Walking the strip

Posted on by Ian C.

People go to Las Vegas for various reasons – for me it’s nothing to do with gambling and everything to do with admiring the fantastic hotels on the strip; so this morning we walked (most of) the strip, and I took some photos:

 

Mirage hotel
Caesars Palace
The Bellagio
Luxor hotel
The Strip, with New York New York on the left and MGM on the right

The Mirage hotel and it’s “volcano” (which we watched from our 44th floor room in the Palazzo, last night); Caesar’s Palace hotel, one of the “oldies but goodies” on the strip; the beautiful Bellagio (still my favorite hotel) – the lake helps make it look so good (and of course the fountains later in the day and evening) but it’s overall design is perfect with the trick of four rooms sharing one “window” so the hotel doesn’t look as big as it really is; the Luxor, the first hotel that we ever stayed in, on the strip – and the most famous one when we still lived in England (“… they built a big black pyramid in the middle of the desert …”).

Flying to Las Vegas

Posted on by Ian C.

Our first trip to Las Vegas for a few years, and now it’s ok to take pictures during the flight! Much of our flight was over incredible, empty, America – especially the second leg of the flight from Dallas to Las Vegas. I put together a little video, including the landing:

Or if you prefer, pictures:

Much of the flight had views like this, empty landscapes that were clearly formed by a long ago ocean, or by huge rivers – it’s easy to see “coastline”; and then an occasional town, sparsely populated; and an occasional highway (very few vehicles though). We also saw the very bright shine of the solar power plant in Ivanpah, CA.

We’d booked a room at the Venetian, but got transferred to the sister Palazzo because of noise in our first room; this also moved us up to the 44th floor, which offered great night views!