The hotel was booked with a few things in mind. Proximity to REI and chosen shops, but not too close to the Ching Ching Ching of casinos; with a decent breakfast facility; and a twelve o’clock checkout time as standard. The latter two points came in handy today, as we did most of the packing and then had a late breakfast/brunch at half ten, before leaving shortly after 11am. 

Our next stop was the outlet mall, in particular the Timberland shop for Andrew. Unfortunately (!) it is near the Columbia shop too, where unusually it was me that found something this time.

We then had a little time left so took a long drive up the Strip to downtown, looking at the hotels, sights and sounds (ok I know you can’t ‘look’ at sounds, but you get my drift) of the side of Las Vegas that we never ‘do’. We still aren’t tempted…we think we will stick to Zion et al.

   
    
   
After that we flew down the Express Lane on the interstate to get back towards the airport, and reached the car rental return area 1769 miles after we picked the car up. 

I had checked in online, but as with our outbound trip this wasn’t a seamless experience. I hadn’t been able to pick seats beforehand (don’t know why) and when I checked in, it assigned Andrew and I to different rows on the plane. I had phoned Virgin in the morning but they weren’t able to help. The desk staff did slightly better and at least managed to seat us together.

It is a newly built (at least in the last two years) international terminal building and is much better than the old one. Once through security we found a sit down restaurant and had a decent meal, partly because brunch was a while ago and partly just in case. Turned out to be a good plan. The flight was OK in terms of seating, smoothness and safety. Which is the main thing. But food left something to be desired and they ran out of breakfasts before they got to Andrew. I will be writing…

  
We were quickly off the plane and through passport control ahead of 400 other people…and then waited ages for the bags to appear. And when they did and we got to the car, it had a flat battery. The car park staff quickly got this sorted with the help of the AA man based at Gatwick and we headed home, with one stop for fuel suitably far up the road that the battery would have recharged.

And that’s it. We’re home! 

I hope you have enjoyed reading the blog. I think Andrew’s holiday requests were red rocks, fresh air, beer and hash browns and we definitely ticked all those boxes. And we did some hiking. More than usual, at some 61.6 miles (plus odd bits and pieces), probably as we didn’t have to overcome the heat! The pile of clothes for washing certainly attests to us wearing more layers! And so back to the chores…until next time…