Vacation

Today we left Las Vegas and headed south, over the Hoover Dam and into Arizona. The dam area was chaotic with traffic but we grabbed a couple of pics, showing how low the water level is. After lunch at Mr.D’z diner in Kingman we reached Lake Havasu City, where an old London Bridge was transported and set up across the lake, back in 1971 – supposedly the American buyers thought they were getting Tower Bridge(!) but I don’t believe it.
There is a lot of tourist trap stuff around the bridge and apart from the bridge, Lake Havasu City does not offer much – so I guess it was just a marketing gimmick:

 

From there we headed west towards California, and visited Parker Dam which was devoid of traffic & people and much nicer to visit than Hoover Dam; there was a huge crane / machine there used to raise & lower the dam sluices (note Margaret standing dwarfed at the base):

After Parker Dam we continued west, into California. We found somewhere to stay in Indio, near to the Joshua Tree National Park where we plan to go tomorrow …

Today we drove to my favourite hotel, the Bellagio; one of its many fabulous features is a beautiful conservatory, today full of flowering bulbs; from there we walked past Caesars Palace, which has added a new section to its “forum” shops, with curved escalators and a nicely painted ceiling:

Past Caesars Palace we arrived at the Mirage, and paid to go in to Siegfried & Roy’s Secret Garden & Dolphin Habitat; I caught this picture of a dolphin leaping & spinning out of the water; there are also lions and white tigers there:

 

From the Mirage we used the new Las Vegas tram system and eventually made our way back to the Bellagio (where the car was); there we found another new thing – a chocolate fountain(!); the shop also had great cakes:

Here is a short video of the Chocolate Fountain:

I spent the day at ConExpo (a business related show); in the evening I met “Agro” (a MINI owner) who took me for a drive along the Las Vegas strip:

Later in the evening I took this picture from our room in the Mandalay Bay – you can see civilzation far across the valley: