Bright light city gonna set my soul, gonna set my soul on fire.... do do do, do do do do! Do do do, do do do do!

We continued Elvis week in Las Vegas. Elvis-a-rama baby yeah! So we stayed in the Sahara Hotel and Casino (on the strip baby yeah). It was pretty awesome, on the outside it was all lit up with hundreds of lights and looked like an Arabian palace, it even had camels. Camels. Oh, and we got upgraded to a bigger room, a deluxe suit. It didn't appear noticably bigger or deluxe but upgraded baby, yeah!

Oh but before we even got to the Sahara we had to actually get to Vegas. From Memphis to Vegas would've been over 2 days straight on a stinky, cramped Greyhound bus so we grudgingly forked over the money to fly there. On the way I (Jess) managed to rip my favouritest pair of jeans and we both managed to get frisked at the airport, we do look like such suspicious, shady characters.

Vegas absolutely lived up to my expectations, it was tacky and flashy, everything was lit up and all the casinos were huge. There was one that looked like the Eiffel Tower, one that looked like a circus, an English castle, the entire skyline of New York. The whole place was fabulous. We probably would've enjoyed it more with more money but even broke there is so much to do and so many free things to see.

On our first night in Vegas we made ourselves nice (ish) and went down into our casino for cocktails (in lit-up flashy glasses which, of course, we stole) and saw, yes, an Elvis impersonator in Vegas. All of my dreams have now come true. In the posters for the show we saw, the impersonator was young and nicely airbrushed. In person however, he was aging with visible plastic surgery scars and a sock or something down his pants. It was so awesome! Oh, and he'd been on Oprah. He was pretty damn good and he did all the costume changes. We saw leather Elvis, jumpsuit Elvis, young suited Elvis. Very cool. AND he gave Sarah a scarf and tried to pash her on the lips. It was quite funny.

Next day, we started on all the free things to do in Vegas. We went to Circus Circus, which is actually a circus, and has a big fair inside and free circus performances. We ate fairy floss and won 60 bucks on the pokies. We saw the lions at MGM Grand and went inside the Excalibur and New York New York casinos and a whole bunch of free stuff. Followed by an all you can eat buffet at our casino. Not great although Sarah ate 5 plates of food she just proudly reminded me. Then we went back out to watch all the free night shows. We saw the famous fountains at the Bellagio which shoot 200 feet into the air to the sounds of Viva Las Vegas and the Rio Masquerade which was very much hyped and really rather pathetic. Then we went back to Treasure Island to see, dum dum dum dum, the Sirens of Treasure Island fight the wicked pirates. It was very melodramtic (like a soapy, same sort of script and terrible songs) and was pretty much just an excuse for the sirens to get near naked. But it was tacky, which we love, and the pirate ship did actually sink in the end. Oops, now I've given it away.

The next day, we had to wake up very early to go and see the Grand Canyon. We rode on the bus surrounded by this very annoying, suspiciously close family. The brother and sister were in their late teens and lets say, ahem, very close. And they all had whiny, annoying accents. But after a very long journey, we arrived at Hoover Dam (which was crap) followed by an Imax movie about the Grand Canyon with dodgy, dramatic reenactments of the entire history of the Grand Canyon held together by some very dodgy Anna Coren/Chaser worthy segues (overall amusingly dodgy but also quite crap), and then at last the Grand Canyon (which was not).

The Grand Canyon was amazing, spectacular, breathtaking (thank you Sarah for your perusal of the thesaurus). It was pretty much everything it was supposed to be. The photos we took, while being wonderful of course, probably won't do it justice. You have to see it in person, you simply must. We did the south rim walk (no dodgy jokes thank you very much) and like most things do, the Grand Canyon, whilst amazing, started to look like any other bunch of rocks and holes after about an hour or two.

When we got back we went to see the Fremont Street experience. Which is like a mall but with a display made up of hundreds of thousand of lights all moving above your head. It was pretty cool, and funny, it was about aliens. Even better though, was the bus ride back to the casino. A whole bunch of middle aged/old ladies who were drunk, got on the bus and started chatting up the driver. The bus was the only bus in Vegas to have hydraulics, according to the driver, which he put to use as we drove back bouncing up and down with the old ladies dancing. The driver also supplied world/latin music for accompaniment. Highly amusing.

Then the next day we were off to Anaheim. Yay for Disneyland (and sorry about those early morning phone calls Stephen and Lorraine)!