Visiting Grand Canyon, AZ

Using Vision tour service, we went to Grand Canyon from Las Vegas. The Canyon is famous as the widest Canyon with its unique and enchanting sight. The first place we hit before the Canyon is the Hoover Dam, a giant dam that built in Nevada (I believe it was finished in 1953) to block the Colorado river wild stream and convert it into electrical energy. The electricity was distributed to California (53%), Nevada (19%) and Arizona for the rest. The reason behind percentage of distribution was based on population density at those states. Currently, Nevada itself needs the electricity more than 19% (think about how many power spent by Las Vegas only), so she has to buy the electricity from other state. In this ironical case, Nevada finally has to buy back the power from California. What a story. Every vehicle that approaches the dam needs to pass the 'tight' security checking point for safety reason, preventing terrorist to blow up the dam. After stopping by the dam for 15 minutes, we continued the trip to Canyon through the historic route 66, the oldest route available in US that connects the east cost and the west coast. The trip to Grand Canyon spent few hours before finally we crossed the Arizona border and saw the park entrance gate. The park is much more green than dessert or savannah that dominates our sight along the trip. We observed the Grand Canyon from the south rim. It was amazing to hear explanation from the tv guide that the canyon was actually located at the bottom of the sea milions years ago. An inner power cracked the area, made the sea level dropped down, and slowly the sea changed into rivers, left the stream eroded the canyon for million years until its shape as is. That is why archeologist could find fossils of fishes & shells at the Canyon rock. Above the interesting story behind the canyon, we were also amazed with the beauty of the Grand Canyon and perceived that long & hourly trip has been paid off with it.

Las Vegas at Night

We can easily enjoy the beautiful sightseeing of Las Vegas City during the night, when the hotels and casinos turn their neon signs on and light up the city's night atmosphere. Our first night experience was attending live show at hotel Rio. The show was located at the first level with the main stage on the casino area and with several moving stages that were slowly moving around their rail, hanging on the ceiling. The fabulous dancers performed their abilities at the main stage and the hanging stage, while a few of clowns did their atractions among the casino's alleys. When the show was ended, the clown and dancers distributing a light-weight necklace to the lucky audiences. I said lucky, since they just threw the necklace toward the crowd of audiences. After satisfied with live show at Rio hotel, we moved to Bellagio hotel at the strip area, a hotel that offers a dancing fountain show every 15 minutes at their giant pool. From the location of dancing fountain pool, we can also enjoy a strategic view of other hotels nearby, such as hotel Paris, Aladdin, Ballys, Flamingo, and Caesar Palace. For your information, Vegas offers hotels with special theme likes New York, Egypt, Sahara, and Paris. For example, the Paris hotel has a miniature of the Eiffel Tower at their front yard, while the New York hotel has a miniature of the liberty statue and the Chrysler building. The Sahara hotel has a miniature of an african palace (while The Aladdin hotel offer an arabic palace), and the Circus hotel, as its name has a lot of circus symbols at the yard. The Luxor hotel, is an Egyptian pyramid shaped hotel that burst a white light from the top of its pyramid toward the dark night sky. Since the light is so focused and so strong, even the astronaut at outerspace also can observe this light. At the Bellagio hotel itself, we also has an opportunity to see indor panoramic at the hotel's lobby which the theme is changing every 5 years. This years, it offers a panoramic that consists of miniature of majorUS point of interest, such as the NY bridge, the capitol house, and the statue of former US president crafted on the hill side, Florida's forest, and others. Moving from the Strip hotels area, we were heading to Freemont street, the other major point of interest in Vegas. The uniqueness of freemont street is the street itself is covered by a long ceiling structure, which is spanned along the street, that actualy is a live graphical display, controlled by a computer system and showing a short film. The film is about an invasion of Allien creature to Vegas. The US fleet command can get ride of the allien mother ship, yet there are escaping alliens who finally reach Vegas and quietly play poker at the casino. What a funny story that packages in (maybe) the longest LCD display on the world. At the freemont street, we can also enjoy a live piano show on a truck, shop at specialized store, dine at restaurants, and of course play at the casinos. The freemont experience was the end of our night tour at Vegas. Well it is a faboulous city with its night life.

Stay in Las Vegas, NV

Powered by Saturn SL2 2002, we drove to Vegas, Nevada for 385 miles away, and as long as 5 hours from our base in San Diego. This was our first trip to Vegas. Along the journey, desserts were the most sightseeing we had. There are a factory outlet in Barstow (still in CA), yet we perceived that most of prices are still relatively expensive.
In Vegas, we stayed at the Stratosphere hotel, a hotel that famous with its tallest construction (actually, it is its tower) in Mississippi area. On the observation deck, we can see the panoramic of las vegas city in 360 degrees. The outdoor observation deck at the tower itself is located at level 109 (compared with Wisma46 BNI jakarta that only has 42 levels), and there are 3 thriller rides on top of the tower waiting for you to ride them. As another big hotel in Vegas, the 1st floor is used for casino and restaurants. One level higher, we can find shops, entrance to the tower, and closed theatre for the Viva Las Vegas, the American Superstars, and the Bite shows. Shopping at the gift shop at level 2 was affordable, compared with our shopping experienced at the largest gift centre nearby the hotel. A free swimming pool for hotel guests is located at level 8, and if you prefer to see topless girls, the hotel provides an adult oasis at level 25, yet you boys need to pay $10 for it. And girls? of course they are free to entry the oasis. We stayed at Vegas for 4 nights and 5 days before driving back to San Diego. If people say Vegas is the best entertainment city in US, well... now we have to agree with them.

4th of July Parade

On July 4th, 2006, we saw the independence parade in Coronado area. The parade would be started at 10:00am, yet people were ready along the curb since early in the morning, tried to place their portable chair at the most possible strategic place. Since we have military bases in Coronado area, they appearance were outstanding during the parade. Another contestants were local organizations, schools, police & border patrol, fire department, and automotive clubs. An air show of WWII fighter planes was also fly over the sky on the parade areas. After attending the parade, people were moving and get ready to hit the beach areas. For sure, if you visit San Diego beaches on July 4th, you will hardly find empty space, since going to beach on independence day is a tradition for most of people here. Many of them also prepared to enjoy fireworks shows at night, mostly at San Diego Bay.