We are staying in Las Vegas for a few days and using it as a jump off location for some local trips. Tuesday was the Grand Canyon and Wednesday was the Hoover Dam. The dam is only 45 minutes outside of Las Vegas so this was by far our shortest driving day. In hindsight, I think the next time we do a big road trip we will make sure to have some 'no driving' days interspersed. I'm not driving of course so it impacts Kerry the most since she prefers to do that herself, but it's still a lot of time spent in a vehicle. We seem to enjoy about 6 hours and after that it gets to be a bit much.
I didn't know what to expect when we got to the dam but it quickly became apparent that the US is very proud of this particular achievement. the visitors center and parking are extensive and security is everywhere. We paid for a tour of the power plant which was $15. There was also an option to tour inside one of the stair wells of the dam itself for $30. The power plant tour was excellent. We got to see the enormous turbines as well as the pen stocks. You could walk over the dam itself for free. The family enjoyed this day trip very much.
We were finished the Hoover Dam and back to our hotel by 1:00p which finally gave us some time to check out the pool deck at the Venetian. Carter and I had to use the 10th floor pool the previous two days because the pool deck closes at 8:00p but the other pool is open until 10:00p. The Palazzo and Venetian share a pool deck but there was construction going on so it was a lengthy trip to travel between the two inside the hotels. We wanted to see both so we made the trek. Both sides had similar Italian inspired amenities and a total of 10 acres of pool areas. It was a hot day and very busy.
After the pool we went to check out Buddy V's Restaurante. Buddy is also known as the Cake Boss and it was of course an Italian theme. We chose this restaurant mainly because it looked like it had something everyone would like and because we had a $150 resort credit burning a hole in our wallet. We needed to use it up before the end of our stay.
After dinner we started our final tour of the Las Vegas strip. Carter really wanted to check out the Marvel Experience which was at Treasure Island across the street from our hotel. The price was a bit steep at $32.00 per person and we didn't expect it to be worth it but he got everything he wanted out of the gift shop. There were opportunities for pictures and some merchandise to round out his collection of Marvel figurines. The gift shop advertises itself as 8000 square feet of Marvel but it was very sparsely filled. They did have some good deals though so all went well.
For the remainder of the evening we walked down to the end of the strip and back which means we made it down to the Luxor. The hotels past there are mostly just casino and less interesting. Our first stop was at Caesar's Palace. I came here the last time I was in Las Vegas and warned the family that we would likely get trapped. I was correct. You enter the main door and hope that when you reach the end you can just exit but that's not the case. You end up having to come all the way back out the way you came to get to the front door. We also planned on stopping at New York for the Hersey store as well as the roller coaster. Carter was planning on going with Kerry but it was a bit too intimidating. Perhaps next time. Our last stop was at the Luxor which is a giant pyramid shaped hotel. It looks neat from the outside and has a few neat Egyptian scenes inside but is starting to show it's age. Our only stop on the way back to the hotel was the coke store. Carter really wanted to do the flight of 16 different coke products. Do not try the Beverley.
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