Las Vegas

It was a pleasent day at bentonville. Myself, Sandeep and Vishwa , we three go ready for our trip, hoping it to be a happy journey. We had our flight to Orange County, California at 8.30AM CST. We reached the Fayettville airport by 7 in the morning and waitied to get checked in.

Once our jouney started, we all three were excited. Our jouney had Dallas as the transit point from where we would change the flight to reach Orange County. There we reached Jhon Wyane Airport at Orange county and Vishwa's friend Veeresh and Prem Ranjan had come to pick us up from the Airport. That afternoon we went to a Indian Restorant in California for lunch. The lunch was awasome. We started our trip towards Las Vegas, Nevada by 5 in the evening. There was a heavy traffic on the way to Lasvegas and vehicles were moving at the speed of 5mph instead of stipulated 75mph for almost 30 miles. Hence we lost much of the time in this. Once the traffic was eased on the road, we made the drive fast paced and reached Las Vegas by night 12. There we had booked a 2-bed room fully furnitured apartment for 2 nights so that we can rest there.

After reaching LAS VEGAS, we got ready and went out towards CASINO's at 1AM Westren time zone. We just roamed around the casino's till 5 in the morning. Almost the night went by seeing the LV in the night. All Casino's when inside look like. Luxurious Casino's used to have bars with dancers. Nudely clad girls who were most probably prostitutes, who used to laugh loudly when they pass by, just to attract men. I saw few handsome men who were flirting with these girls.
Saw few gay-couples, happily holding their partner's hands( not sure if they were married or not). It was a kind of shock, but its ok, its their personal life.

We saw many Casino's like NEWYORK NEWYORK, CESAR'S PALACE, CASINO ROYALE, STRATOSHPERE, EIFEL TOWER, MGM GRAND, BELLAGIO, SAHARA, TREASURE ISLAND, THE MIRAGE, BALLY's, PARIS, MANDLAY BAY. There were many more , but no time to see. It is in all terms a real sin city - all kinds of sins are committed here. The sins like prostitution, drugs, drinks, gambling are commited in broad day light without any fear. we just came across many men and women who were just advertising how fast they can get girls to your bed.. All of them were wearing t-shirts displaying " WE CAN GET U A GIRL WITHIN 20 MINS". Along the same path , i saw a man holding a card which said " AMERICANS do feel embrassed for those nude cards, thrash them".

you can also get more information about LAS VEGAS casino's at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Las_Vegas_Strip_hotels

we went back to room that morning at 5, slept till 10 and then we started our journey towards HOOVER DAM. Hoover Dam, also known as Boulder Dam, is a concrete arch-gravity dam in the Black Canyon of the Colorado River, on the border between the U.S. states of Arizona and Nevada. Its a beautiful, arc-shaped damconstructed between two mountains on COLORADO river. It actually forms the border for Arizona and Nevada States. we just stayed there for 45 mins, enjoyed the view and left towards GRAND CANYON.

more information about this is in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoover_Dam

On the way towards GRAND CANYON, we had to travel for more than 100 miles in dry land, probably a desert. It was like a no man's land, no vegitation, no life except hot breeze. we reached GRAND CANYON by 4 in the evening.

The Grand Canyon is a steep-sided gorge carved by the Colorado River in the U.S. state of Arizona. The longstanding scientific consensus has been that the canyon was created by the Colorado River over a period of six million years, but research released in 2008 suggests a much longer 17 million year time span.The canyon is 277 miles (446 km) long, ranges in width from 4 to 18 miles (6.4 to 29 km) and attains a depth of more than a mile (1.6 km).

Its a beautiful place, with lots of oppertunites for trekking. We had just 4-5 hrs to spend there. hence we had to hurry up seeing the place, taking pics, enjoying the cold( infact a very cold) breeze by 7.30 in the night. we met few kannada guys, enjoyed the stay there. Though we had gone there to watch the sunset, we could view it as it was a cloudy day there. But there was a time when everywhere there was clouds, but just in one place, there was sunlight touching the ground, creating a marvellous art in its own. In fact, none can match GOD's creativity.

we started from there by 8, came back to LAS VEGAS, enjoyed that night till 6, went home to sleep. Our Friday night, saturday were completed. We were supposed to vacate our room by 11AM on Sunday. we got ready, left the room. From then on we went to see LAS VEGAS at day time. first we went to the casino STRATOSPHERE.


STRATOSPHERE's attraction is the 1,149 ft (350 m) Stratosphere Tower; it is the tallest free-standing structure in Nevada. It has 3 thrill rides
1. The BIG SHOT at 1,081 feet (329 m) is the highest thrill ride in the world;
2. INSANITY the Ride, at 900 feet (274 m) is the second highest thrill ride in the world, it dangles riders over the edge of the tower and then spins in a circular pattern at approximately forty miles per hour.
3. XSCREAM at 866 feet (264 m) is the third highest thrill ride in the world.

I just took two of the 3 thrill rides. BIGSHOT and XSCREAM was what i enjoyed. though it was first time to do such things, i enjoyed a lot. BIG shot was really a big enjoyment as u would literally to the tip of the tallest building with high speed. stay there for a second or two and drop down fastly.
at that point u can see the whole LAS VEGAS. You can see the rim of VEGAS from there. the XSCREAM was one more dangerous yet enjoyable one. Vishwa and Veeru went on to play INSANITY. i just took the videos atop the STRATOSPHERE.

After this we went on to TAMBA restorant to get indian food. Unfortunately it was closed at 3.30 and we had gone there at4.30. Then we went to a chinese restorant for lunch. had a buffet and then again started the journey to watch all the remaining CASINO's. we went to taking SnAPS. then we left back to California by that night 9 and reach Orange County by 2.30 in the night. we all were so tiered that we just slept.

From Veeru's place, we started to airport by 11 in the morning. First we went to a restoraunt, had roti, dal and rice. from there we went to John Wyane airport for our return journey. It all went well, but there was a delay in the flight from SANTA ANA/ORANGE COUNTY to DALLAS. Hence we missed our return flight to FAYETVILLE at 8PM. But the American Airlines team reschelued us and put us with the 9PM flight.

The journey would have been boring if i had not met Mr. Jonathan. A gentle man probably in his 30's. I was just curious to know what he was doing to SODUKU play book. our conversation started with he saying the rules for SODOKU and it ended with discussing the diversities which both INDIA and AMERICA face. he said he was a LANDSCAPE artist. That was so nice. Normally i have found artists to be attractive by their intellectual and Jovial nature, though i have met only few, i guess all of them should be good. For 1 hour, we just went on talking, and the journey was never boring. As we talked we found how similar , atleast Arkansas was to Karnataka ( my home STATE in INDIA). so much in similarity, yet so diverse.

Well, we had to say bye as our journey ended.

The sad part was, Sandeep lost his camera ( his pet) in the flight. It had lots of his memories assoicated with it and also the trip' snaps.

I hope he will buy a newer and better than the last camera now