A MUSICAL CUBICLE IN PARIS

DAY 17: Las Vegas, Nevada to Williams, Arizona

Not in a hurry to leave Vegas, we took our time packing and checking out then headed out for brunch. Our first chance to get a taste of the all-day American breakfast. We had a hearty breakfast at the Harley Davidson café - for me; pancakes, sausage, scrambled eggs and syrup, and for Jen sauted potatoes, bacon and poached eggs for Jen.

After that monstrous brekky, we went to check out the Paris hotel. It was fabulous and rivalled the Venetian for dedication to recreating one of the world's great cities. It was simply spectacular (running out of words to describe this place now). The Venetian trumps it for novelty though, on account of the Grand Canal.

I decided that to pay a visit to la toilettes which were as French as the 'streets' we'd been walking around in the hotel - very characteristic for a restroom. Odd then, I thought as I sat down in the cubicle, that they are playing Andrea Bocelli through the speakers... who is Italian. I'm not complaining as it was quite a pleasant experience listening to Andrea. More hotels should do this. It makes for a nicer experience. So I put aside the hotel's confusion in nationalities, finished up and left.

Explaining to Jen the niceties of the musical cubicle, I then took my iPhone out of my pocket to take a photo of a French-style lampost on the street, only to notice that Andrea Bocelli was playing on loud speaker on my iPhone!!! Oh dear. I wonder if the guy in the cubicle next to me thought I always do my business to Andrea? At least it wasn't 'My humps' by the Black Eyed Peas.

Before we left we decided to give our remaining gambling pot to the Paris casino in the form of roulette again. It's our favourite game as it's easier to understand than the others and it's pretty much chance-based rather than intelligence-led.

Sad to leave Vegas and the Bellagio, we headed off into the stormy desert towards our next destination and state - Williams, Arizona.

Our thunder and lightning-filled four hour journey took us across the Hoover Dam and eventually back onto the historic Route 66 where we listened to an appropriately snappy-titled radio station called 'KCKE Route 66 103.3 FM' playing some 'oldie but goody' tracks from the likes of Elton and Bowie.

On arrival into Williams (a small town dedicated to Route 66 history with strong Navajo and cowboy influence), we found our hotel with ease - our second on the Route.

The hotel claims to be the oldest in Arizona (since 1891), and I'm sure it is. We've noticed that nearly every establishment in the US is either 'the world famous so and so' or 'best something or other in town' or the 'greatest or oldest whatever'. Not sure who judges these things but they need to get a grip as they're handing out these titles like there's no tomorrow.

We're staying at the Grand Canyon Hotel, our base camp for the next two nights as we take in the Grand Canyon (let's hope the weather's ok) before we endure the long old poke back to LA. It's a lovely, old-style Lodge/Inn that will do perfectly, complete with creaky floorboards.

Only fitting in a town on such a historic route as this that we ate in the Route 66 Cafe - a classic American diner with a massive drum-shaped log-fired BBQ outside sizzling away in the light rain and five degree centigrade temperature (snow is forecast for tomorrow - in Arizona! Shows how much I know. Glad I packed the woolly hat).

Why hadn't I learned from my experience of two days ago? When the menu says it's going to be big, it will be gigantic. I ordered the BBQ beef ribs and when they came out I could see the menu hadn't lied - they were the same size as the ones at the beginning of the Flintstones cartoon!