October 29: Viva Las Vegas

Inside rugby world cup joke...

Well, the object of the exercise was to get somewhere to store the Whale for Thanksgiving through to the New Year while I went home, so on Monday I rented a car to go have a look at a few places.  Found one in North west Vegas - not too bad and cheaper than what I paid over the summer in Phoenix.  With all that sorted out before lunch, I drove up to mount Charleston just west of town.  Beautiful drive - but most of it was still closed due to the rains from Hillary in the summer.  I basically drove from 2000ft above sea level to over 6000 ft in 20 minutes, and I could feel it in the drop in temperature...

Wild horses at Mount Charleston

Las Vegas in the distance

Crazy rocks

30 minutes from Vegas

and back on the strip

Drove over to the Red Rock canyon - which is really less than 30 minutes from the strip.  Crazy rock formations and according to the locals the mountains constantly have snow on them during the winter - weird to think that while you are standing in the desert.

Spent the rest of the week fixing/resealing the roof of the Whale + taking off the black dome for the satellite dish and the TV antenna which is never used.  Took a while, but the results look good.  Funny part of the RV park was that just before I arrived on Sunday, someone drove their car through the laundry and took out the bathrooms as well.  He then tried to drive away, but a number of park residents got enough photos and he was caught by the local police shortly after.  Did not help that we did not have a laundry or external bathrooms...

No more satellite dish or TV arial

Smash burgers with a water view...

On Saturday I Uber'ed into the strip to go find a pub that would show the Rugby world cup final.  Finally found Ri Ra in Mandalay Bay.  Naturally there were a few South African's there in full spirit - they were from Cape Town and in Las Vegas for a drag racing convention - had no idea drag racing was even a thing in South Africa, and naturally there were a few disheartened Irish supporters as well.

The Indian restaurant with a difference - a robot waiter/waitress??  Unfortunately I think the Biryani  tasted as if it was made by a robot as well...

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Only in Vegas on the street

Them South Africans are everywhere

Irish lassie doing the Guinness thing (funny thing is the blog spellchecker insists that Guinness is spelt with a capital C)

End of the story was South Africa scrapped through 12-11 against New Zealand (who had their captain sent off half way through the game) - but the Springbok defence was exceptional. 

Go Bokke.