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Blimey, it's cloudy outside.. oh well, there goes the planned dip in the Mirages pool.. and just as the tan was starting to kick in too.. bummer.
We got off to a fairly lazy start and decided to go to Henderson and do some of the Factory tours over there, Henderson is sort of the "living quarters" for Las Vegas, it butts up to the South East corner of the city & is expanding at a rapid rate as more & more people move to the region attracted by work at the casinos, 4 factories offer free public tours, "Clown" "Marshmallow" "Posh Chocolate" and "Cranberry" .. we prioritised them and set off..
On the way to the Marshmallow factory (So where would *you* have gone first?) we stopped of at a burger place for a late breakfast/early lunch, the "In 'N Out Burger" had been highly recommended by friends who live out this way so we had to check it out, (Forsaking our favorite "Sonic Drive-In" cos we couldn't find it..) ...the "In'N Out" is a classic old fashioned fast food burger place, the menu has 3 items, 1. hamburger. 2. cheeseburger and 3. both in the same bun with extra cheese. (god bless America!), the place was very busy and after receiving our order (I had "2" RK had "3") we sat on a table for 4 which was already occupied by a business man having his lunch... we got talking and on finding out I was British he told us how he and his wife had followed Prince Edwards marriage on TV.. I soon put him right on the correct degree of disinterest to show any & all royal events...
2 hours it took us to find the Marshmallow factory..2 hours slogging up & down unfinished roads, through construction sites in & out of industrial parks... then, just as we were about to give up.. "Marshmallow Drive" aha!! we pulled up at the front door, to be greated by a "Under new management, the factory no longer gives tours" sign.. miserable bastards... now I'll NEVER know how they make marshmellow..
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2nd factory was Ron Lees Clown World.. if you ever want to spend $400 on a gold plated, hand painted metal clown this is the place to visit (Americans will collect anything it seems...) actually it was pretty interesting, you could see all the stages of manufacture through glass windows, the staff must feel like animals in a zoo, there's nowhere to hide.. took some photos of the scarey clowns then off to:
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Cranberry World (west.. they have one on the east coast too) everything you ever wanted to know about making cranberry juice, it felt lie a shool trip, the fun factor was way low on tis one.. and you arn't allowed to photograph the inmates.. er employees...
Finally The Ethel M Chocolate factory, "Better than godiva chocolates" they claimed.. "not as good as cadburys" we decided.. a dull old tour. skip it if you're in the area, we took a stroll around their cactus garden and called it a day.
Back to Vegas.. a friend of RK's had asked us to check out the "Star Trek experience" at the Hilton, so we did that, it had a cool entry hall/casino area with giant Enterprises hanging from the ceiling, but the actual experience was $16 to get into so we skipped it.. (Free factory tours spoil you)
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all we had time to do before we flew out was hit a movie and have dinner so thats what we did.. "Big Daddy" is the latest Adam Sandler film, and is exactly what you'd expect, some laughs but not earth shattering.. then our last meal in Vegas, we decided to go to "America" as it was close to the cinema and we could get to the airport quickly from there, we informed the waiter we only had 45 minutes so he wouldn't keep us hanging around "I'll tell the chef" he said.. 30 minutes later he came back to the table: "You're going to kill me..I forgot to put your order in.." thanks pal. now we both have all night flights on empty stomachs. how do people get that dumb?
So off to the airport via Taco Bell it was, we both walked straight onto our flights as we were running a bit late and left around midnight.
I can't speak for RK but I had a fab 6 days, we packed loads in, got a tan & didn't lose the kids college fund gambling.. of course, not having kids helps..