One of the things that we most wanted to do whilst in Vegas was take a trip out to the Grand Canyon. After Ben and Michelle raved about their helicopter trip, we were keen to do the same type of journey. So after a lot of shopping around, plus some SMS’ed support from Bender, we secured some seats at a fantastic price, for a Grand Canyon Picnic tour. The only downer was the super early start time – 6:15am! But the company provided limousine transfers, so at least we were riding in comfort!

On our flight out to the canyon, the pilot selected Kristy and I to ride up front with him. If you ever do a helicopter tour, riding up front is definitely the way to go – the view and visibility is much better than in the back! The first famous landmark that we flew over was the Hoover Dam. I couldn’t believe how clear and blue the water looked!

Not long after that we flew over the rim of the Grand Canyon. Holy moly, it was amazing! It’s just so… big! I was completely blown away. The Colorado River runs straight through the middle of the Canyon, and just like Lou Lou, I was quite surprised to see how brown it was in comparison to the super blue water behind Hoover Dam.

As part of our tour, we got to actually land inside the canyon for a picnic-styled breakfast and some on-the-ground photo opportunities. For the first time in our lives, we found a stranger that actually knew how to use a digital SLR – so we finally got a decent photo of us!

Well, it was almost a decent photo, but “somebody” closed their eyes. D’oh! And then he didn’t even take a backup, just in case photo! C’mon, you call yourself a pro?!

Anyway, to his credit, this dude had a Canon EOS series camera himself (hence why we figured he’d take a decent photo), and a wide-angled lens – so he whipped his lens onto our camera and took a few more snaps of us. What a legend! Unfortunately (and as is fitting with our luck), all the photos that he took with the lens on for some reason makes us look like cardboard cutouts. I don’t know if that’s an inherent problem with wide-angle lenses, or if this guy’s lens was a cheap and nasty – any experts out there, I’d love to know your opinion. This is the least cardboardy-cutouty of the lot.

Kristy and I would have been happy to stay downstairs in the canyon all day, but unfortunately it started to rain whilst we were eating our breakfast. Consequently, we had to cut our meal short, then jump back in our chopper to head back to Las Vegas. But the rain certainly didn’t spoil our trip; on the contrary, it was great to be able to watch the storm front rolling in.

What an experience! Sure, it was a little on the expensive side of things, but as Chellsie put it so well – “it was worth every cent”.

Well, all too quickly, our holiday in Vegas came to an abrupt end, and I turned another year older. Still, of all the places you can go to celebrate your birthday, I’d have to pick Vegas as being one of the best. In Vegas, the whole world is your oyster! (And yet, we didn’t find any oysters on offer while we were there!)

Make sure you check out our Las Vegas and Grand Canyon photo albums to see our holiday in photo format!

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Not that I was surprised, but we thought the fountain show at the Bellagio was spectacular. For a start, they’re huge – much bigger than what I had expected! And, they have multiple shows – we saw at least 3 different performances, each one synchronising the fountains to a different song. Whoever engineers that stuff does a mighty impressive job, making the water streams practically dance to the music. Most impressive of all is how powerful the fountain’s jets are – at full blast, the sound is like thunder, and the water blasts up almost to the top stories of the hotel.

We also managed to catch the show from a variety of different angles. Down on the ground, we saw multiple shows “head on” – standing in front of the fountains and looking back at the hotel. Later on, we walked round to the hotel side of the lake, and watched the show looking back towards Paris. But by far, the best view of all was from the top of the Paris’ Eiffel tower – from there we had a bird’s eye view of everything at once. Spectacular!

But no doubt the question on everyone’s mind is, how does it compare to the Atlantic City fountain? You may think this is a cop-out, but honestly – I don’t think they’re comparable. Outdoors versus indoors, massive and powerful versus small and complex. It’s like trying to compare a limousine (Bellagio) to a WRX (A/C) – both fountains were built with different requirements, but the purpose – entertaining a crowd – is the same.

So it all comes down to personal taste – and if I were forced to choose, I’d say the Bellagio would be my favourite!

So there we were, walking down the Las Vegas strip, when we stopped to take a photo in front of the fountains at The Mirage hotel. I had the photo all set up and ready to go, when some jerk grabbed my backpack and threw my photo off! “Here we go”, I thought, “what does this idiot want? I swear, if it’s one of those timeshare freaks…”

So I turned around to give the timeshare guy a serving, but who do I see standing there instead? My brother! Well paint me green and call me gumby – I was blown away! Turns out that he and Kristy had been conspiring to surprise me for my birthday – and surprised is exactly what I was! Now I know how Ben and Michelle must have felt!

Las Vegas is pretty much Jason’s favourite place in the world, so it’s great to have him here celebrating gerrodfest with us! And holy moly, what a surprise! Though I must admit, after I got past the shock, I was half-expecting to walk home and find Michelle packed in his suitcase…

Wifey and I are heading out to Las Vegas to review the fountain at the Bellagio! We’ll probably do some other stuff while we’re there, but the fountain review is our number one priority! Hopefully we’ll be able to put up a post or two while we’re there, but don’t be surprised if we can’t.

We’ll be back sometime on Wednesday night. Due to the timezone difference, not only will my birthday be 3 hours shorter this year, but I’ll be spending most of it on a plane! D’oh!