We turned on the TV in the morning just in time to catch a story on the news about a shooting at the New York, New York casino the night before at just after midnight. Apparently it must have happened while we were watching the Zumanity finale or just after we left the casino. Still, nobody was fatally injured and no trip to America would be complete without a gun story!
Finding some breakfast proved remarkably difficult; people in Las Vegas don't seem to do mornings. After meandering around Circus Circus and then the Sahara we finally found a Coca-Cola themed diner in the Stratosphere. We ordered two breakfasts and two of the souvenir milkshakes which come in plastic replica Stratosphere towers, which must be nearly 2ft long, while a bad Elvis impersonator wound his way between the booths singing equally bad renditions of 50s songs.
Breakfast over, it was time for the dizzy heights of the Stratosphere tower (the real one, not the 2ft plastic ones we'd acquired). From the ground it doesn't appear any higher than the other casino buildings but once you reach the 108th floor and look down all them all, it clearly is. Apart from the obligatory panoramic view and restaurant the tower also houses the world's highest Starbucks (our second Starbucks record of the holiday) and a couple of rides which dangle you right over the side of the tower. We were still aching from the rollercoaster ride the night before and the 2ft of milkshake we'd each guzzled had put us off the idea of a Starbucks so we just sat and admired the view for a while then got the elevator back down - which is harder than it sounds actually, I swear we'd done three full laps of the viewing deck and cut through the middle twice before we finally found it.
Back on solid ground we had a look round the rest of the Stratosphere, and the Sahara, which bizarrely has taken on a Nascar theme inside) We even did our first spot of gambling, winning a whopped $2.55 from a $1 stake (I took a photo of the ticket as proof) then, having exhausted this end of the strip we got the monorail right up to the other end, where we'd started our holiday a month before.
The Luxor hotel has an Imax cinema, and Amy had never been to one before so we purchased some tickets for the Dinosaurs and Deep Sea films and then a couple of frozen margaritas while we waited. Little did we know that that Imax is the one place in Las Vegas where you can't take a drink - so we attempted to down the frozen drinks and ended up with a severe case of brain-freeze as a result. Exactly what you don't want before going to watch a 3D movie with an award winningly loud sound system. Whether down to that or the movie itself, I definitely enjoyed the second one more - there are some crazy crazy creatures living down there in the deep.
After all that movie watching it was time for our last dinner of the whole holiday, which we had at House of Blues, coincidentally just across from the red, white and blue diner where we'd had our first breakfast.
Knackered and stuffed, and knowing we had to rise early for the flight tomorrow, we got a taxi back to Circus Circus and did a spot of packing before turning in early.
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