Vegas and GC

Wanted to write this for a long time... finally did get some time.

We (Ankur, Vipul, Korade, Patil, Bonda, Pritam and myself) went to Vegas and Grand Canyon for thanksgiving. We were planning on this trip for 2 months. We wrote atleast 700-800 mails trying to pester others to accept responsibility of hotels, camping sites, rental cars etc but it all came down to the wire and nearly everything was left unplanned. Everyone except myself and Korade arrived in Vegas on Thursday morning and got time to go around different casinos. I arrived there at 7 pm and Korade reached at 12 pm. We did visit all the main casinos - Bellagio, Ceaser's Palace, Stratosphere etc. My personal opinion was that they all looked the same... they were jazzy with each of them having something unique but I did think of them as a cheap christmas present wrapped with a gaudy cover. Keeping the casinos on 24/7 had taken its toll. One extremely unique thing abt Vegas is the diversity of people visiting it. It was hard to find a white caucasian american family there. In these casinos there were loads of people of all nationalities/ethnicity/caste and creed trying their luck on the slot machines and the jingle of these slot machines could be heard all day long. Food and hotels are cheap here(so is the quality) and are used by casinos to attract people who might gamble on their machines. These casinos are enclosed (no direct sunlight) with no time pieces so that gamblers are kept oblivious of the time they have spent gambling.

The next morning we started our drive to GC.. It was a pretty long drive. We stopped at the Hoover Dam since it was on our way. We decided to stay in a town called Williamson which is 40 miles south of the GC south rim primarily because we did not reserve a lodge in GC (1 yr lead period for thanksgiving). We stayed at a cheap Indian motel (32$ for a 2 bed room). Ofcourse we told him we were 5 guys so that he would not charge us extra. We took special care to go to our room individually so he wouldn't know. The owner was a bit eccentric.. he got wild when an american told him that his rooms smell bad... he shouted back at him... "Don't act smart, USA is my country too, I am a Hindustani" Which to me seemed funny... He was contradicting himself :)


The next morning we drove upto GC... I didnt like GC either...This is where you might say.. this SOB complains a lot... I seriously think it was good but not awesome... I have seen better...Himalayas are way better than GC.... ya ya you are able to see different colors during sunrise/sunset but again it was OK. If I ever go to GC again.. I would go white water rafting on the Colorado river(level 4, 5, 6 rapids). The next morning we took a helicopter ride through GC... which was good and started our drive back to Vegas. We reached there at around 6... took the 3 joyrides on stratosphere... and then these guys dropped me, korade and pritam at the airport..

summing it up... the trip was good... We all met after a long time... had fun... and I did see 25-26 yr olds jumping on the bed and getting into pillow fights... some kids never grow :)