An American Road Trip: Part 1: Vegas

Day 1 to 4: Las Vegas

Having spent my 30th Birthday in Vegas, I really wanted to take Clare to see that bright lights city and have some fun.

As Clare had never been to America, we decided that a road trip would be one of the best ways to take in Nevada and California and see the sights.

Hotel: The Mirage

We arrived in McCarren airport a little tired after one long flight.  I had pretty much watched films all the way there, whilst Clare decided to chip her tooth on a Curly-Wurly.  We collected our bags and our transport for the holiday and set off to the Vegas Strip.

Having never driven in a foreign country before, joining the 8 lanes of traffic on Las Vegas Boulevard was a vast learning curve, to which I made a couple of wrong turns into the wrong hotels, but on the whole I think I did pretty well.
When we arrived at the Mirage,we were upgraded to a Strip facing room and we settled in...until Clare realised that she didn't have her purse.  I remembered seeing it on the back seat of the new car so off I ran to the car park.  If you haven't been to Vegas then the size and scale of the hotels will be a little lost on you, but to say I ran for 30 mins would be a good guess.  Just before I entered the Car Park I noticed someone I recognised, "Morning Ray", I said, to which Mr Ray Liotta replied, "Morning".  With not much more than a nod and a wink and carried on to my destination to retrieve the elusive purse.

Feeling pretty out of it due to the massive time difference, we ventured onto the Strip to take in the sites around The Mirage.  The Venetian, Caesars, Bellaggio and Paris were our main points of visit, and I think Clare was in shock for most of the morning and afternoon as she didn't say much more than Wow or Woah.  After a big slot machine win for Clare and a burger we decided to call it a night and retire.

Morning two and we felt very refreshed and took in the sites of The Mirage Secret Garden, Bellagio Fountains and a few more of the hotels, only to decide to have a little siesta in the afternoon as the time difference was still haunting us.  We set our alarms, but they were useless.  We awoke to the sounds of a volcanic eruption of an epic magnitude, the show at The Mirage.  We quickly got up, realising that we had been asleep for hours and went to the Paris for a superb meal.

When we returned to our room that night, with the emotion of the Vegas Strip, the romantic meal we had just had and the fact that Clare was enjoying herself so much, I invited her to the window to take in how lucky we actually were.  This was when I got down on one knee and proposed to Clare asking her to be mine forever.  She said yes!


The day after we were on a high, so went to the highest place in Vegas, The Stratosphere, which involved walking past quite a few "walk through wedding chapels", we were very tempted but knew our family would love to be part of the big day.  Breakfast in the Circus Circus (I knew how to spoil my fiancee!), and Mexican in the Treasure Island for our evening meal, our first few days were over and in the morning we needed to head off to our next destination.