An awesome sunset en route to Vegas
It was late afternoon when we departed from Death Valley. None of us wanted to leave, the place was freakin awesome. With the euphoric tunes on, we kicked in the cruise control and headed off into the sunset. Psychs, in one of his mentalistic moods decided to lean out the window of the Jeep and take some breathtaking footage of the mountains along the way backlit by one of the most impressive sunsets ever.. .... then all of a sudden...... the sky just turned black, day had become night and we were on our way to Vegas for a proper mad'n!
After a short drive of a couple of hours we reached the city limits and could see the legendary beam of light from the top of the Luxor Pyramid Casino, our resting place for the next few days... It was very strange to enter a big city after all we had been in the wilderness for just over 2 weeks with hardly any contact with civilization. I think it was quite creepy in a way for all of us but we had to do it, if only to have a bath... god we reaked... This is just one of the many reasons the active brits posse likes to get away from it all once in a while.. its important to explore every angle of ya life instead of living a cybernetic 9-5 boring existence... It sounds crazy, but we were going to miss cooking on a single camp stove, sleeping on a thin thermorest, crapping in a drop toilet, hiking in the wilderness, considering bears and other critters and staying unclean for a week.. its so hard to get a true wilderness experience in the UK, although our National Parks are totally amazing.Psychs and i dropped Weeman and Rico off near to the check-in entrance while we decided to brave the traffic once more, play chicken and go and drop off the hire car. Suddenly the place was gridlocked.. a plane had overshot the runway, gone through a perimeter fence and was parked on the pavement next to the airport.. what an adrenalin rush that must have been.. luckily no-one was hurt..
The entrance to the Luxor Casino
We entered Las Vegas and it hit us with a massive welcome. To get to the Luxor we decided to cruise ‘The Strip’ and that was an experience I will never forget. It was complete madness! Made London look tame. There were turns after turns, mental traffic lights, flashing signs that confuse the senses and it appears to be a complete free-for-all although I am sure that there must be rules somewhere. After about 4 miles, we had to turn left to get to the Luxor, easier said than done in Vegas, especially near the weekend when half the population is out on a mission to lose the weeks wages, pull a few ladies of the night or just get down and boogie. We had no choice but to go into mad englishman mode, much to the panic of the others, and swerve across every lane in a true active brits agressive stylee – telling ya, it was a close one!
Vegas skyline
We got to the room and the first thing to do was to clean up then get some grub.. You dont half take showers for granted, I got into the shower and the water was running brown. It took 3 washes to get my hair clean and a massive body wash that made the water run like the Colorado River, what a shower, best ever... The room was amazing and the view from the balcony above the reception and gambling area just totally freaky.. slot machines all over the shop.. freakin thousands of them. On the way to the restaurant, we passed 100's of people literally sitting there frozen in a state of gambling limbo, little old ladies putting in $100 at a time into the slots, hardcore ganster looking dudes betting with $1000's and $1000's.. It was surreal... really made us all appreciate our few weeks of wilderness experience..... it was going to be a crazy few days with some manic nights out...
