I had a slightly better night’s sleep last night, although still not the greatest – I’m definitely not cut out for this camping lark – and when I woke up it was absolutely freezing, especially given we were getting up an hour earlier to make sure we were in Death Valley before it got too hot and in Las Vegas in plenty of time. We’ve been warned that although it is really cold now, temperatures are going to peak in the 40s later today when we reach Death Valley, so to dress accordingly. There was no way I was walking around in a summer dress now, so I decided to rock a totally new outfit which consisted of PJ bottoms, over the top of my dress, with a hoodie. That way it would be nice and easy to slip off when it started getting nice and warm.
Although I did get a bit of sleep on the bus, I was determined not to sleep too much, because I didn’t want to miss much of the scenery as we said goodbye to the Sierra Nevada, and made our way into one of the hottest, driest places on earth – Death Valley National Park. It also has the lowest point in North America, at Badwater Basin, which sits at 282 feet below sea level.
It is so named, because during the gold rush, some explorers decided to take a short cut across this desert (obviously a mistake). Although only one of the group died, they all thought they would, and dubbed the area Death Valley as they finally exited.
Around 10, 000 to 12 000 years ago it was home to an inland lake, which has since cleared up, leaving salt flats, rich in sodium salt and borax which were later exploited before tourism took over. The park is also home to sand dunes.
The scenery is spectacular and it’s no wonder that scenes from Star Wars and other films are shot here. It really is other-worldly, giving impressions of moon-like/Mars-like surfaces.
We had a chance to walk around, although spent limited time out and about, because it was pretty toasty and despite plastering myself in sun-cream I was amazed how quickly I started to tan in the space of a few minutes.
Then we set off for “Sin City”.
Las Vegas, is also in the middle of the desert, and took off when work began on the nearby Hoover Dam, which brought in an influx of young, single, male workers who didn’t have much to do when they finished work – gambling was a way they could keep entertained, once it became legal.
Now, the place is famous particularly for “The Strip”, a four mile long road of extravagant hotels and casinos, including many which take references from landmarks around the world, like the Arc de Triomphe, Eiffel Tower and the Venice canals.
Later that evening I had a chance to wander around a bit to see some of these sights, but more later.
We were staying at the Hotel Golden Nugget, which, given our budget, was unsurprisingly off the strip, but still pretty extravagant. All hotels are pretty quirky and ours has a swimming pool, which had a shark tank in the middle of it. I took a photo on my phone, so the quality wasn’t great.
There were fruit machines pretty much everywhere and it just seemed like another world and even the road outside our hotel was pretty colourful.
After a bit of a mix-up with the booking, our tour group left for a party bus, slightly later than planned, which took us to the famous Little White Wedding Chapel – home to many celebrity weddings over the years, a stop at the Las Vegas sign, and then a visit to the Bellagio Fountains show. It was a bit of fun, but a total rip off for the price, especially given alcohol wasn’t included and I had hoped we’d be stopping off at more of the strip on the way.
After the party bus ended, I went for an explore of the strip, and the Friends geek I am, was absolutely determined to visit Caesar’s Palace, which is where the Vegas episodes (some of my favourite ones) are set. I should point out, that you can just walk into any of the hotels and wander around. I kind of wish we had another day to explore purely for sight-seeing as it is so different to anything else that I have ever witnessed.
I was absolutely knackered by this point, and with another 7am start the following day to ensure we made it to the Grand Canyon in plenty of time for sunset (which is pretty early at this time of year), I wanted to maximise the opportunity of sleeping in a bed rather than a tent, albeit for 5 hours!
Still it was a good experience!
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