The rest of yesterday was long. We went out with the aim of getting to the Luxor hotel, right up the south end of the strip. The plan was to get the monorail from Hurrahs down to MGM then the tram from Excalibur to The Luxor. First of all we wanted to explore Treasure Island, visit the pirate ships, where they no longer do their show, then check The Mirage out, to go and see the Dolphins. Once we got over to the Mirage, an attack of hunger came so we got a Carnegie's burger to take out and followed the signs to the Dolphin habitat. It was 6.30 when we got there and it closed at 6, so we had to settle for eating our burger with the backdrop of the waterfall pool. Not deterred we walked back through the casino where we stopped for a little roulette, and Jo managed to win her money back and a few extra dollars and I lost mine... Heading for the monorail and the heat is so intense it's almost impossible to function normally. It's so hot outside and so cold inside that I'm finding it hard to regulate any sort of body temperature! Once we were in Hurrahs it was a mission to get through the casino, as always, once you are in its nearly impossible to get out, but we eventually found the monorail, purchased our 24 hour pass and hopped on until the MGM stop. Yet again, trying to get out the casino was a mission and we ended up down the side road opposite Hooters, about half a mile away from the strip where we wanted to be. Unless you know how to get out, there are no signs for the exits... Heading for the lobby in this hotel though took us in completely the wrong direction! Eventually we were back on the strip after negotiating many busy junctions and weaving our way past the direction into inside every hotel/casino. We managed to cross into the castle like structure of Excalibur and found the team that would take us to The Mandalay Bay. Jo made a suggestion that we go there, quickly see the 'Las Vegas' sign, then come back to The Luxor. Well... The sign was about another two miles walk from the Mandalay Bay and even though it was beginning to get dark, the heat was still unbearable. Many times Jo was like, shall we just go back, but it felt like a waste as we had come this far!
The sign was lit up against the backdrop of The Strip, and it was very pretty to see it in the dark all sparkly! We also passed the little wedding chapel, but dehydration and exhaustion was starting to set in so we soldiered on to the sign. It was all very well getting to the sign, but neither of us had any energy to get back, so waited for a bus that shuttled us back down to somewhere past our hotel. It was so noisy and chaotic... And hot!! What I should have done when we made it back to the hotel was go straight to bed, but having wanted to go to and never making it, to the Luxor casino to spend some money, I settled for our casino in the Palazzo. The term quit while you are ahead should have entered my vocabulary and again, I should have gone to bed! We've got a long day planned tomorrow, and needed an early night, and was back in the room at 10pm. Unfortunately we are still awake and overtired at nearly midnight!