#canyons

If you want to read our Blog in Chronological Order (ie oldest blogs first), then visit this link https://pandginthecanyons.tumblr.com/tagged/canyons/chrono

Arrived at Heathrow about 30mins early at 15:50. Immigration quick but baggage reclaim slow. Home by 18:40.

A really great holiday organised by The American Road Trip Company again (it's our fourth with them). If you fancy a similar road trip, Paul and Gill really recommend them. https://www.theamericanroadtripcompany.co.uk

We took the bus down to the Fremont Street Experience today after we checked out. This is actually the original Las Vegas and has recently been done up a lot with a huge overhead screen running at least 3 blocks.

Random fact - the Strip at Vegas (ie where the Bellagio etc are) isn't actually in Las Vegas . It is actually outside the city limits and is a town called Paradise. This happened when the Mob were investing in new casinos since building controls were easier outside of the city.

Fremont Street is clearly the poorer part of town but it was interesting to explore. Here is some of the randomness we found.

Sadly this Grill seemed to have closed down. Presumably their clientele all died off!

Next was a local area made out of containers. Had a real nice community feel although what the guy's wife thought of her present is not recorded! (look closely at the second photo).

There is a zip line over the Fremont Street Experience called SlotZilla- it looked too tame for Gill to bother with...

A lot of the classic casinos are still there, albeit have been refurbished a lot!

The shop that sold the Trump chocolates also sold some more "interesting" products

Needless to say we weren't tempted!

There were a number of street entertainers doing crafts. This guy was particularly skilled,

There were a lot of homeless guys begging or selling simple crafts. It was clearly a poor area of town.

After lunch we went and explored the Mob Museum. This was really interesting telling how Organised Crime started and how it impacted all areas of the US, not just Las Vegas. The Mob did move into the casinos 1945 onwards, funding them and then skimming off vast amounts of cash tax free. The museum explained how they were finally all busted in the 1990s. It was a bit sobering (and gory in parts).

The museum is housed in the former federal courthouse.

A few of the exhibits are below. These are predecessors of modern scratch cards from the 1920's

This is the actual wall that was used in the St Valentine's Massacre the Al Capone's gang allegedly carried out. This was the first time that ballistic forensic science was used to try and convict people.

They had a small section on cyber crime, including early phone hacking with the Cap'n Crunch whistle.

We took a different bus back to the Bellagio. Here are some of the things we saw.

Clearly the sign writer had eaten too many of the $3 hotdogs...

One of the multiple wedding chapels - we must have counted at least 8 of them.

A Bail Bond lender who clearly intends to feed your body to his dog if you jump bail despite being "Kind" (look at the office door).

We went out for the day to explore some of the madness that is Las Vegas

First stop was Caesar's Palace which is opposite The Bellagio.

It has a copy of the Trevi Fountain at the front - not as big as the real one!

Inside is quite ornate.

One of the large areas is the Forum shops, full of shops which most people can't afford. Even the Vegas Tourist shop didn't have prices on the typical tourist bars of chocolate!

The sky reminded me of the Venetian which we visited 4 years ago.

There is a show called the Tale of Atlantis which wasn't running today. it has an aquarium attached. One of the staff members was rearranging the statues in there for some reason!

One fun shop had statues made out of recycled car parts in Thailand. Not cheap though.

The Korean boy-band BTS are in town and there are a number of promo events around. This one was advertising a Korean pop noodle and energy drink but still people were queuing to get their photo taken in the advert!

Rod Stewart is also in town at the Colosseum but having heard him sing recently on TV, definitely one to give a miss.

We nearly got run over by a robot sweeper taking those photos!

We noted that there was a PSG shop in the Forum but not one for Arsenal. Perhaps that will change after this weekend?

We left Caesar's Palace and explored some of the other hotels/casinos. They got quite tacky rather quickly. Flamingo had a nice garden but the grass was all plastic. Some of its shows were rated 18+ and they had some "performers" out on the streets trying to literally "whip up" trade. Gill wouldn't let Paul take pictures for some reason.... One show was really aimed at the 50+ group though!

One bar had a live band doing reasonable covers of 70 and 80's hits including "Boys of Summer".

Having had enough of the tackiness, we went a bit more high-brow by visiting the Atomic Testing Museum. The desert north of Vegas was home to a significant amount of Nuclear Bomb testing, mostly underground. This small museum had an interesting collection of artefacts from the time covering the historical, social and scientific aspects. They including a film with a simulation of a testing firing which was rather dramatic.

The new Atomic marketing rather strange in retrospect. This magazine article praises the kids who went to school about 25 miles from the test sites.

This exhibit was a man carried "portable" atom bomb! I hope it had a long fuse.

They had a replica of the first ever nuclear bomb "the gadget".

This is a genuine casing for the "Fat Man" type bomb dropped on Nagasaki. Paul having visited ground zero in Nagasaki found this to be a little more poignant.

After all this culture, we took the bus back to our hotel and watched the Cirque du Soleil show "O". This was visually very impressive with a stage that swapped between being a deep pool and then dry land. There was a cast of about 80 people which really high quality acrobats and high wire work. There was some sort of story (we think) but it was very surreal.

Rather incredible. We found this video online which gives a flavour of the technology.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQLIYIsJQoE

After the show, we went and watched the fountains again. This time it was less windy and we got a front row spot. Here is a video we shot.