We made it... eventually

Beaming live from The Venetian hotel foodcourt (casino level) in Las Vegas from my Nokia Communicator (thanks Monzoon) over free hotel wifi.
Where do I even start - so much has happened.

We finished packing just in time on Saturday, and sat ready at 09h45 for our arranged taxi.
09h55 we were still waiting, so I phoned the company (private chap who advertised in our municipal paper, and on flyers at the post office), and he FORGOT... said he'd be at us in 10mins.

So, stirred but not shaken, we headed for the airport 30min later than planned.
We were dropped off at Terminal 1 where the Star Alliance flags were flying, to be told that United leaves from Terminal 2.
No problem - off we go. Stand in line, get to the counter, and we were charged $25 for a suitcase that weighed 24kg where the allowed weight is 23kg (even though another bag was only 7kg) - a bit unfair.
With no time to argue, we ran to get to midfield Terminal E.
All sweaty and smelly we arrived to board last, and the flight departed quite surprisingly at exactly the scheduled time.

We got to Dulles (Washington DC) airport, grabbed our cabin baggage, picked up stroller (now somehow minus the chocolates and sweets we had in it on loading) and headed to immigration... realised we had left a thermos flask in our seat... no time to get it. Got to the front of the LONG immigration line for non-US citizens only to be told that we were missing some forms (United misinformed us on the plane). so, step back, complete the forms, and pass through.
We collected our luggage, and raced to customs. passed through pretty quickly (not counting all our luggage toppling off the trolley), dropped off our bags at transfers, and hot-tailed it to our gate, to see the airbridge moving away from the plane.
Very calmly, we arranged to get to Vegas via Denver instead, and walked down to our gate (again, sweaty and of course smelly :-) ).
We boarded the flight, and uneventfully tranferred at Denver, finally arriving in Las Vegas after 10pm. We headed down to get our luggage, but of course it wasn't there... turns out, our bags were still in DC and the car seat went to Los Angeles?!

So, we left the terminal buildings and found a shuttle to our hotel (The Venetian), arriving closer to midnight than we originally had planned. Checked in, and we were assigned a room on the 3rd floor overlooking a loud air-conditioning compressor. Aron by this time was ready for breakfast (9am Zurich time) and had trouble adjusting to our new timezone. It was a wonderful 2 hours when he finally did sleep.
6am local time Sunday morning, and we went for a stroll around the hotel and attached shopping mall (all but a coffee shop was closed). Later, we found a food court and had a pecan-topped cinnamon bun and a bottle of apple juice.
I wanted to call to check on my baggage, but this phone had switched on in my pocket, and too many invalid PIN entries had locked the SIM card. Thank you Andrea for saving us - I got the PUK number and unlocked the SIM.
Then we headed out to walk the strip...

It was warm in Zurich when we left, sweaty and smelly in the 25-30 degree summer sunshine.. but nothing prepared us for the 40+ temperatures that we were to enjoy here in the Nevada desert. Inside, it's cool if not somewhat frigid. Outside, it's blazingly dry, and the ground radiates the latent heat back upwards. We walked past the Wynn hotel, and stopped in at the Fashion Show shopping mall for lunch (steak burrito and large root beer for me, a chicken dish with rice for D, and Aron ate his usual "mush from a jar" :-) ). The portions here are huge, and neither D nor I finished our food. It's no surprise that Americans are, by and large (hehe) overweight. We then continued onwards up the strip to a Walgreen's, where we bought some snacks, toiletries and drinks, before heading back to the hotel to rest. Dinner was from the foodcourt in our hotel - D had a chicken burger, I had beef with broccoli and steamed rice which we took to our room.

This time Aron was on a better schedule, and after a bath went straight to sleep, while we ate. Our luggage arrived just as we were falling asleep, at about 10pm. Aron awoke once in the night, and slept till 06h40 local time, which was great - we all felt very rested. The fax/printer in our room sprang to life too, for no apparent reason (sounded like printer head alignment or cartridge cleaning) sometime in the wee hours so I unplugged it.
I took Aron for a walk to the lobby where I got information from the Concierge, then informed check-in about the printer issue and the airconditioning compressor outside, and we were given a new room - nicer than our 3rd floor suite (all the rooms here are suites) on the 32nd floor. Now we have a great view of the strip, the pool deck, and can see the airport and mountains in the distance.

Yesterday we walked the North strip, so today we headed South. Passing each hotel, we'd pop in for a quick look around (and a chance to cool down), before meandering onwards. In every hotel entrance, one is greeted by the ringing & chiming of slot machines, and the air of hope (or perhaps it's despair) hangs over each player. We haven't yet made our donation to the casino lords yet, but I anticipate being a handful of coins lighter before we leave. No high rollers in this family, fortunately.

One of the highlights today (other than a refreshing Italian ice cream - Pina Colada, and Mango flavours) was seeing the fountains at the Bellagio. Check it at at www.youtube.com - it's brilliant... much bigger than I had expected (then again, here everything is massive!) and brilliantly choreographed to classical music.

Contemplating dinner at either Planet Hollywood (unlikely), Outback grill next door (more likely) or a restaurant in our hotel (most likely). More once we know.