I came to Vegas, shot shit up and all I got was this lousy t-shirt.

Waking up in Vegas appeared to be less difficult than I imagined. Somehow we're all awake before the alarm went on. It must have something to do with the amazing queen-size boxspring beds I guess! Anyways, after taking a shower in our glorious bathroom we went to Morels, one of the top ten restaurants in Vegas to have brunch.




I ordered the watermelon salad, which was definitely worth the price of admission. Kim, Tom and Charissa all had the pancakes, which was testament to the eating standards of the Americans: too much to possibly consume and fat but tasty!
After brunch the real American experience was set to begin. After driving about half an hour away from the strip we arrived at the Las Vegas Gun Range. A couple rednecks with a huge collection of guns, what's more American than that?


Of course we didn't go there to watch some hillbillies do their thing. After selecting our package we entered the shooting range with the good stuff. I myself selected the MP5 and the Glock 9mm. Kim and Charissa got to shoot an Uzi instead of the MP5 though. Two mags full of bullets went straight into my target, the most exhilarating experience in months. The Glock was a bit more based on aiming than the automatic MP5 but still fun. I was definitely surprised how light these guns were. Just to get that little extra that puts it over the top, we got to use a "Green Piece" t-shirt as our shooting target. I simply riddled it with bullets and got to say the t-shirt is a lot more ventilated now.
The roadtrip is now officially a success. Anything that follows is considered an extra!
After some Mexican standoff pictures we took off to some huge-ass shopping center for anything related to camping, fishing or hunting. Needless to say we're now completely prepared for the most extreme camping conditions imaginable.
All that shooting and shopping got us hungry again, so we went over to the Wynn for their famous all-you-can-eat buffet. Especially the crab-legs were worth a special mention!
Because we didn't plan on any of the big entertainment shows like Celine Dion or similar we opted for a free pirate show on the strip in front of the Mirage hotel. Crazy to which extremes these hotels go to attract customers. I guess Europe hasn't even got one hotel that is of the size of any of the big ones at the strip.
After that we went to the Stratosphere. That's a huge tower at the end of the strip that has an amazing view over the city. But we didn't go there solely for that. No no no, there's a lot more to the Stratosphere than meets the eye! On top of the huge tower they built another tower for a Dalton-terror-like thrill ride. The big difference is that you also get shot up in the air and not just the free-fall alone. And the fact that it's 1600 feet above the ground of course! Great stuff.
We took the monorail back to the Venetian where we tucked in for our last night in Vegas (for now).
Waking up this morning, we managed to get out of the room before the checkout hour which is an accomplishment on its own. For breakfast we went to Morels again, but we were forced to eat dinner, so I went for the steak frites. Not bad at all, probably the last decent meal of class I'll have this trip! After that we took off to Boulder City to see Hoover Dam. The tallest dam of the Northern hemisphere revealed itself right before our eyes. Call me a nerd but I couldn't help remembering the exact structure of the dam based on Fallout New Vegas and Duke Nukem Forever. Those are games if you didn't know.
So we got to take a look inside the dam which had 17 huge generators. An engineer's dream.
Every generator generates about 2/3rd of an atomic power plant, and they've got 17 of those!
With Hoover dam behind us, we drove into the desert to our next location. We took route 66, the legendary road that connects the West of America to the East. Needless to say it's one of the most boring routes you can ever imagine.
When we arrived at the Hualapai Lodge it was already dark. So we went to bed to dream about the Grand Canyon that will be on our plate tomorrow morning!

Andreas