Feb 28 Saturday Yuma and to Phoenix

Since we were in Yuma and it was another sunny day, we decided to take in two historic state parks.
The Yuma Territorial Prison state park has been well preserved and the history of the prison well documented. You can get a real sense of "being there".

Very close nearby is the Yuma Quartermaster Depot State Park. This depot supplied many military forts in this area for a time, before railways took over that function. Supplies were originally shipped from San Francisco and then transported upriver by steamer to this depot where they were distributed by wagon or water. There is also a history lesson pertaining to the dams that supply water to the Yuma Valley.  A water syphon was built to bring more water to this area from the California side of the Colorado River.

After lunch, we headed off for our three hour drive to Phoenix. Our motel in downtown Phoenix is the Americas  Best Value Inn.  It is clean and reasonable with a king size bed, frig and microwave.
Dinner was pizza which was followed by relaxing.

Feb 27 Friday Drive to Yuma AZ

After two hours of desert scenery, surrounded by mountains and the occasional solar farm, we arrived at Lake Havasu City.

Lake Havasu City is where the old London bridge, constructed between 1176 and 1209, was moved to and reconstructed in 1971. It was disassembled block by block, shipped overseas through the Panama Canal to California and then trucked to Arizona.

Lake Havsu is gorgeous. We stopped and had lunch here. 

The Parker Dam sidelined us further along our drive.

The views on this drive are stunning!

As we approached Yuma, we started seeing more and more green since all the fields are irrigated. Apparently, agriculture is the number one industry here. 

For dinner, we ended up at the Prison Hill Brewing Co. and although Carl enjoyed his craft beers, the food was average. 

Today we drove the entire north south western route of Arizona. We stayed at the La Fuente Inn, arriving just in time for free Happy Hour drinks. That was good timing. 

Feb 26 Thursday Las Vegas

What a crazy day! Lots of walking. It was a 3 Advil day. We drove to Treasure Island and did a walk through. The highlight of this hotel is outside where two pirate ships are parked.

The Venetian across the street was jaw dropping with it's canals and gondolas.

The Link, which was the Quad, hosts an antique car show. We left this event for next time we are in town.

Outside, I ran into Johnny Depp and he was kind enough to pose with me.

The Mirage takes up an entire city block with water landscapes and an active volcano nightly.

After lunch and shopping at Costco, we took the elevator up to the top of the Stratosphere. This afforded us some incredible views of the city and area. 

The Wynn was not very interesting and we ended our evening watching the volcano show at the Mirage. Tomorrow we are moving on. 

Feb 25 Wednesday Las Vegas

A beautiful sunrise woke us up which was followed by a leisurely breakfast at McDonald's. I like their egg white sandwich. We put on our walking shoes and greeted the day. The EXCALIBUR's interior medieval town theme was very interesting. NEW YORK NEW YORK is really well done inside with replica's of actual facades from New York. There is quite a few reasonably priced restaurants here. Outside, the facade is even more impressive with a replica of Liberty Statue and the Empire State building. I like the Liberty Statue that was inside and made entirely of jelly beans. The MGM Grand got a cursory inspection inside but the bronze lion outside is the big attraction here.

The TROPICANA has a small pretty garden and pool area. 

Shopping was next on our agenda so we hit up the .99 cent store for some fruit and snacks. At Walmart, we purchased a styrofoam cooler. On the return trip back into town we spotted an Italian deli restaurant and decided to have lunch there. We ordered hot sandwiches; a chicken parmigiana for me and sausage and peppers for Carl.
Returning to the strip, we parked at the Bellagio and set off to explore a few more hotels. Inside the Bellagio, was a horticultural display celebrating Chinese New Year, complete with stuffed animated goats.

CEASARS PALACE showcased some famous statues such as the David.Their pool called to us so we sat in their lounge chairs for awhile enjoying the nice day.

Tonight we had tickets to see Jan Rouven at the Tropicana. It was a good magic show so I would rate it a 7 out of 10.

Tomorrow, more Hotels . . .

Feb 24 Tuesday Leaving for Las Vegas

Egad! A 7:55am flight means a 5:00 o'clock wake up call. What a god awful time to get up and try to be alive. Adrian kindly consented to drive us to the airport since he has the week off work and, the kids were trying to get rid of us. It took an hour to get through all the line ups at the airport and then we quickly got loaded onto the plane. We transitionned smoothly in Chicago to the Vegas flight. The last leg was a smooth trip. I had been warned that there might be some turbulence but it did not happen. The airport in Vegas is huge and the first thing you see are slot machines. Our bags were just put out when we got to the luggage carousel.Next stop was a bus to the offsite car rental then, another bus to the off offsite car rental for Fox. We are now driving a silvee Nissan Sentra sedan for a month. At the Luxor, we found the self parking and hiked to the check in after which, we tok a good long walk over to Mandalay Bay and the Delano (not planned). Our room is nice as I have posted.

It is on the 19th floor and apparently, the elevator goes up at a 39 degree angle. Very weird! Since Ed & Barb were in town, we decided to meet up for crepes at the Paris. I had a fantastic shrimp scampi crepe and we each enjoyed what we had.

After dinner, we continued our stroll down the cobbled french boulevard to the Eifel Tower. Across the road we spotted the fountain water show at the Bellagio. The fountain dances to different music every 20 minutes or so. I was very impressed. We walked through the ritzy shops in the Belagio and then did a quick walk through the Flamingo and headed back to our room. We were pooped. Much to do tomorrow.