Thursday, May 29, 2008

From Zion to Vegas

We have so thoroughly enjoyed our Caravan Tour! It's hard to say "good-bye" to new friends and to think we'll all go our separate ways in just a few hours. So we took pictures....

group-1.jpg

and here we are with our Tour Guide, Bruce, and our fantastic driver, Gina!

guide n driver.jpg

and with my new friend Phuong from San Jose...

S-P at Z

From the bus we caught a few last glimpses of the beautiful Colorado Plateau.

Z2V-1

ZtoV-2

ZtoV-3

The bus toured us down the "Strip" on our way to the airport and then we unloaded quickly and a few of us shared a shuttle bus to downtown hotels.

Penny Strongman from Strongman Travel got me a good deal at Planet Hollywood, and the room was lovely, but when we walked in the lobby we couldn't believe the noise.

Two hearing-impaired people should NOT travel alone together to Las Vegas! We stood in line for 40 minutes to check in...

checkin line

M at PH

I could hardly hear a word the woman at the front desk said, but finally figured out that no, I did not want to upgrade to a different room! The girl at the bell-hop desk got impatient on the third repetition of an answer to my question, so after that if I had a question, I dialed 0 on the phone in our room!

I think we suffered from some sort of culture-shock. I felt as if I'd just gone directly from Nieman-Marcus (or some equally extravagant department store) directly to a junk shop. Such was the contrast from a week in the West's natural wonders to being unceremoniously deposited amid the neon glitz of the Vegas Strip. I didn't like it at all!

It was Memorial Day afternoon and the Strip was inundated with people! You couldn't even walk 2-abreast down the sidewalk, but we managed to find our way to McDonald's (the cheapest meal we had in Vegas) and to the m&m store, passing the Harley Davidson Cafe on the way.

Harley

mm

We watched 2 water shows in front of the Bellagio Hotel and saw the fabulous flower exhibits in the lobby.

That was enough for one day!

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