And so that concludes…

Yes, that concludes the 2 weeks mountain biking section of my holiday… We drove back to St. George to Mark Erickson’s place where he had kindly offered to allow us to wash our bikes down, and pack them up. This took a while in the hot sun but it was great to have good facilities to do this at (rather than a motel room).

Arriving in Las Vegas we first dropped Vicki off at a hospital to see if they were going to be able to do any more for her wrist – it still hadn’t been seen by an orthopaedic surgeon and still probably needed to be plastered. Neil and I drove to our hotel – the Stratosphere. This was at the “top end” of the strip and kinda borderline with the “old” Las Vegas but our room on the 18 floor was ok and the view out over the desert was pretty good. Checking into the hotel was quite an experience – you had to walk through part of the gaming floor. There was noise and people everywhere playing pokies.

After picking up Vicki (still nothing achieved – our health system doesn’t suck quite as much as the US one) we freshening up and headed out down the strip. First stop was a “all you can eat” buffet for $10.99 at the Sahara as Neil and I were starving. Neil wanted to know where all the beautiful people were… they certainly don’t hang out at the $10.99 buffet!! But it did fill a gap quickly. Further down the strip we went into another casino to have a look around and try to get a drink. This was harder than it looked. Unless you were sitting playing a game of some kind the drink waiters didn’t want to know you. We eventually found a bar where we all started off with a very strong Margarita.

I don’t remember all the names of the casinos we visited but the countries they were trying to represent. We went to Venice, Rome, Paris… all very funny, ostentatious… It was kinda odd really as I didn’t really like the place due to the outrageousness of it all but at the same time it was also entertaining. The Bellagio was putting on a massive water fountain display to music as we walked by and others all had something on to try and draw punters in.

The most entertaining moment of the evening though was Neil playing his first poker machine. I suspect that Neil and I have the same view on gambling and I certainly wasn’t that bothered about putting money down the drain into a pokie machine. Neil put in $5 and proceeded to push buttons at random. The credits slowly ticked down, and down and then all of a sudden he won 100 credits… he immediately cashed out… a whole $17!! Vicki and I fell about laughing… it was very funny… but it paid for another round of drinks.

Saturday 17th
We were up early, checked out of the hotel, and headed out to the airport. Neil and Vicki were heading in the hire car down to Phoenix while I was catching a plane to Denver. I had a bit of luck checking in. I was expecting to pay $50 to get my bike on but the lady asked if it was a table and I just nodded… the padded bike bag has got more valuable.

Denver airport is massive! It’s obviously a major hub for central US and it’s plonked in the middle of the plains well out from the city. Being in snow country they even have a special luggage conveyor for skis and snowboards. Getting to the hire car I was allowed to choose what car I wanted and ended up with a Chrysler PT Cruiser. It was perfect in that the rear seats folded down and then the boot was big enough to stuff in the bike bag without ended stuffing…

I’m now staying in Manitou Springs, Colorado for the next two weeks in a cheap motel while I attend the Barnetts Bicycle Institute. It’s perfect in that it has cooking facilities etc as I couldn’t envision myself eating out for breakfast, lunch and dinner for two weeks. It’s also very quiet which appears unusual for hotels/motels here as they are normally positioned as close to the busiest road as they can. The only downfall is that the bed is the lumpiest I’ve ever slept on.

Well it’s Tuesday morning here and as I have to be at school in half an hour so I’d better leave any more till later.