Route 66 7/2 - 7/4

As you can probably tell I am writing this after the fact because on 7/2 we took a side trip into Vegas and at the Luxor Hotel where we stayed they wanted an extra $15 a day to access the wireless Internet which I chose not to do. In reality after getting service later with over 100 e-mails it probably would have saved me some time if I had paid the $.

Now to the story, On our journey on Route 66 we decided now would be the time to venture off to the Hoover Dam, Lake Mead and Vegas. For those that have never seen the Hoover Dam it is really impressive. Because of the 4th of July weekend the area was buzzing with tourists. It seems that Vegas is promoting tourism with many specials including $50 credit card vouchers to stay with them for 3 days or more.

I found it difficult to find a place on the 4th as many people wanted to stay 3 days including that date. A place that had openings was the Luxor which turned out to be a good choice but it is an extremely big hotel with at least 3,000 rooms. It is situated quite a ways out on the strip so it is a long ways from downtown if you fancy enjoying the activities down there. Our first item of business was to find a fireworks show for the 4th. It turns out that at the Malady Beach Club which was next door they had a concert with fireworks for $42 per person. We booked tickets and were told we needed to pick them up at least 2 hours before the concert.

We decided to pick them up the same day and headed off to that hotel and went to the wrong box office to get the tickets. Our luck would lead us to a concert that was occurring at the House of Blues with the Two Veronicas and Natasha Bedingfield. It turns out the concert was sold out but a girl that was promoting the event had some comp tickets that we could have if we would dance for her. Both Ainslie and I did something really non deserving of tickets but she must have felt sorry for us. The place was absolutely packed with standing room only but it was a
really good show.

Day 2 We lounged around at the hotel pool and decided to take the Duece (a bus that goes up and down the strip 24 hours a day) to downtown. This turned out to be a long wait at both ends and a little frustrating. Downtown we got to see the laser show that started at 8:30 and had a different show every 1/2 hour. We got home very late that next morning.

Day 3 We again lounged at the pool and waited for the evening activities to start. We watched Vertical Horizon and then a massive one of a kind fireworks show that must have lasted an hour and it was absolutely non stop explosions. Again the crowd was large but I had a great seat at the edge of the pool to watch these.

The morning of the 5th we left Vegas.