Sunday 23 October Las Vegas

Sunday morning we succumbed to greed and avarice. Lured by the promise of free show tickets and holiday packages, we foolishly agreed to have a look at a time-share property. "We'll just go through the motions as quickly as possible and then get out with our freebies", we thought. To cut a long story short, it took us three and a half hours to get away from these people. The deal looked good but we refused to sign up without further research and consultation, and the charming smiles turned less charming. The price of $16,990 suddenly dropped to $4,990 - too good to be true, and smelled decidedly fishy. Anyhow, we came away with vouchers for a dinner show, and for a two night vacation at one of several resorts. (Which we're sure to use - not).

After lunch we caught up with a bloke named Eric Stefik. Paul and Eric have been email friends for years and it was the first time they had actually met each other. Eric and his lovely wife Susan offered to show us the "other Las Vegas" - the one where real people live and work away from the Strip. The city spreads out into extensive suburban areas, all surrounded by a ring of mountains. Eric and Susan's house is in one of the newer suburbs, which looks like a very pleasant place to live. We went for a walk around the local park and had a good chat about life, the universe and everything. We also saw part of Eric's fantastic collection of model cars (diecast and Dinky types). He has quite a few Australian models, which we found very interesting.

Eric drove us back to the Luxor, and we got ready for our dinner show. On the recommendation of somebody at the hotel, we had decided to see "The Tournament of Kings" at the Excalibur. It promised great food, excellent comedy, brilliant horsemanship, swordfights, jousts and fireworks. Well... the horses were great. The food was very ordinary (slighty under-done whole small chickens eaten with the fingers). The comedy was lame. The fight sequences were choreographed by World Championship Wrestling. It's probably the worst show currently playing in Vegas. If you're tempted to see it - don't!

To salvage something from our night we got out the cameras and took a few good pictures of some of the casinos. Then back to the Luxor, and so to bed.