess” which he loved. I don’t know what it says about our kids that they enjoyed being insulted and ridiculed so much. Maybe it’s a good thing they can laugh at themselves or maybe they get too much sarcasm at home!!

Wednesday we decided we needed a break from the craziness and headed out in our little hire car to see the Hoover Dam. (Vegas seemed to have effected us all.  Even the Sat Nav lady decided to start pointing out junctions and turnings by fast food restaurants enrolee – “turn left at Taco Bell”  and “make a U turn at Domino’s Pizza”).  Very excited to park in Arizona (another state filled in on our sticker map) as the dam crosses over the State Line. It was completely breath taking. Built in the midst of the Depression it used enough concrete to build a 4’ pavement (‘sidewalk’ for our American subscribers!) around the earth’s equator. It was built to control the mighty Colorado River and regulate the water requirements of 7 States. The statistics on it are mind blowing – it is 726’ high, 650’ wide at the base and only 45’ wide at the top (which is the road you drive over). Lake Mead (that was created with the building of the dam) is a huge recreation area now and is so vast that it contains enough water to cover the state of Pennsylvania in 1’ of water!! A very interesting visit to this National Monument that is so proudly on display to its 7 million annual visitors!!

The highlight of our time in Vegas though was our Elvis Wedding. We had talked about it before we left the UK and thought it would be a great thing to do while we were here. 300 couples say “I do” in Vegas every day so we decided we’d join them. Apparently Vegas used to be famous for it’s quickie divorces in the early 1900’s so they started to offer quickie weddings too. Didn’t seem that a quickie divorce was going to do much for our Family Adventure so we went for renewing our vows instead. We didn’t tell the kids until the morning and then asked Charlie to be my Boy of Honour and William to be John’s Best Boy. We dug out the smartest clothing we’d brought with us from the back of the trailer and scrubbed ourselves up for our big day. (I would like to say at this stage that Charlie was nowhere near as good as you were Kate on our real wedding – when I told him we had to go and have a shower his reply was “Wait. Can I just kill the dungeon guardian?” Hmmm, not sure I’d book him again!). A stretch limo picked us up from outside the Mandalay Bay Hotel and whisked us off to the chapel. John promised to “Love (me) tender love (me) true!” and I promised I wouldn’t “Step on (his) blue suede shoes!” Charlie’s little eyes were lit up the whole way through and although William looked slightly embarrassed at the crazy Elvis and his parents dancing and kissing I suspect he enjoyed it too. Elvis was hilarious and although his singing was slightly out of tune his charm and wit and the lovely way he involved the boys made it a real family affair. Hugely tacky but it was actually great fun and felt like a lovely family bonding experience!! We headed off in our limo (possibly the highlight of the day for William who from his demeanour in the back of it I think was imagining himself a rock star for the day) to Venice for champagne and supper in St Marks Square – well sort of!

So all in all a really fun few days in Sin City. A very different experience with 2 kids in tow to the first time we visited and stayed in the Bellagio and I think won enough money to buy me a rather nice handbag and John a special watch… But tanned and with our wedding vows now renewed we set off for the last 3 whirlwind weeks of our trip before John heads home.

(Spot Frankie below)