Thursday 31st May 2007

Yippee! No alarm this morning. We were knackered after yesterdays Grand Canyon trip and didn't get out of bed till 12pm.

We're heading back to LA tomorrow and so we took full advantage of the hotels free laundry room and did all our washing (you don't get these luxuries in hostels).

After we'd finished we made our way up to the 112th floor of the tower because I wanted to go on the new thrill rides. Man, these were scary! One of them, the 'X-Scream', tips you on an angle so that the car you're sat in slides at 30mph over the edge and then stops suddenly - 866ft above the ground.

The other, 'Insanity', starts by dangling you nearly 900ft about the Las Vegas strip and then starts to spin until you are at about a 70° angle - looking at the floor below. Both were amazing - but I won't be riding either again in a hurry!

When we came back down to a safer level, we went into Roxy's Diner for our dinner. I had a BBQ pork sandwich and Nikki had a cheese burger and chips. As she didn't go on the rides, she treated herself to a Banana Strato-shake - which was a milkshake that came in a cup, (shaped like the Stratosphere Tower), that was about 2ft tall - she loved it!

We spent this afternoon by the pool. Nikki read her book and I played basketball. We were up there for about 3 hours. It was baking, so it was nice to be in the water (which was freezing).

At 8pm we were told we had to leave the pool area as it was closing, so we came back to our room and got ready to go out. We decided that we'd catch the $2 bus to Downtown Las Vegas, which is where all the original casinos like the Four Queens and the Golden Nugget are. The area is called the Freemont Street Experience, it is an entire street, under the cover of a huge canopy made of lights, that show huge videos and displays - all to music. Apparently it was this year that they had to replace the bulbs - all 1 billion of them! The light show was really cool - some 60's music with a video about Vegas.

We got back to our room at about 11.30pm and packed our bags. We then sat writing a few postcards.

Goodbye Las Vegas...

Ladies and Gentlemen - Ben & Nikki have left the building!