Well we just had to go didn't we? It's only a four hour drive away and only two roads - the 210 freeway and the 15. To be honest Las Vegas was never going to make it to my "must see" list alongside the Taj Mahal, Machu Picchu and Ayres Rock, but as we are so close....well it would be stupid to give it a miss, wouldn't it?
Las Vegas rises out of the desert like an oasis of neon. There really is nothing else to see along the journey - just a couple of small towns which appear to have been built purely to service the roadside break. As soon as you reach the Nevada border you spot your first casino, and a power station. California likes to import its fuel from its neighbours rather than produce its own - that way it call call itself green and clean - who are they kidding? It's 100 yards over the border.....
So you leave the freeway and join traffic deadlock trying to get onto the Las Vegas strip. This is when you realise that cruising up and down the strip to take in the sights is probably not such a good idea. Fine, just get to the hotel, park the car, unpack the suitcase and go for a walk.
And here at last is an American town that has been designed for pedestrians. Yes of course there are roads and crosswalks and lots of them, but the hotel planners have at least realised that their clients do want to be able to get from one casino to another without dicing with death and negotiating the traffic. They have constructed bridges and, even better, built elevators and escalators to help you reach the bridges, and moving carpets to transport you from the bridge to the hotel. Some of the hotels have even clubbed together and built trams to ease your journey, so yes, you can see the strip without using your car, and yet you still don't have to use your legs either - that's so innovative and amazing....
Well everything about Las Vegas is amazing - jaw dropping opulence and awfulness side by side as each new hotel tries to do out do the other.
We found the infinity shopping mall - it just goes on forever, never reaching an end......
We found Venice; the Rialto Bridge and the Grand Canal. Yes we did the gondola ride - and why not?!! Yes it was very tacky and our teenager cringed with embarrassment as we were serenaded by the gondolier. We floated past the resplendent white and gold wedding gondola, and were informed that 27 marriages were being performed that day - nothing like making your wedding day unique and special here then! Of course every hotel has its own wedding chapel; these poor brides must arrive reeking of beer and tobacco as they stroll through the gaming rooms to reach the altar. Las Vegas was the first place we've come across in America where you can smoke indoors and boy do they take advantage of it! And drinking in the streets - this is America's Ibiza - college kids suddenly reach the age of 21, everything's legal, and here they come....
Oh and don't think Vegas, casino, glamour!! This isn't Monte Carlo here you know - don't bother de-mothballing the tuxedo and unwrapping that little black dress - jeans and shorts, sneakers and a baseball cap will do you just fine.
Yet despite the masses on the street at midnight clutching their beer cans and swigging margaritas, you wake up the next morning and the place is spotlessly clean. It's like Disneyland - there must be a whole team working behind the scenes to keep the place looking immaculate.
This really is sanitised America. And not just America - here they have sanitised the whole world - the Grand Canal smelt of chlorine and you can climb the half sized Eiffel Tower outside the Paris Las Vegas Hotel and instead of a great view of the Champs Elysee, you look across the road and you're in New York, there's the statue of Liberty and the Empire State; to the left you've made it to Egypt because there's the Sphinx and a pyramid, to the right is Treasure Island and it's pirate ship, and there's the erupting volcano outside the Mirage....you could be anywhere in the world. But you're not - you're in America and you know it can only happen in America when you walk through a casino on a Sunday morning and there's a religious service taking place in one of the bars. I really didn't get that - nor did I get what that wholesome couple Donny and Marie Osmond were doing performing in a place like Vegas every night. Making lots of money obviously but doesn't Vegas represent all those vices Mormons abhor - drink; tobacco; gambling.....although actually the town of Las Vegas was originally settled by Mormons - or so I learned from our rather thin guidebook....
And talking of gambling - yes, fortunately we came back with the bank balance still intact. One very brief flutter on a slot machine and we were in credit so we quit. We spent our meager winnings on a bottle of wine in a restaurant overlooking St Marks Square. A squeaky clean St Marks Square under a sky blue ceiling painted with puffy white clouds...I love that place!
Then it was time to drive back across the desert and home. Suddenly LA doesn't seem such a bad place after all.
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