Las Vegas Day 4: Hoover Dam!

Our last day!

Our flight to Heathrow was not until 9.40pm that night, so we had the whole day to tick a couple more things off our check list!!

We first of all drove down to the Famous Las Vegas sign!!

I also got Robert to take a few photos of the Mustang because of course this was the last day we had with it!! 

Aww, we miss that car!

From the sign, we then continued South and drove to the Hoover Dam!! Las Vegas is about 40 miles from the dam and it was such a lovely day for a drive! When we got to the Dam it was weird as we had seen it from the air, when we were on our way to the Grand Canyon, just two days before! It had been pretty impressive from the air, so it was amazing to actually see it properly!

It is a huge structure and the bridge you see above has just recently been built! It is quite cool though, because supposedly the border of Nevada and Arizona go right through the middle of the Dam. So on each side of the bridge there are two clocks showing the time of each state!!

Which apparently by the clocks is only 10 minutes... I think there is an hour difference though!

We never went into the museum sadly, but ended our trip with lunch at the little cafe!We then headed back to Vegas to have a wonder around for our last few hours of being in America!! So we went for our last Pinkberry!! Oh how I miss that scrummy yoghurt! I always got the original flavour with strawberries, coconut, cookies and cream and graham crackers! So so yummy!!! Robert always got the chocolate hazelnut flavour with all the chocolate toppings!! Haha! 

We then had a last wander through some of the hotels and then sadly went back to the car and headed to the car rental at the airport! I said goodbye to the horses on the motorway....

Bye bye horses!

Then we said goodbye to Roo! We would so have taken him home with us if we could! It was so cool driving a proper American car while we were in the USA!! 

Bye bye Roo!!

We then got the shuttle bus to the airport and made our way through security! We then had our dinner at Burger King (I really wish they had more choices a airports!) and relaxed and talked about the amazing time we had had! By this point of being away for 15 days we were ready to go home, but we knew we were going to miss our time there! We ended up having just over $30 left in our pockets, so Robert was kind enough to say to me to go get something from duty free! It had a lovely MAC counter and I could have bought two things with it, but just got one, so we went home with $15! That is for our next trip!!!

We luckily had a row next to a window to ourselves and this flight was so so much better than the one we got to San Francisco. We spent our time watching loads of films (Wreck it Ralph is so good) and also I got some sleep! When we landed in Heathrow, we ended up having to go back through security, which was ridiculous because had just off a plane and had been on air-side for over 17 hours (including flight time). So thankfully our flight to Glasgow had been delayed, otherwise we would have missed it due to the queues in security!! It wasn't delayed for long and we were soon flying home!

I really hope your girls have enjoyed reading about our amazing adventure!! We had the best two weeks of our life!! I have loved writing these posts and it means I will remember them forever! Watch out for my haul posts soon... I bought quite a lot!! Hehe!

Love, Jen x

Las Vegas Day 2: The Grand Canyon!!

Happy Easter everyone!!

Today's post is about a completely amazing day Robert and I had!! It was just such a mind blowing experience and I'm gonna share it with you!

We were picked up from the hotel at 10.40am by a limo no less and it was only a 5 minute drive to the Heliport (is that a word?!). We were then checked in, told all the health and safety info and waited for our pilot to arrive, he was really cool and chatted away to us, while leading us to our helicopter!

We then got into our seats and put our head sets on. I was honestly just so excited. Neither of us had been in a helicopter before, so it was a very new experience! Robert was a bit worried about how shaky it would be when in flight, but as soon as we took off, it was amazing!!

It was such a surreal experience!! We flew over Lake Mead and the Hoover Dam...

While in flight, we listened to music and also commentary from the tape and the pilot about what we were to look out for beneath us. It was so interesting learning about all the different landmarks and the history behind the place! We then all of a sudden could see a huge wall in front of us going for miles left and right. It was so tall that it touched the clouds and we over the top of the wall just under the clouds.

I'm sure you all can guess what was coming next. I just cannot explain it though, I could have seen thousands of photos of the Grand Canyon and still I wouldn't have seen what I would be expecting. You are flying over a tiny part and yet this little part is just so humongously epic. It was just mind blowing to be perfectly honest! I still cannot believe that Robert and I were actually there! When the helicopter gets over the wall, we were met with this...

Then it became even more overwhelming because we started to descend, down and then even further into the Canyon.

Then we landed at the bottom of the Grand Canyon and got out of the helicopter!! I can't believe I can say that I have been at the bottom of the Grand Canyon! It is something that people dream of and something that Robert and I have always wanted to do and we did it! Totally awesome!! We got to have a walk around and explore!

The Colorado river!

While wandering around Robert naughtily picked up two pieces of rock and made me put them in my bag! It is quite cool having a piece of the Grand Canyon in your home, even if it is just a little piece! Before we got back onto our helicopter, we were treated to a champagne lunch!!  So that was a treat and we actually got about an hour of time on the Canyon floor! We then we hopped back on board and got ready for the flight back to Las Vegas! The flight there and back took 45 minutes each way. If we had tried to drive to the canyon (the nearest part to Las Vegas) it would  take well over four hours! Being on the helicopter was just so so amazing! I cannot recommend the experience highly enough! If you can do it then DO IT!!! You only live once and you live to gain experiences like we did in the photos above! Completely unforgettable and I will cherish the memories of that trip forever!

I really enjoyed the flight back, just reminiscing what we had just done and they picked some great songs to listen to as well! We then flew over a huge plateau, which at some points touched the clouds and the went back over the wall.

We saw some completely amazing scenery when we flew back towards Las Vegas. Then we also got to fly right over the strip when we came to it!

So when we landed, we were back into the limo and taken back to our hotel! By this time it was just later 3, so we still had time to do more! We went down into the Mandalay Bay hotel, which you can get to by a monorail. I really wanted to go to the Shark Reef Aquarium! It was quite a cool aquarium with lots of different types of fish! They even had a Komodo Dragon and two Sea Turtles!

We then went and explored some other hotels nearby and had our dinner! Afterwards, we decided hat we should go and explore Freemont Street! So we got on the bus that runs up to it. The bus took ages!! IT almost took an hour, because so many people were always wanting on and off! By the time we got up there it was 8pm. Freemont Street is pretty impressive let me tell you! IT is classed as the old strip and because they were losing business, they created the Freemont Street Experince, which is basically a huge canopy over the whole street and they play really cool shows on it! 

The show that we saw had the whole psychedelic feel to it, with the music and what they were showing on the canopy. It was really cool! Freemont Street is also a lot more out there than the actual Las Vegas Strip is, so be prepared for some madness if you are going to go! After spending time having a look around, we headed back on the bus! Thankfully the bus didn't take too long, but the bus was completely full!! We were totally squished right into the bus! We got off at Caesar's Palace and had a walk back down to our hotel, having a look into the Bellagio on the way past. They had a gorgeous butterfly garden in the foyer and you could watch butterflies that were hatching! It was amazing! When we got back to our hotel we treated ourselves to a Ben & Jerry's sundae and headed back up to our room to eat them!

It was a long post today girls, I know, but we just did so much that day!! 

Love, Jen x