View on the World

Page AR - Vegas Baby!

It’s a pretty short hop from Page to Las Vegas, around 4 1/2 hours, so we had planned a nice sleep in around today. So of course I was wide awake at 6 am, *Sigh*. Page itself is really just a little resort town by a lake, but the surrounding countryside is breathtaking.

the City of Page is a young and vibrant community located atop a mesa in north central Arizona, overlooking dramatic vistas of Lake Powell and Glen Canyon Dam, and adjacent to the vast Navajo Nation, the country’s largest Native American tribe.

There is so much to see around Page that we feel a little guilty for snoozing the afternoon away the only day we had here. I have a feeling we may well be back with the kids in tow.

The drive from Page to Las Vegas is spectacular to begin with, you leave Page by driving over Glen Canyon Dam, which while no Hoover Dam is still very impressive. The next couple of hours are vista upon vista of breathtaking scenery. Every time the camera was put down, we’d round a bend and there would be another one.

We stopped briefly at a road side Indian store and picked up a necklace for Stacey and a hand carved Christmas ornament. From a pure geeky perspective it was interesting seeing a wireless eftpos machine in the middle of nowhere. We were in part of the Navajo Nation, the countries largest reservation.

From www.navajo.org

The Navajo Nation extends into the states of Utah , Arizona and New Mexico , covering over 27,000 square miles of unparalleled beauty. Diné Bikéyah, or Navajoland, is larger than 10 of the 50 states in America.

Back in the jeep we eventually came out of the postcard vistas onto a long, flat, straight stretch of road stretching like a runway into Nevada and then to Las Vegas. It was the kind of road you see in Cannonball Run and it made me long for a car to do it justice. The seed limit is 75 mph or around 120 kmh for the Aussies in the audience. I was driving along dreaming of being in a nice Shelby GT Mustang, vintage or current, didn’t bother me. Blasting along that road at 120 mph would have been a lot of fun.

Vegas raises from the desert like a mirage, the 100 degree temperatures creating a heat shimmer. The Stratosphere raising up similar to Centre Point Tower in Sydney Australia.

I’ve heard horror stories about driving around Las Vegas, especially around the strip. I was pleasantly surprised that things were well signed and with the help of Karen, our not so bright GPS we were in New York New York in no time. We chose to self park as the jeep has several moving parts and it can take us a little while to secure things. A good thing too, as I was busting for a toilet, my back teeth were floating. While Stacey was pulling things together I got my first taste of a Las Vegas Casino by dashing inside looking for the Men’s room. Let me spare you the details and just say that I made it … just.

Then began the disappointment that was NYNY. We weren’t a fan of the hotel and would struggle to find a reason to stay there again. The service was pretentious without the quality to back that up. It was expensive without the value and with constant construction it was just like being in the big apple. Our room was at the end of a very long, very crooked hallway ( It’s the wing that looks like a series of buildings )

On the bright side the room was nice and the spa was wonderful after so many days on the road.

This entry was posted on Friday, September 26th, 2008 at 6:41 am and is filed under Road Trip. You can follow any responses to this entry through the feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.