My Las Vegas Vacation - Pictures

[GLF]

I enjoy taking my sons to the monster truck shows every year in Detroit. A year ago April, I talked my wife into letting me get tickets for the Monster Jam World Finals in Las Vegas. We purchased tickets for the whole family last April for the show.

After almost a years wait, it was finally time to go on 22 March. I watched the weather on the 21st, and was hoping it would not interfere with our flight on the 22nd. At the terminal they announced they were waiting on weather conditions in Chicago before we left. Someone made the decission, and the plane left the terminal around 6:05am and taxied to the runway. We took off and began our climb. There was a lot of turbulence. After another 10-15 minutes the pilot announced the deicing system was not working, and we were turning around and going back to Kalamazoo After a bumpy ride back, we slammed into the runway. Yes, I said slammed. I have flown on at least 10 commercial airline round trips, and also have 6 traps on an aircraft carrier. This was the hardest landing I have ever expierenced! We hit so hard, I thought the landing gear would break, and the plane would crash on the runway.

We get to the terminal, and everyone gets off the plane. We go up to the ticket counter, and there are no more seats on any flights to Chicago, and Las Vegas. The girl doing the checking starts checking for alternate routes to Las Vegas. She finds us seats on another airline that leaves for Cincinnati at 6pm and would put us in Las Vegas at 10:45pm. She gets us are seats on the flight to Cincinnati, and tells us she can not get us our seats on the connecting flight yet. So....we went home and waited for the evening flight. We catch the evening flight and arrive in Cincinnati only to find out we do not have seats on the connecting flight to Las Vegas. About now, I am really getting P.O.'d. Well....things happened for the better, and we ended up getting seats on the plane after all and got to Las Vegas.

We had purchased Double Down tickets. These were tickets for a private pit party, bar-b-que, and qualifing. Only 5,000 double down tickets were sold. This made it really nice, because we were not elbow to elbow at the pit party.

Here are some of my pictures from Monster Jam and Las Vegas.

Left to right, Wyatt(2), Hunter(5) and my wife(Cindy).

This was Grave Diggers 25th Anniversary. He had a special paint job for his truck at the show. This is Wyatt and Hunter with the truck.

They had Maximum Destruction in the air on a crane. This is an underneath shot of it.

Maximum Destruction

We had FANTASTIC seats for the show. This is a picture from my seat.

Maximum Destruction winning the round.

Grave Digger beating Captains Curse.

Batman beating Grave Digger in the finals.

Iron Outlaw doing his freestyle.

Destroyer broke his wheel off while trying to do the double jump in REVERSE!

[GLF]

199 doing her freestyle. Thats right, I said her. This truck is driven by a woman.

Brutus broke here during his freestyle.

Suzuki airing it out BIGTIME!

Superman flipping over backwards.

Superman stops on his nose.

Safe Auto doing his freestyle.

Scarlet Bandit jumping her truck over the boat. The block is 6' tall

King Krunch nose diving breaking off a wheel.

Batman starting his freestyle.

Thats a semi tanker trailer on top of 4' of dirt. Air Force Afterburner launches over it.

[GLF]

El Torro Loco rolling over in front of us.

Captains Curse launching over the delivery truck. He won the freestyle competition.

Taz doing his freestyle.

Avenger doing his freestyle.

Whats left of Avenger after he tried to jump the deliver truck.

Monster Mutt airing it out big time going backwards on the big jump!

Monster Mutt trying to jump the deliver truck. He made it over, but the truck flipped upside down and landed on its roof.

Maximum Destruction conquering the delivery truck backwards.

[GLF]

After the freestyle competition was over, they brought out 6 Grave Digger trucks at once for an encore performance. It was AWESOME!!!

After the monster truck show, we spent the next couple of days seeing the sites.

Here is Hunter and Wyatt in front of a statue inside Caesars Palace.

MGM Grand Casino

Hunter and Wyatt again.

Photo down the strip.

[GLF]

Venetian

Hunter and Wyatt and Las Vegas Policeman.

Mirage Casino

Momma and baby duck at the Mirage.

Stratosphere and the strip.

This is the outside entrance to the shops at Caesars Palace.

There are a lot of expensive shops in the shops at Caesars Palace.

This last image was taken from 31,000' flying back. It is some kind of fault line or something. I am not sure what state we were over.

We are purchasing our tickets for next weeks show next week. We will have the same seats.

[GLF]

The show is suppose to air on CBS noon on 15 April.

[caznik]

Great post Mike,

My favorite truck was allways Grave Digger. So who won the big truck event.

Rich

[GLF]

Great post Mike,

My favorite truck was allways Grave Digger. So who won the big truck event.

Rich

Batman won the racing, and Captains Curse won the freestyle.

[Priority1]

Nice Pics Mike. I'll bet those boys loved every minute of that trip.

[Reel_Screamer]

Excellent pics Mike i see you got them all uploaded lol.. Are you and the family have your tickets for next year. Sometimes i wish i had a monster truck when i'm driving down the road, dont mind me i'm just venting some road rage........LOL

[GLF]

Are you and the family have your tickets for next year.

Ordered them today We should have the same seats.