By: MJ + PJ
See the gallery of PHOTOS: Utah + Nevada
See the MAPS page for the areas we were at – zoom for precise locations.
See the 360 DATA page for costs and accommodation types. Use search query: “NV”
See BUCKET LIST: Month One for the one location in Nevada that we visited!
If you have not been to Las Vegas, it is worth a visit so that you have some kind of a ‘Vegas story’ to tell. It is a city of extremes and of color. This is our brief Vegas story for this time around:
Driving from Zion we headed to Las Vegas aiming for a campsite on the West side of the city. We found it …and it was shut due to heat for the season(!), with the next closest campsite about a 55km (35mile) drive away as pointed out by the polite ranger of the pair we spoke to. We wanted our kid to see the big city lights and extravaganza of Vegas, and knowing we had to be in Long Beach for a Saturday party we couldn’t afford to be so far out of the city. It was already about 7pm. We found and booked a decently priced basic hotel room just off The Strip once we regained phone network access returning from the Red Rock Canyon area.
By the time we had reached the M&Ms store (a whole 15 minutes and one km) AJ had experienced the basics of the Strip – essentially that it was quite the opposite of what he had experienced climbing Angels Landing in Zion NP earlier that morning. We walked around some casinos as we clearly had not done enough walking that day. We caught the second last fountain display and also found the arcade for kids. Otherwise we neither drank nor gambled – which was probably more disappointing for the Vegas tourism bureau than it was for us.
It just so happened that it was the night that the Nevada ice hockey team, an oxymoronic concept at best, won their conference. There were a lot of team jerseys and colors about, including one being worn by the Statue of Liberty. We stayed out late to walk around and see more neon and more people, gradually remembering that we were adding a lot of miles to already weary legs, this being particularly noticeable on every non-functioning escalator we walked up.
The next morning after packing up we strolled to the not-in-Egypt-pyramid to satiate the kid’s yearning for a semblance of history. What was particularly interesting to see was the length of the line for coffee. Once caffeinated we hit the 15 for the desert crossing to the oasis known as Greater Los Angeles. We had spent just over 18 hours in Las Vegas.
