Vegas

The flight to Vegas on Allegiant Air was relatively good, I guess, once we actually got in the air.... They have a stupid rule that you cannot sit in the exit row if you need a seat belt extension, though - so I had to get the damn seat belt fastened without one ... That was not pretty, but managed finally. They also don't give ANYTHING away for free.... Cokes were 2 bucks. Sheesh. The 3 hour flight was uneventful.

We got to the airport and finally got out luggage. Then got our shuttle tickets which we had pre-paid thinking we'd get a better deal buying them as part of the package. We paid $12 for the round trip ... they actually cost $11.50. Oh, well. We also decided with the 4 of us (Maricela and Martin - Mario's parents are with us), that we should have just gotten a taxi. It took about 20 minutes for the shuttle to come ... Even though we've already paid for the return trip, we may take a taxi back anyway.

We got to the hotel - the Imperial Palace - and got checked-in. Michael - a friend from Harlingen - is here with us as well (although he goes back on Sunday) - was already here and met us in the lobby. We all went to Teahouse Coffe Shop located in the hotel for dinner. It was about midnite - 2 am Houston time - and we were all starving. They serve breakfast 24 hours a day in the Teahouse and the food was really good. We did discover that their combo's were not a great deal though ... Eggs with meat cost $6.99 and a side of pancakes cost $3.99, while the combo of the 3 cost $10.99 - technically one cent more ... but the pancakes in the combo were 5 inches and the side pancakes were 8 inches ... Oh well ... After eating, Mario's folks and I went to bed (of course, I had to stop to play $5 on a penny machine first - which took about 3 minues). Mario and Michael went out to the strip where they both were nearly eaten by a lion (Siegfried and Roy at the Mirage).

Friday, I had decided to rent a mini-van from Enterprise ($52 a day plus $17 for insurance and they picked me up at the hotel) so we could go to Hoover Dam. The tours for the trip were like $75 a person, so with four of us going (Michael wanted to stay and do the strip), it was a lot cheaper and gave us more options. It takes about an hour to get to the dam from the strip. About a 1/4 mile from the dam, they have a checkpoint station where they either inspect your vehicle or wave you through. We got waved. We drove across the dam to Arizona first - and I'm glad we did - because as of 2008 when the new bridge is finished - that won't be an option anymore (potential terrorist threats and one more personal liberty lost and all). They have also redone the tour as well. We had been told by several friends to take BOTH tours. There is now only one. It goes down 500 some-odd feet to the generator level, where you can see the tops of the Nevada side 8 generators. (There are 9 more on the Arizona side - although 2 of those are smaller than the other 7). After seeing the generators, you go down another 200 some-odd feet so you can see the giant pipe that the water goes through that feeds the generators. (Actually, there are 2 so one pipe only carries half the water.) The pipe is big enough to put 2 buses side by side in. It is in a much larger "pipe" that was created originally to divert the water around the dam section while they were building the dam. It is interesting the number of engineering feats they had to overcome to build the dam. It contains enough concrete that you could build a 4 foot wide, 3 inch thick side walk around the equator. Because there was SO much concrete and because it takes concrete a long time to cure in those quantities, they had to build the world's largest refrigerator (it could freeze enough water to create an iceberg every day) and put pipes in the concrete to help pull out the heat so it would cure in a timely fashion, and with the pipes, were able to ensure that it was all cured by the time they finished building it. (Otherwise, it would have taken 100 years for the concrete to fully cure.)

From there we went to the Ethel M. Chocolate factory which was not functioning - but we got to taste some good chocolate and of course had to buy some.

I had hoped that we would have enough time to also go to Valley of Fire State Park to see several interesting rock formations including one with Indian petroglyphs and also to Red Rock Canyon Conseration Area, but we decided we didn't have enough time to do both, and a local had said of the two Red Rock Canyon was more interesting, so we headed there.... After missing a turn off the freeway and driving 30 minutes out of our way, we didn't have time to do that either, so we just headed back and dropped the car. An interesting side note here about the car, the Enterprise people had told me that if I decided to keep the car until Monday, that I could have picked one of them up at the office and they would have driven us to the airport.

We got back to the hotel and changed clothes and headed over to the Bellagio where we had tickets for O. We had dinner at their buffet - $35 per person. The food was really good, the drink service not so much. They had the cutest little hamburgers which were about 2 inches around. The patties were about an inch thick - making them about 4" tall. They were really good.

O - a fairly typical Cirque show - except that it takes place in and around their built-in swimming pool which is 25 feet deep. It has about 12 seperate sections that rise and fall so they can be on "dry land", on a wet side walk, or in the super deep pool. It beings with synchronized swimming - but upside down - the feet are all you see. As Cirque's go, it is one of the best I've seen. Lot's of aerial work - on paralell bars, trapezes, etc. (you know all the stuff they usually do), but combined with high dives into the pool - including at the end, people diving into the pool from out of site from above - so at least a couple of hundred feet probably. Way cool.

