The A-Z of The 27 Adventure: A, B & C (Las Vegas, NV)
I thought it could be fun to share some of my favourite things that I photograph along each stop of The 27 Adventure at the end of each stop. I have fallen in love with taking photos again and I’d love to make a series that I can look back on, and one I hope you will enjoy too!
I will be doing different letters of the alphabet for each city and trying to get creative with what each one stands for. There are 10 stops on this trip so there will be 3 letters for some cities and 2 for the others.
A is for Air
Helicopter Tour of the Grand Canyon & Las Vegas Strip
B is for Bright City Lights
Walking the Strip at night to see the neon lights
C is for Colossal
Seeing the Hoover Dam up close
Next will be Salt Lake City. Look out for that early next week!
New Winter Boots and Other Adventures
By Monday I was ready to move on from Las Vegas. It isn’t that it was bad, just that I had seen everything I wanted to see and I found the way people can yell at you (when they’re trying to sell something) on the street really overwhelming.
I spent a lot of the day in my hotel room trying to pack, but mostly just feeling restless about the fact that I was leaving for Salt Lake City in the morning and I still hadn’t been successful in finding any winter boots. All I took from Australia were canvas shoes and ballet flats. So not appropriate for the -6°C that was expected for SLC. I had looked in Nordstrom a couple of days before, but I couldn’t see any on display and wasn’t sure if it was ok to ask. (Different cultures, different rules)
I decided to try it again, but this time I didn’t cross the MGM bridge (oh the yelling!) and crossed at the Monte Carlo, and took the bus to Fashion Show Mall, had some lunch and looked in so many shops for winter boots. It’s hard to shop for winter boots when it’s really warm out, there’s just no stock as they’re getting ready for spring already. I was about to give up and freeze my toes off, when I decided to try Nordstrom again. This time someone asked if I was looking for anything and I sheepishly asked if they had any winter boots. She said she could check out the back to see if there were any online returns in my size because it was too late in season for those kinds of boots.
As it turns out, there were new ones out the back in my size and they were on sale!! They fit me perfectly and were just so me! I love the checks and the bright shoelaces and that they were the shorter version. I also loved that I didn’t have to fret over colours and options because these were it. Meant to be! It felt great and there was a big weight off my mind about freezing my toes off!
I think that the bus along the strip is one of the best parts of Vegas. It sounds silly, but the Strip is long and it’s great to be able to hop on and off at the hotel/attraction of your choice. They are clean and are frequent and helped me to feel more confident about getting around.
Overall, my time in Las Vegas was great. I loved the Grand Canyon and the Hoover Dam and the Strip was fun to see once I got my bearings. The first stop is always hard as it’s such a difference to home. But I wouldn’t want to give up that week for anything.
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BIG is an Understatement: The Hoover Dam
I planned Saturday as a slow one, and I’m so glad that I did. After all the excitement of the Helicopter flight on Friday and a bad jet lagged sleep, I was glad to take the bus out too the Outlet Mall and see if there was anything there that suited me for Alt Summit.
It was nice and calm and I enjoyed just being able to do my own thing at a very slow pace. It helped me get over the jet lag and ready for my early Sunday morning wake up for the bus trip out to the Hoover Dam!
You may not know this, but I have wanted to see the Hoover Dam for YEARS! Ever since I sat and watched a TV show on engineering marvels with my Dad. I had wanted to see it last time I was in Vegas, but it just didn’t work out. This time it was a must!
Seeing it from the air on Friday meant that I got to see it all, but seeing it up close was just fantastic! As part of the tour I booked we went into the power plant on the Nevada side and learnt how it was constructed and also got to see how it works. It was really interesting. But I have to say – my favourite part was being able to walk across it and see both lake mead and the Dam wall.
They aren’t fussy about you taking photos, in fact they encouraged it, which makes it so much better! I loved the Art Deco architecture and the fact that they haven’t tried to update it, but have just maintained it. There seemed to be a lot of love for the structure, not just because it is actually a power generator, but like they cared for it because it was so important to the landscape and to the history of the place. I think it’s nice to see that it’s heritage has been protected and that it’s treated so well.
One other cool thing that I didn’t remember from the show that I saw, is that you cross from Nevada into Arizona when you walk the bridge and they are in two different time zones. I’ve never walked across a state border before so I thought it was kind of cool!
Here are some more of the photos that I took. I took hundreds, but here are just a few of my favourites.
It was a gorgeous 18°C with very little wind. I’m so glad that I finally got a chance to see it. Lake mead is just beautiful close up as is the Dam itself.
There’s a few more photos on my Flickr too.
