After spending the evening trying to fit everything into the cases and evenly distribute the weight about them all – we did it and had some room to spare so decided to make one more shopping stop. You know in case we had missed anything.

The first thing that Angus said once we got into the traffic was “where’s my bag?”, yep, we had left our water stash bag at the Hotel and decided to just abandon it as our early start was now 9.00am. The water at the parks is usually quite expensive (like $2-$3.5) but you also have to queue for it which may cut into the riding time. Never mind, onwards.

We are driven round and shown where they film different movies and TV shows. We drive into the King Kong set and experience a 360o 3D screen, we were given glasses when we got on the bus. It was amazing the bus shook, moved, jerked and we were squirted with water and air etc in sync with the movie.
 

We eat at a place called Koji’s Sushi & Shabu Shabu Restaurant – very cool place. You have a hot pot on a hotplate in front of you and you dip in your food to cook it. Rosie had a cherry cocktail which was delicious.

This was, indeed, the best outlet mall so far. I say this as Angus and McKay spent at least an hour supping Starbucks, surfing the WIFI internet there and wondering how things were going. Needless to say another bag was purchased to envelope the new stuff. Shoes were a big hit so hopefully there will be a volume reduction as the boxes are peeled off in LA.

Some yahooing redneck ran into the casino as we were leaving yelling “Osama’s dead”. We didn’t know at the time but that’s where we were when we heard. Later we had it confirmed by a text message from one of McKay’s friends in Brisbane. As much as the credibility of either source was quite low, together it clinched it.

First stop – Hoover Dam. Amazing. They have just completed a new bridge that you drive over rather than via the Hoover Dam as far as the highway is concerned. But you can still drive over the dam. The new bridge is four lanes with shoulders and pedestrian walkway.  The Dam crossing is a weight controlled two-lane with side-walks. On one side is Nevada and the other Arizona.

During the circuit on the bus O'Regan saw the “Master Chief” (character from the Halo series of games) posing for photos outside the M&M and Coke stores but we were travelling down the other side of the road and O’Regan was very keen to see the guy. These guys dress up and put themselves out there for tips and I’m sure there are some days it’s not worth it.
 

Back on the strip and it was now getting on for time and we had booked a show that started at 7.00pm. We had to locate the bus stop pick up point and get back to the hotel, change and then back to the Harrah’s hotel for the show all in 1 ½ hours – doable.

Drive back to the hotel down the strip – was amazing there is so much happening in all directions. All the hotels are massive and amazing. There is constant action from sundown at each of the hotels, each trying to coax people in.

The drive was beautiful and the scenery was stunning in places, lots of rocks and mountains. The views were very like the scenes from Cars the cartoon with the steep inclines and these sweeping valleys.

We had lunch at IHOP - international house of pancakes.  This was one of the cheapest meals we have had so far and it was okay too. Not just pancakes, of course, but that is what we wanted (and waffles).

We then knocked off Medusa and Roar (also on Wikipedia). It was Easter Sunday so the park started quite empty, no doubt most families in the area had a few hours chocolate egg eating and roller coasters don’t immediately seem like a good idea. For those of us at the park it meant that all the rides were running very short queues.
 

On the way back we saw an accident and the subsequent traffic jam was horrendous (not on our side of the freeway). This much traffic backs up really quickly.

We got back to the beginning and needed something to eat. We also bought fleece lined jackets (matching of course) to try and recover from the freeze.

Off to Napa to go to another outlet mall. Napa is a picturesque service town surrounded by the wine and fruit growing region north of San Francisco.

We left about 3pm and travelled for about 30 minutes and the kids were hungry so we stopped at ‘Taco Bell’ this was a first for us. It was pleasantly not too bad. 

Finally we arrived at Pismo Beach Lighthouse Suites, our accommodation for the night before the big drive up to San Francisco.

The ride was a jeep ride in a cave, running along a rail - dips, bumps, blasts of air, mist and drops - totally awesome ride thank goodness it was worth the HUGE wait.

First it was off to space mountain – only a short 40 minute wait.  What to expect?

After a quick stroll back to the hotel it was off to bed, at 1.00am.  Ahhh finally sleep.  Day 1 is done and it was epic.