We have had a great time in Las Vegas, though we didn't really think of ourselves as Vegas-type of people. We've been really surprised at how cheap Vegas can be (at least for us). When we were first making road trip plans, we figured we'd breeze through Vegas because we wouldn't be able to afford being there for much longer. When we looked at hotel prices (assuming that we'd have to stay far away from everything), we were shocked to find rooms in a Strip hotel/casino were the cheapest rooms we'd seen anywhere in America--about half of what we normally pay for a room. We figured there had to be a catch (expensive parking, weird fees), but so far so good. Although our hotel isn't quite at the same glamor level as some of the other casinos, we lucked out because it seems to be the "budget" casino. For example, most of the other casinos have $5 minimums on blackjack hands, which makes a dent in your money pretty quickly, but at our place you can play for $1. Obviously, Vegas gambling can be murder to a bank account, but Brad and I are both pretty conservative financially, so there's no real danger that we're going to go overboard.
We played the slots a bit too, though only the penny slots because the slots have terrible odds, so we didn't want to put too much into it. I won $20 at New York, New York (which we promptly cashed in and left--take that casinos!) We also were net positive (by $.02!) at Bellagio.
After four nights in Vegas, we left for points west. Our intended activity for the day was Death Valley, but we got a slow start in the morning and had some errands to run before leaving Las Vegas (cue Sheryl Crowe). We didn't make it to Death Valley until late afternoon, so we didn't have time to do anything beyond drive through, but the scenery was quite beautiful and way more mountain-y than I'd expected. Also unexpected was how un-desolate it is. We saw plenty of other cars, everything was well-signposted, and the distances didn't seem so far away. I'm sure it has quite a different feel in the 130-degree summers, but for now we can feel the hubris of modern travelers conquering the desert in our well-stocked Hyundai.
We're spending the evening in an out-of-the-way southern CA town that lacks charm. Surprisingly, it feels weird to be back on the road again. We spent 4 nights in Vegas, which is the longest amount of time we've spent in a single place since September. After having that nice little break in a plush room, it's hard to go back to roadside motels and not spending more than 15 hours in a place. Luckily, we've saved some of the most exciting parts of the road trip for this Southwestern sojourn since over three months on the road is starting to grow tiring.
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