We started the morning early in Las Vegas at 6:00am…well, kinda. When you’re still brain is still on Eastern Time, 6am PST (9 EST) isn’t so hard to do. Even after a late night in Vegas.

From there we did the rent-a-car scramble. We didn’t reserve one, because we had not really planned on going to the Grand Canyon until about 2pm the day before. Between the hours of 8 – 9am I walked to rent a car agencies in: Treasure Island, Mirage, Venetian and the Palazzo. At this point I decided to check online. Apparently the entire Las Vegas area (including the airport) was fresh out of cars. Eventually we headed off the strip, and found a car 10 miles away. It was a pickup truck, but came with unlimited miles. It’ll do.

We left at 10:30am and got there some time 5 or 6 hours later – we decided to head for the larger south rim instead of the (smaller) slice on the west end that’s only a few hours out of Vegas. We got to drive across the Hoover Dam, and experience all kinds of different exciting climates. Well, as exciting as it is to see trees after spending 3 hours driving through dirt and little plant..bush things.

Anyways, this has been by far the coolest location I’ve had a chance to shoot at – here are a few photos from the day:

The view out of our 33rd story room overlooking the strip at Treasure Island – Vegas Tip: If you’d like a better room, pull out a $20 as you ask about any possible free upgrades. They’ll usually find you something.

I’m off to Washington DC/Virginia and Philadelphia this week for some corporate work. Hopefully I have a few spare minutes to check out the White House and other sights!

It’s not that I’ve been lazy – quite the opposite in fact. I’ve just been too busy looking after clients / family / friends to keep everyone updated.  So here is part one of what I’ve been up to since November.

Las Vegas, NV.

The Luxor was our home for a few days. Fun facts about the Luxor:
1. The elevators are actually inclinators that go up on ~60 degree angles. You never really know which way you’re going to get pulled in, fun stuff.
2. There is a Starbucks as soon as you get off the inclinator.
3. Carrot Top was everywhere.

So this is my second attempt to get this photo. Sadly this time, I was on the the side opposite to the Strip upon landing. This photo was taken during the decent (well, actually downwind on the circuit if you’re a fellow pilot)

There’s a couple of these kicking around in Las Vegas.

Las Vegas is pretty fake. Plastic grass, palm trees, etc. That said, these are real, legit, palm trees.

Not sure about these ones.

Paris.

You get some crazy reflections through the windows of a pyramid.

Las Vegas City Center…still under construction. It’s mammoth.

Street side escalators are pretty much the norm.

Flight out.

That’s all for now. I’ll update this more frequently. Promise.