I’d booked us a trail ride, after learning Matt had never been horse riding before. It turned out that we’d be riding mules, since the terrain is a bit slippery this late in the season, and mules are more stable than horses. As soon as we got there, we spotted a goofy-looking white mule with giant ears, and he ended up being Matt’s trusty steed, Henry.
I got the very pretty Judy, who looked more horse-like than donkey-like, and was much less of a guts than the horse I got on last year’s beach trail ride with Kristy and Ashley:
Having not fully recovered from the bike ride yet, we were pretty worried about being incredibly uncomfortable for the duration of the 2h ride, but we went pretty well.
I could feel my knees seizing up towards the end, and it was a bit of a struggle when we initially dismounted, but we straightened up pretty quickly. I don’t think I’m built for horse riding though, because my knees were still twinging more than a day later.
After lunch, we checked into our accommodation, which was a canvas cabin. It was simple, but sufficient for the night, and it came with a bear locker just outside the door. These metal boxes are used to hold all scented things – food, toiletries, drinks – to protect them from bears. The bears apparently know that they can’t get into these lockers, so don’t bother. Food wasn’t allowed in the cabins.
In the afternoon, we went for a walk to Yosemite Falls, and climbed the rocks to get a closer look:
We couldn’t face any more walks after that, so decided to get the shuttle bus back to Curry Village. We had this amazing naturally-framed view of Half Dome from the bus stop:
Once we were back at camp, we showered and got some dinner. Curry Village had a real “school camp for adults” vibe about it, which was both cool and slightly disturbing at the same time. There were several hundred canvas cabins in the village, so you could hear everyone’s conversations, screaming children, cars, etc. I brought ear plugs, but still had a restless night, because I knew we had to leave by 6:30am the next day, for our long drive to Vegas.
Despite the already 8+ hour drive ahead of us, I really wanted to go to a lookout in the morning. From the reading I'd done, it sounded like a must-see for Yosemite. So we took the long winding road up to Glacier Point. This spot took about 45 min to get to, and gave us this fabulous view of the Yosemite Valley:
It was a beautiful spot even without the panoramic views. It felt very alpine, with amazingly blue sky contrasting with the red-barked pine trees:
We left Glacier Point at about 8am, and we saw a wedding party getting photos taken. I don't know if the wedding was later that day or not (it was a Saturday), but there's no way I'd be getting up at 4am on my wedding day to be ready in time for a Glacier Point photo shoot at 8am! Keen bride.
We zig-zagged across the park's few roads, and essentially went across the widest section 1.5 times on our way to the exit. The problem is the exit that gets you to Vegas (south-east of the park) in the shortest time is on the northern end of Yosemite, so it's really not direct. I think it took us at least a couple more hours to make it out of the park! The landscape was ever-changing though, so we had lots to look at on the way, including this crystal clear lake in the high-altitude Tuolumne Meadows:
We also saw some mules (possibly Henry) being transported to a nice comfy paddock for the off-season:
We drove through the Sierra Nevada for 5h or so, and trees were a rare sight. There were only about two tiny collections of houses for 3.5 hours of that drive, so it was super isolated. A highlight was this hilly road, which we reckon they just couldn't be bothered levelling when they built it:
It really felt like a roller-coaster - especially at the speeds we were doing by that point!
We finally made it into Vegas at about 6pm, after fighting traffic caused by a prang on the freeway. Our hotel - Planet Hollywood - was so cool. I didn't get a chance to photograph the lobby, but there were really high ceilings, a black floor, and the wall-to-wall check-in desk was backed by a giant wall of different-coloured panels of light. Green, pink, blue. Added to that, there were chandeliers with beads that draped all the way to the floor, like fountains. The lifts had TVs in the ceiling and played music slightly too loud. So very Vegas.
Here's our sweet room, complete with memorabilia from the Wynona Ryder movie "Boys" (yeah, I'd never heard of it either) and a giant bathroom with his-and-hers vanities on opposite walls:
This was the view from our window - the Bellagio is to the left and Caesars Palace is in the middle. Excuse the reflection from the curtains:
After a quick change-a-roo, we met up with the rest of the Wolfpack - Kristy, Steve, Aron, Cat, Handyside, AJ, Claire, Josh, Trav, Sam and Bridget - in the nearby Planet Hollywood Towers. We had a few drinks, then were picked up by the most ridiculous stretched F-truck, pimped out with a stripper pole, crazy lights and a massive TV screen that played video clips. The driver even handed out beer on the way to the club! I didn't take my camera, but there will be photos on Facebook at some point.
Kristy had done a marvellous job of booking a host to get us into Rain Nightclub smoothly, and he'd gotten us a table in a private area by the dance floor! We had also pre-booked three bottles of vodka for the group, which apparently we weren't allowed to finish completely or they'd kick us out of the area. So we left a couple of cm in the last bottle and continued buying overpriced drinks from the bar. It was a fantastic night - girls dancing in sequinned bikinis on tables, acrobats dangling from the ceiling on silks, flames being shot from above the dance floor intermittently, and just general craziness. We left when they turned the lights on at 4am, and only lost one member of the group in the process (whom we found the next afternoon).
Viva Las Vegas!
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