'Viva Las Vegas' on Isabel's phone roused us this morning. Yes- it's show-time. We left Zion park promptly after breakfast and drove the 130 or so miles to Las Vegas.

Last night we ate burgers with the Zion mountain range as a beautiful back-drop. I mentioned that this place was heaven to Las Vegas's hell. Having now been here for a few hours, I think it's quite possibly worse! I understand that it's a playground for Americans but it's charmless. Two days here will be enough.

Our hotel (the Cosmopolitan) is vast - three pools, umpteen restaurants, casino, art galleries, two fitness centres and a rocket launchpad (not really but it wouldn't have surprised me). We pottered around this afternoon. I took Ella to find a decent swimming pool for her to do some training and Jo and Isabel cased the joint. We then wandered off to look at the other hotels - Caesars Palace, the Venetian (with gondolas inside and out) and the Bellagio (with great fountain shows out front every 30 minutes).

The drive with Ella to the Municipal swimming pool was slightly stressful as we were following a screen shot map to a different swimming pool - the Pavilion. It's not my fault - even the photos look the same! Perhaps the different addresses was the give away! Anyway we got lost and I now owe Fidelity £450 (or some similar extortionate amount) for using data on the IPad. The pool itself was very nice considering its council run. There were two guys in lanes either side of Ella. One was so large he could barely bring his arms over and he definitely couldn't pivot at his elbow. As he approached the end of his lane he would look up as if he couldn't quite believe there was further to go. I nearly jumped in three times to push him the last final metres. The guy on the other side just walked the whole length. He kept looking at Ella as if seeing a swimmer for the first time. I wonder if once we left he decided to give this swimming lark a go.

We're off to watch a film Mad Max in one of the swimming pools and then we're going to Vegas's equivalent to the London Eye.

As a quick aside I took a photo early this morning which might possibly be my best picture (like) ever. Looking forward to adding it to the diary.

Top tip - we just had lunch in a French bistro (for goodness sake!) in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower (perlease!). Jo paid and tipped and so we've probably breached my 15% self imposed limit. Hopefully the waiter said 'merci beaucoup' but I really doubt it.