Well, I've reached my target, gone beyond it in fact. There's still some gathering to do but it's time to close this blog. And maybe start another.
But before I do, I should really say something about Vegas, because it's unlikely that I'll ever visit it again, and indeed it's whole existence seems threatened at the moment, and it's hard to see how or why it should even, in some ways. Vegas combines two different American genres in a way that should never be combined. It manages o marry the cheesy with seedy. And that's not so good. What most people think of when they think of Vegas is 'The Strip', that corridor of hotels that jostle and compete to be the loudest, most opulent, showy and splendid there ever was.
We stayed in the Luxor, a huge black glass pyramid, that has an Egyptian them, complete with Sphinxes and obelisks etc.
It's almost as extraordinary from the inside as from the outside.
Even the swimming pools continue the theme
Next door to the Luxor is the Excalibur, my personal favourite, with its gaudy turrets and Disneyesque Arthurianism.
The MGM Grand across the road, themed around the Studio's movies and Lions - including some very sad looking real ones of permanent display in a perspex enclosure in the middle of the casino.
Then there's Paris, with the hotel built around the replica of the Eiffel Tower, complete with fake engineering and painted skys. Outside the hotel you can buy a drink from one of the industrial looking machine that serve cocktails like anywhere else would serve slushies. You can choose a souvenir drinks container from either the balloon or the Eiffel Tower. We didn't realise the balloon was a choice and went with the Eiffel tower, to share. Just as well we didn't attempt to have one each, as the drink was about 2 feet tall.
New York, New York and a view of the Statue of Liberty that's nothing like the real one.
And Venice, with a miniature canal system and even gondolas going round its tiny circuit.
The Bellagio is famous for its erupting fountain display which happens ever 15 minutes, complete with blasting music from loudspeakers concealed in the greenery.
And that's just a bit of it, it goes on and one, from one theme into the next. You'd need a few weeks to visit it all properly. And some of it is just weird and some of it is just opulent beyond reason.
We did some other stuff too, it wasn't all eating, drinking and scootering up and drown the strip. We went to see the Shelby Factory Museum, tucked away on what seemed like an industrial estate. It must be the smallest car factory in the world, with each body being made by a team of 2 men, from start to finish. The museum has collected the signatures of its visitors for years and there are walls and walls just covered in signatures. Our group was given its own corner to sign - nice touch.
The go-karting was quite fun, though rather hard work one-handed, but coming the day after the skydive it didn't have the same big excitement factor.
And finally, here's a few stills from the skydive video.
