May in the USA

As threatened a few notes on my trip to Rock Hill/Charlotte in the Carolinas to see my school friend Tricia and her husband Clive plus Las Vegas to celebrate one of my newer friend's xx birthday.

Rock Hill is a 20 minute drive from Charlotte, I'm not sure what I was expecting but it was hotter and  more snake ridden than I thought, no bare feet in the garden!

As you can see the area grew once the railroad came through and no doubt this horse trough became redundant, but good piece of ironwork.

Lots of wooden houses, but brick and stone municipal buildings.

One of the oldest churches

We travelled just the other side of Charlotte to what turned out to be the first goldmine in the country, where the original nugget was found by a young boy and the Reed family used it as a doorstop until someone offered to buy it and although sold for a very low price, it became clear that a seam of gold bearing rocks was very near the surface . Quite a lot of panning was done and there were flecks on this statue. Tricia looks suitably impressed!

The search moved underground

and we saw the shafts from both top

and bottom.

Quite a history before the gold rush fever moved everyone further west. It was lovely to spend some time with them both and not feel too pressured to rush round (although I did manage some jeans shopping!). So thank-you both for a relaxing time before the mayhem that is Las Vegas.

Interesting watering patterns (I assume) from the plane on the flight over  

and as we approached could see both part of Lake Mead

and the desert.

I had arranged to visit the Grand Canyon by helicopter on the first morning,fortunately from the 'local' airport. Limousine picked me up and after the obligatory 'weigh-in' we were allocated to the different helicopters and off. At the edge of the airfield these beauties were hiding but quite who they thought they were protecting heaven knows.

The desert is a riot of colour

and we flew over the Hoover Dam (used in one of the James Bond films)

with a closer look at Lake Mead where many people go for boating trips

before reaching the canyon

 and landing on a ledge

where we could walk to overlook the river where many photo's were taken!

We had a walk round and I was rather taken with this cactus

before we retired under some much needed shelter for a glass of fizz and a picnic box which was rather better than I had expected.

On the flight back there was another lovely view of part of the lake

and a reminder that the area was volcanic (shades of Hawaii) spot the cone!

 With a last reminder of the desert colours.

We flew over  a resort on the edge of the lake nearest Las Vegas and you may recognise this bridge from somewhere else! From this height not a bad impression of Florence.

On arriving back into Las Vegas, from airport on left to stratosphere on right.

We flew close to the stratosphere where you can take a very high and scary ride, look at the arm on the left!

Then travelled up the strip so had an opportunity of seeing some of the hotels from the air

Bellagio in the foreground and Paris behind

Ceasars Palace which spreads more than this for shopping

The Venetian where I stayed, all three of the blocks at the rear with Treasure Island in the front

New York, New York

and of course the Luxor

The whole place is shopping and gambling (although there was a very interesting photography exhibition in our hotel, but cost an arm and a leg to get into so failed miserably in trying to get any culture). The insides of the hotels once away from the inevitable casino were quite interesting, a Parisian street in Paris was very well done and the grand canal (2 floors up!) and totally indoors in our hotel was also pretty spectacular.

Our hotel tried hard, this is the walkway between reception and the casino

and this was the view of our nearest outside pool from my room window, the pool is on the 10th yes 10th floor!

Las Vegas at night is a whole different thing with various entertainments on offer apart from the fountains, sorry no decent pictures, you can catch volcanoes

pirate ships both spooky, filled with lady sirens in their show

and more mundane, the musical show lasted for 25 minutes or so and completely free to those on the sidewalk.

Paris looks particularly pretty

as did our Doges palace tower, not to mention the Rialto Bridge, shame about the traffic!

We ventured out to Fremont Street which is the 'old' part of Vegas, where the street is covered with lights,

the show girls were out

and to the local buffet, which was very good as confirmed by this patron!!

I tried to win a BMW on the slot machines (as you do!) but fortunately only on my last day so only lost a very little, it was quite extraordinary to see people putting dollar after dollar into the machines, and poker/blackjack tables often had $50 minimum so glad I was not tempted. It is an extraordinary town given over to look-alike people, I saw 'Rod Stewart' and 'Johnny Depp' just wandering down the street as well as look-alike places, but I think I'll stick to the originals places not people!

Fran and I shared a meal and saw The Jersey Boys as her birthday present and at the time it was lovely to come out of the theatre after 11pm into still very warm air to stroll back up the strip to our hotel. A great way to celebrate an important birthday.