the last weekend we decided to take a small trip to vegas which turned into an absolutely fun trip.


First of all we had a 2009 Toyota Avalon with close to 300HP as a rental car, which got an average of 30+mpg. Short plenty of power, plenty of space and affordable.

after driving for 8 hours or so we arrived in Vegas shortly before sunset and rented a room at the Excalibur for 99$ a night. Divided by 3 person = 33$ for staying in Vegas. Can't get much better.

After a couple of hours sightseeing and taking a lot of pictures.

we decided to grab some food. Well I decided since I really wanted to try some 'professional' brisket sandwich to compare it to mine.
For this we went to the supposedly best bbq place in town.

well, if this was the best place. I do not want to go to the worst place. Cause the food was over spiced and rather bad. That the waiter gave himself a 17.** % tip for lousy service didn't really help either.

At least I managed to take lot's of pictures of pretty motorcycles and some waitress posed on one of the harleys rather badly. Actually it was that bad that I did not even bother to keep the picture.

after this we tried to watch the water show at the bellagio, but sadly were to late and only got a quick shot of it

and decided to gamble instead a bit at the bellagio.

While we were there some random lady asked nico if he'd like to have a couple of show tickets and after a bit forth and back we figured out the tickets are for free and so we took them. It were 3 tickets, we were 3 people. Short perfect timing and combinaton.

The tickets turned out to be for Cirque du Solei - O and it was an amazing show. I actually ordered the CD afterward on my iphone.

 as you can see in the picture we were very close (4th row) and in the middle of the row. Short perfect tickets, which resale for 140-160 a piece normally.

After we spend the night in our fantastic hotel, we left and drove to the grand canyon.

We made a short stop at the Hoover Dam, fairly unimpressive.

and discovered some way more impressive chipmunks

yes our priorities were clear.But after all It was actually to see how low the water reserves are in Nevada/California.

normally the water covers the white area of the stone.

Anyway we continued to drive over the over Hoover Dam into Arizona. Another state done of my US map btwand arrived a couple of hours later at the Grand Canyon.

There we camped under an amazing sky full of stars

And like always we didn't plan very well and it turned out my sleeping bag was way to cold for these temperatures. Because originally we planned to camp at the Mohave Reserve, but it looked to boring that we decided todo something else instead. Short I was freezing all night and some animal kept pocking me non stop. I'm really shure it was a grizzly bear or mountain lion masked as this little fellow

he was actually so upset, that I didn't leave him into my tent, that he attempted to jump down the Grand Canyon the next day. For example his view was something like this....

No it's noy at an eagle, it's a raven in the picture...

Back to the topic. In the morning we made some breakfast on my sturdy little camp stove. Or in other words some tea and a tomato soup with pita bread. And continued to drive the last 5 miles to the grand canyon.
On our way there we discovered a bock (deer) who showed us that bathroom are optional...

I sadly did not manage to shoot him from the front, since a big bus came and kept honking at me to move my car off the road. I was also worried that he attacks us. Anne mentioned she can outrun him, but I was not to sure about this...

Once we finally arrived at the grand Canyon we took the opportunity to shoot hundreds of pictures. Since you never know when you are there again...

Afterward we drove back to Las Vegas, which was surprisingly quick. We only need like 4 hours or so. Afterall it was just one long straight road more or less...

One our way we discovered an old Airplane museum

And some strange looking houses....

 

When we finally arrived in vegas we managed find an even cheaper hotel. Called Hooters, which was not great. But 49$ for 3 People was a good price for this room and it looked ok. We even manged to watch the water show at the Bellagio this time

And loose even more money....

Also a tradition is, if you visit vegas you need to take a picture of fancy cars like...

a ferrari

a viper

and this was our weekend. 

As a final treat was that we had a nice Dinner at Buckhorns were an elderly gentleman gave us a 1994 Beringer Cabernet Reserve for free. It's a 140$ bottle of wine I could totally NOT appreciate...

The only sad part was that my wonderful Ashley was not with us on the Trip. Well maybe she makes it to the next trip. After all I'm going to San Diego in a week, afterward New Jersey and than Germany.