When we woke up today it was very cloudy out (though still over 90 degrees), so we decided to delay time by the pool and instead visit the other major outlet mall. This one happened to be near our hotel and we spent a couple of hours there altogether. It is run by the same company as the outlet we went to in Chicago, so there were no real surprises in the shop selection or pricing.

After some lunch it was still looking overcast, but we went back to the hotel in case things brightened up. Unfortunately they didn’t so the pool will have to wait until tomorrow. Instead, quite a bit of the afternoon was spent in the casino. I managed to play for a whole hour on the slots and roulette with just $1 which was great (and pretty lucky). The best part of it was the free drinks – I got three beers in that time, but unfortunately for the casino it didn’t get me to put more money down!

This evening we drove down to the Planet Hollywood hotel (a good time after the last beer), to have a look for somewhere to eat. The hotel’s car park is positioned in such a way that you have to walk through the ‘Miracle Mile’ shopping mall to get to the Strip. As the name suggests the mall is roughly a mile around, and it stays open until pretty late. Last time I was here the hotel was the Aladdin (famous for being where Elvis got married), so it was completely renovated from the Arabian theme to a modern, contemporary design.

We first walked up to the Paris hotel, then across to the Bellagio, and then back to Planet Hollywood in our search for a restaurant. On the way we saw the Bellagio fountains, which are very impressive and take place on the large artificial lake outside the hotel. In the end we opted to stick to one of the restaurants in Planet Hollywood, which served American style food. The portions were HUGE – the biggest we have seen all trip. We saw someone receive a full rack of ribs and it was about the length of the table! Our meals were very good, and the most interesting part was my ‘Doritos mac n cheese’, which was macaroni with crumbled cheese Doritos on top – surprisingly good.

Photo of the day: a busy Las Vegas Strip as seen from ground level this time.