O The Grand Canyon

Busy day today. We woke up at 6.30 ready for a 7am pickup for a helicopter trip to the grand canyon. I will be honest and admit to being a little nervous but I need not have been. Taking off from McCarran airport the pilot hovered a few feet above the ground and guided it aground the terminal to a short runway where we then tilted forward slightly and sped up to take off. It was very loud and can totally appreciate the headphones but as we ascended we were both amazed how smooth it was.

We proceeded East across Lake Mead and the Hoover Dam. As we flew the pilot provided some information about what we could see. Interestingly Lake Mead is a man made lake (largest in the world). Hoover Dam is of course in loads of films none more famous than Transformers 2.

Flying past Lake Mead we  ascended above the Colorado Plateu and dived into the grand canyon. It was brilliant snaking through the twists and turns.

After landing in the canyon we had our Champagne breakfast and took some photo's of the surroundings and the helicopter.

We also got to swap seats for the return trip. I was up for going in the front and surprisingly so was Fiona. What a sensation taking off! Video:

We briefly made another stop for fuel slightly south west of the Canyon before proceeding back to Las Vegas via the Valley of Fire. A rugged terrain which was bright red from all the iron yet to be dug up.

The final part of the journey was above the Las Vegas Strip. Very cool. The pilot told us that there are more hotel rooms in Vegas than all the hotels in Europe. 100000+ in Vegas. Struggle to believe that is true but still a ridiculous number of rooms. Double the number of people in Livingston though! and 5x the number of people in Galashiels. Pic and video of strip:

There and back again by 11am. High on Adreneline and now slightly hungry we headed to the Mirage burger bar BLT as recommended on trip advisor. Pretty good. The fries (we are american now) were awesome. While in the Mirage we grabbed a couple of photos, another pretty swish casino, before heading over to Venice and Saint Marks Square. Only in Vegas can you visit New York, climb the Eiffel Tower and get a gondola ride in Venice in the same day (not that we actually bothered).

After this we headed back to the Bellagio for a few hours to relax by the pool. As a surprise for Fiona I bought tickets to see the Cirque de Soliel. Hand over to Fiona to describe the evenings events:

All dressed up in our best glamorous Vegas outfits we headed down to spend time in the Bellagio's casino for the evening. We tried our hand at Roulette and Black Jack, without much luck, and stood at a Craps table trying to work out what on earth was going on, eventually giving up on it. 

We had about an hour before the show, and having hit our nightly limit we headed to one of the bars within the casino for a drink before the show. We had to be assigned a table by the staff as some were reserved. About fifteen minutes before we had to head off a few people arrived at one of the reserved tables, then a couple more arrived too. We heard one of the first people say jokingly, "Ah here's my bodyguard" and recognised the voice as Jack Nicholson! We checked with the waitress to be sure, and she not only confirmed it but pointed out that the person next to him was Robert De Niro. Once he started talking it was undeniably him, but from the back (which was the only terribly blurry picture we could get) you would never know because he seemed to have dyed his hair. As I rushed to post to facebook Gerard noticed that the other man in the party was, a slightly leaner looking, John Goodman. If there's a movie with these three that comes out in the next year or so I wouldn't be surprised. 

We couldn't hang around for long speculating though because our show was starting at 10 pm. Cirque du Soleil was amazing. Such a unique show and full of mind-boggling stunts. I loved my surprise present. When it finished we were understandably rather exhausted. What a day! Loving Vegas.