Las Vegas or bust(or to go bust)

Yes, yes another change of plan. Well we were informed that Vegas was cheap and good fun so it's always best to inspect for yourself, don't you agree.
We hit Las Vegas running at 8pm after an overnight from Fiji and immediately went for a small gawk which, lasted until 1am. J&K impressed by the spectacle and grandeur as you couldn't not be. We were beside Caesers Palace so after 12hrs sleep we nipped in for the buffet. Little did we realise that this would become an eating marathon and, a personal challenge to Jack's ability to down chocolate eclairs.
We roller coasted(and screamed) around hotels at 11pm, watched excellent circus acts free, stalked through hotels while one's jaw trailed along the rug in amazement at the scale and investment, watched the gondoliers in their boats inside The Venetian Hotel, strolled through San Marco Piattza, through the Arc De Truimpe, meandered down Parisian back streets, saw top London shows and watched in surprise at the gaming going on 24hrs a day. You could even have had a medieval dinner while watching real jousting within one of the hotels. The big surprise is that our hotel was £35 a night for four and food was inexpensive.
Our other reasons to visit were that we could and did, fly out to The Grand Canyon and visit the southern rim which is the larger end. It is so large that you can't take in the scale and you would have to have gone on a mule trip down to the bottom to appreciate the depth.(1 mile)
Jeni and I both reckoned we had seen more impressive sights in Australia.
The Hoover Dam was a good school day out as J&K had both seen it on The Seven Industrial Wonders of The World, TV series. Jack especially was looking forward to getting down inside the dam and viewing the guts of the wall. He's not around just now to pass on the facts and figures but, believe me it's impressive. We all agreed that we actually preferred the simple visit to the dam over the grand canyon.
We depart Vegas on the worst flight ever, 23.45 to Chicago, offload 3am, load on again 5am get to Indianapolis 6am. Drive to friends Steve and Michelle's house having missed a night's sleep. The reason the flights were horrendous was because we were running one day behind from Fiji and we could no longer get our original flights.
Steve and Michelle (American friends from Comrie) had moved home 3 yrs ago so it was great to catch up with them after being used to seeing them a few times a week in Comrie.
They showed us around the university and kid's schools and J&K were delighted to see even more dogs. Thanks Conors.
After 5 days of around 0deg it was time to pack the shorts and get ready for the temporary return to the UK.

pics. We took the hoover dam snap when flying over to the canyon. Just to get a scale there is a two lane road over the top. J,J&K at the canyon. Gondaliers inside the Venetian Hotel. Jenni in sequins.

Attempt 1 to leave Fiji(foiled)

Well all fun here, read on to discover a quick way to lose £1200 and 1.5yrs of life due to stress. Stress, we're on holiday of course there's none in Fiji.
We were on our way to the airport yesterday in the back of a pick-up like livestock. Mrs Hendry had the preferred seat inside while the family were riding steerage under canvas out of the continual rain that day. We got stuck within 3mins due to the dirt road being flooded and then again another few minutes with the road completely out of sight under 20” of the brown wet stuff. The driver was a bit timid so Sailosi was out of the back and waded through to prove the point we weren't going to dive into an old mine shaft. . We then got as far as the airport boundary where you couldn't see the road for 100mtrs either way. The local bar had water through it as did the airport building which was more river than anything else. The bridge to the airport was under 18” as were the roads. Quite a few people along Nukubalavu had their houses full of water. Sailosi and I waded through to the airport where we were told that it was closed although the runway was clear. Our plane didn't land although another flight did and this now put us back 24hrs. Back to the house for 4 hrs of phoning trying to see what we could do to get our flights back in order as there wasn't another out of Fiji to LA for 3 days. At one point we were sea planing out in the am to get a 10.30 to Auckland and back to LA. We made it out the following day and had to buy new tickets for £1200 with another airline to keep our date with friends in USA. All good island experiences. The flood really was a flash flood and for the sake of 30mins either way our flight would have landed. Jack & Kate naturally loved the quicky flood and had the advantage over us that they didn't see the £1200 floating off in the floodwater.
All the above won't put off a return visit in the future as we have had a great time, met marvelous people who would share anything with you, swam with beautiful fish and ate handsomely. It's so good to be somewhere that everyone speaks as equals which, lots of you will appreciate is certainly not the UK.
ps. Flood pics to follow as they have escaped me om my laptop. Gary