Arriving in Vegas, we ended up sharing a rental car, since we were staying at the same hotel.
First day, to the Venetian, where we found a decent restaurant and had some good lunch.
The Intern and Chris were trying to decide what was worth eating.
Kristine and Jerry hamming it up wit da beverages.
Pretty nice place.
Kristine got a little sick of me taking photos.
Mmmm ... burgertastic.
For dinner later that day, before heading to the Cirque du Soleil O show, we ended up in the Bellagio, where they had this super freaky patriotism display or something, complete with styrofoam liberty bell.
These animatronic eagles were absoutely alarming.
The next morning, we hopped on a water taxi to go to the helicopter ride. There's a helipad out by the Lake Las Vegas Resort area (well, actually therre are 8 of them).
Ride takes about 20 minutes. The weather didn't look the best, but was forecast to get better.
There's the chopper waiting for us already.
Our taxi.
The pilot (chica) coming to get us. She seemed a bit crabby at first, but loosened up as the trip wore on.
It's a cute little Eurocopter Turbine doo-dad.
Very spartan on the inside, too.
Despite the bad weather, the views outsidew were totally cool.
I totally forgot her name.
Kristine preparing for a career in music.
Hoover Dam!
The ride out to the canyon was mostly spent dodging clouds.
There were hordes of other helicopters out there riding too.
I kept hearing "Ride of the Valkyries" in my head.
This was the closest call we head -- we had to dodge between a mountain and some clouds.
Spooooky!
But it was perfectly clear on the other side.
And quite nice in a cloudy kinda way.
We counted four other helicopters at one point, all going the same way.
There was some cheesy narrative telling us what everything was, but I don't think anybody was paying attention.
Cool little landing strip on one of the hilltops.
We finally entered the canyon, where it's quite shallow still.
It gets deep, however, in a real hurry.
It's pretty cool flying up and down within the canyon.
Half the helicopters following us spllit off here and dropped down for lunch.
We kept on going for a while.
There was one stopping base with a good group of choppers already there.
We continued a bit further and started landing, where another helicopter from the same touring company was also landing. cool!
Being a crappy day out, it was only about 30C/90F out. The lady was saying that normally it's about 125F/50C down in the canyon.
It's pretty cool watching a helicopter land from within another 'copter!
The pilots (both ladies!) then stopped the machines and we poured out to wander around and check out the surroundings while they prepared lunch for us.
It's pretty cool. We weren't at the bottom of the canyon, but definitely well down inside of it.
The area is land rented from the local Indian tribes (for a hefty, hefty sum).
Fire ants! Holy crap, there was a monstrous horde of these things.
Strike a pose!
We had some trouble taking a good photo.
There is a tonne of wildlife and stuff going on down here. You just have to be careful and look for it.
Jerry had some weird eye thing going on today. He refused to open his right eye for photos.
We were just trying to look cool.
Lizard!
Creepy-crawly weird red thing.
MmmMMMmmmm ... lunch. It was like a sammmich, apple, cookie, and champagne.
We headed out a bit earlier than the other group.
Going back to the choppers!
Still has that right eye closed.
Group photo!
Group Photo #2!!
Firing the ole' turbine back up.
Kristine actually fell asleep on the return trip ...
Takin' off.
We headed up the wall of this canyon before sweeping around and working our way back.
The ride back was spent mostly stalking the other red copter.
Pretty cool scenery.
There are a tonne of these 'houseboats' parked on the shores of these lakes.
Landing, the pilot never actually shut down the engine, and we just did a "hot exit" with a couple of people helping us out.
Working our way back to the hotel.
Nice day for golfing!!
When we got back, we wandered around the little "town" they have here in Lake Las Vegas for a while.
It's pretty nice, although strangely always deserted.
We got some gorgeous shots of the village before heading out the next morning.
