Long Trips: October 2007

The first day of the trip was one of the worst I ever experienced. At first, the airplane was delayed for about 1 hour in Sea-Tac airport. It's a very windy day in Vegas. The first landing was a scare. The airplane was suddenly lifted up on the runway. I could see the baseball field besides the airport clearly. The airplane circled Vegas for another time. While it lands, there were claps out of relieved passengers. We rented a car from Hertz and was told the car had a full tank. We drove out of the rental car garage. When we were just on I15, the indicator showed "low fuel". The gas needle was in the "E" side rather than in the "F" side. We had to get out of the highway and parked somewhere. I called Hertz and they told me to add gas myself. So we used our GPS device to find the nearest gas station. It found the one near the Sahara road, which we used years ago when we visited Vegas. However, when we drove there, the gas station was gone. The place was a big work site for a new hotel. We drove across I15 for another few miles to find a gas station. With Gas in the tank, I felt a little better. We drove to the parking lot of Circus Circus, our hotel. It's a Saturday night. There were just too many people. I droved up from the ground floor to the very top of parking building 1 without being able to find a parking spot. We had to go to parking building 2, where we found a spot on the fourth floor. After registration, it's already too late about 9:30pm. Everyone were hungry. We thought it's time to treat us the famous Las Vegas buffet. When we walked through the casino. However, the buffet was just closed. So we had to settle down on the MacDonald. What a day!

The second day wasn't that bad. Vegas is always fun. We visited Excalibur, Luxor, Mandalay Bay at first. Then moved Bellagio, besides our favorite fountain show, we were also impressed by its autumn decoration. Out of Bellagio, we went to Flamingo, Bally and Paris. We happened to view the opera kind of show at Venice. Unfortunately, we couldn't see the Pirate show in Treasure Island because it was windy.

Autumn Deco at Bellegio

Eiffel Tower at Paris Hotel

Grand Canal Shopping Square at Venice Hotel

Live Sculpture at Venice Hotel

Italy Opera at Venice Hotel

Pirate Show at Treasure Island Hotel

The third day, we went to Death Valley NP. Along the way, there were so many houses built or to be built. One can feel the seriousness of the housing problem.

Death Valley is a starch contrast to the excessive and artificial Vegas. We visited the furnish creek oasis, Sand Dunes, Mosaid Canyon and of course Bad Water. At the end , we drove to the Dante's point to view the whole Death Valley.