But, before we can go have fun, we must go get our Wedding License. So we take a taxi for downtown Las Vegas to the courthouse, and take care of that. Then, it's off to "The Strip" -- the main tourist area of Las Vegas (our hotel is right on "The Strip").

First we go look at the "volcano" in front of the Mirage - it's behind my head in this photo. It's very pretty in the daytime, but it doesn't look like a volcano. But at night, they put on a really terrific show, with huge blasts of flame going 100 feet into the air, all kinds of fiery lights, water blasting everywhere, and you can feel the blazing heat from the gigantic shooting flames all over your body.

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Here's Marina outside of Harrah's casino, near the Mirage--

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...and here we are inside, looking around inside.

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We spend the day walking around Las Vegas, and only get to see a little bit, because it is really big. In the afternoon, there is a "dust storm" - a lot of wind, like before a thunderstorm, and it kicks up sandy gritty gray dust - you can barely see one block, and we have to go inside, because it is getting in our eyes. The wind is really blasting fast, now. Soon it turns into a regular thunderstorm, with rain, but the rain only lasts for about 10 minutes. And, about 20 minutes after that, everything is all dry again, the water is all evaporated, because the air is so dry and hot.

Later that night, we go to the MGM Grand Hotel and have dinner in the "Rain Forest" restaurant. It was fun, the food was REALLY GOOD!!!!! There were jungle critters all around us in the surrounding "jungle", making funny noises and doing funny things (they were all animated machines, but it was very fun).

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As we walk home, we pass by the Paris Hotel - it has a copy of the Eiffel Tower. On another day, we will go up there for dinner.

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So, that was our first day. There's more to come, later.