Saturday, 26 December 2009

Old Shrimps

Saturday 26th December

In Las Vegas, 60,000 lbs of shrimps are consumed every day.

If you stayed in a different hotel room every night in Vegas, it would take you 280 years to stay in them all.

The average age of the Las Vegas visitor is 50.6 years old.

85% of visitors to Las Vegas are American, only 15% are International.

Walking in the Air

Saturday 26th December

You have to put these booties over your shoes so you do not scratch the glass. Debbie, our lovely guide and driver, told us it has been imported from Cologne and so must cost a lot. No cameras or mobile phones are allowed on it, though I think this is more to make you shell out for the, admittedly very good, official photographers.

When you first step out on to the glass walkway, you think you are going to slip over and crash through the glass to the canyon floor below. With the cold wind blowing around, it looks like ice and you brace yourself for the fall.

In fact I could drag three Boeing 747s out on to it and it would still hold up, although it would finish me.

This is strong stuff. So you jump up and down on it, just to test it and yourself. It would be more than ironic if jumping was the one thing it was not designed to take.

The skywalk over the Grand Canyon does sway a bit but you feel very safe and, leaning over the side, hanging down into the space below, suspended in mid air by the glass from Cologne, the views are fantastic.

Skywalk, Grand Canyon West Rim

We were also taken to Bat Poop Point or, as it is officially called, Guano Point. They used to dig bat droppings out of the cave here for fertilizers and make-up – before women began to realise exactly what it was they were caking on their faces. Faeces, that is.