Our final stop was Las Vegas. I was a bit apprehensive about it to be honest as I was pretty sure I would hate it. Stephen was more enthusiastic about the whole thing.

We arrived by car into the baking metropolis. Our senses were assaulted by excessive amounts of neon, heavy traffic and high-rise buildings.

We dropped our car off first at Encore hotel and then hopped into a taxi to the Venetian. We walked through the doors into the heavily air conditioned foyer and waited an age to check in. Eventually we received the keys to our room and started the long walk to our suite.

First of all we had to walk through the casino. It soon became clear that if you wanted to go anywhere in the hotels of Vegas you had to go via the casino. Despite the hour (about 3 pm) the casino was packed but Stephen resisted the urge to join the masses at this point.

Our room was on the 33rd floor. We had a large bathroom, bed room and sunken living space. We had no fewer than 3 TV's including one in the bathroom. We had a telephone in the toilet, just in case you ran out of loo roll I guess!

Our room overlooked the hotel pools. There was a loud pool party going on below so we were a bit concerned that we would not be getting much sleep.

After freshening up we headed back downstairs to the casino where Stephen assessed the Black jack tables.

We then moved swiftly on at my request and explored the rest of the hotel.

It's meant to look like Venice, hence the name so there is a canal and Gondolas. It's a bit naff really but a bit of fun I suppose (sw - I thought it was cool)

You then reach a town square area, all indoors where opera singers and other musicians perform at regular interviews. There are also a number of restaurants surrounding the square and we visited a few of these which were generally very good. The hotel was huge and you could easily spend most of the day wandering around its numerous shops and bars.

That evening Stephen convinced me to join him in the casino for a bit of a flutter. I wasn't too enthusiastic but went along to show willing. Blackjack was the game of choice as usual and it wasn't long before we got chatting to Hector, a Mexican guy from Texas who was very entertaining. I had had a couple of wines by this point and asked him all sorts of inappropriate questions such as whether he was a gun roaring Republican and whether he agreed with the majority in that state and was pro Capital Punishment and Hunting. He took it all in his stride and actually seemed to be quite entertained so I don't think I offended him too much!

The next day we toured some of the other hotels after a few hours by the pool. It was so hot, around 100 degrees so it was a welcome relief to get into the air conditioning.

We Had a trip to the Grand Canyon booked for the following day. We were picked up about 6 am so it was an early start. The shuttle bus took us to the airport where we boarded our plane, which seated about 20 people. We were right in the front and I could watch the pilot flying the plane which was slightly unnerving since his hands were rarely on the steering wheel or whatever you call it.

The scenery along the way was fantastic. We flew over Lake Mead and the Hoover dam and then landed on the Canyon rim. Our first stop was to an Indian reservation where we opted to do the sky walk. This is a relatively new glass walking platform which juts out into the Canyon below (over 4,000 ft drop) I was slightly apprehensive when looking down as it would have been certain death if the glass failed. However we were assured that the glass was reenforced to such an extent it could hold the weight of several 747 jets.

The views were great in any event but we were assured that'd they would be even better at our next stop, Guano point. We were very impressed with what we saw there and there were some great opportunities for photographs. At one stage it became completely silent. I was sitting on a bench overlooking the canyon, suddenly heard a loud buzzing sound and a tiny bird hovered frantically in front of my face for about 5 seconds before flying off. It was bizarre but a cool experience.

After this we flew back to town for our rise home, a very memorable day.

We also took in a show while we were in Vegas. We has hoped to see O by Cirque de Soleil but they were sold out but we managed to get tickets for the Jersey boys instead which was very good. We also went to a piano bar at the Venetian to watch and listen to duelling pianists. They were good in that they would play anything you asked them to and they sung as well. Quite clever really and good fun, free entertainment.

Sadly, good experiences aside I felt that Vegas was incredibly sleazy. You couldn't walk down the Strip without someone trying to thrust a card into your hand with a naked woman on it. There was also a general feeling of seediness and desperation about the place, girls wearing practically nothing wherever you went and loud groups of men, probably stag do's leering at anyone of the opposite sex. It was also sad to see so many people clearly addicted to gambling, throwing their money away. You would literally see some on the machines or at a table for hours. Sadly Stephen became one of these statistics on our last night. He promised to be no more than an hour and a half but, 7 hours later he came into the room at 7am, slightly sheepish and minus any significant winnings (sw - though we did get two nights free accommodation out of it)