After O, we caught part of the dancing waters in front of the Bellagio - we'll have to try to catch the full show later. Mario and I also had tickets for Zumanity, so we said goodnite to his folks and headed down to New York New York for the show. We had love seats on mini-couches right in front of the stage which we were really excited about. I might recommend the ones at the end, but we were on the side. There's too much depth to a Cirque show to get a good view that close on the side, because there is always things happening on both sides of you ... You really need distance to get good perspective. It is billed as the naked show, and while there are topless girls - hey - we're in Vegas - they're weren't any bottom less anyones - although they do go for the illusion a lot. Of course, that close, you lose the illusion also. Except for the couple of times Mario had to wake me up, we both enjoyed the show. I think I'm just not cut our for 10:30 shows. Especially when my body is still on 12:30 Houston time.

After the show, we got a cab back to the hotel. We decided to play a few slots first. Mario quickly lost $8. I put $10 in a penny machine, and after playing for about 10 minutes, got a credit out of the machine for $28. Woo hoo. I then lost $5 in a different machine, so for the day I was ahead $13, and for the weekend, I'm up $8.

The internet connection to the room is not strong enough to connect, so I'll have to post this when we get home.

Saturday we got up and decided to do breakfast at the hotel. The Emperor's Buffet was $15 a person for Saturday/Sunday bruch and had a really good spread. From there we walked down the strip to the Venetian where we were going to do the gondola ride but decided we did not want to wait in line. We grabbed a taxi and went back to New York New York because Mario wanted to ride the roller coaster. This is a huge metal roller coaster that originates inside the building, goes outside and climbs to the top of the hotel before coming back down with a loop and an inverted barrel. Bruce was very relieved to discover he was too fat to get the bar down ... whew ... that was close .... (Of course, the next time we come, that won't work will it?)

From there we basically did a lot of walking the stip, stopping periodically to play slots to let Bruce rest. So far, we're both have pretty decent luck with the slots. Bruce picks a machine - and then plays the one to the left of it. Mario usually plays the one Bruce picks. Last nite, Bruce, Mario and Michael had tickets for the Barbra concert - with special guests Il Divo. We rode the monorail from our hotel to the MGM Grand Arena for the concert. Unlike a typical concert, where you have a warm up act, Il Divo got to do about 3 songs with Barbra and about 3 more on their own while she changed. And she changed again at intermission, and again in the middle of the second act for 3 changes of clothes. Il Divo appeared to be wearing their Armani suits that Rosie O'Donnel (sitting prominently in the front row) was able to procure for them for the tour. A number of other divas were also in the audience, including Billie Jean King. The concert was really good, our seats REALLY sucked for what we paid for them (and we discovered that the row of seats behind us cost nearly half what ours did). Barbra was having some minor voice problems although she was still quite awesome. (She probably had a case of Vegas throat - I know mine has been irritating me since we got here.) Il Divo was quite awesome.

After the concert, we played a couple of slot machines at the MGM. Bruce quickly turned $5 into $35 and played it down to $30, then we headed over to New York New York again to try to get a t-shirt in the one of the shops there but it had already closed. Played a few more slots, then grabbed a taxi back to our hotel and played a few more slots. Bruce lost about 20, so for the day, he was up about 25 and therefore up about 33 for the weekend. Mario played finished up with 20 in a penny machine and winning 50 out of it ... so he's up for the day as well. Martin and Maricela saw the Cirque show Love at the Mirage. Maricela said it was spectacular.
Sunday morning, we grabbed a cab and went downtown where we ate breakfast at the cafe inside the Golden Nugget. After breakfast, we walked around on Fremont Street and played in several casinos. We found the slots similarly loose to the strip - and in one case, worse. We actually did better on the strip. We lost everything we put in the machines. C'est la vie. We caught a cab and headed over to the Hard Rock Cafe so Mario could get his bear and t-shirt. The bear is super cute with lots of feathers and a blue bra and g-string. My only comment was instead of a bra it should have titties. lol. We had some appetizers and the peanut chocolate crunch that I like so much (and some alcohol of course - my first for the trip). From there we caught a cab back to our hotel, changed for the evening and walked across to the Mirage to see the volcano. From the volcano, we walked back to the Bellagio to catch the full fountain show. It's only about 5 minutes long, but very good. The volcano was good, but not as good. We walked across the strip to Bally's to see Jubilee. The show was really good, but a lot different than I expected. It opens and closes with lots of feathers and titties, but there were almost as many men in it, and the in-between acts were more evening gowns and feathers than topless. There were also a couple of cirque type acts, including 2 short and super skinny asians that could fold themselves in half and go through what looked like a 15 inch tube. Folded in half mind you.... Showoffs. There was also 2 guys that did a lot of aerobatics with cloth - flying out over the audience and stuff. There were numerous sketches with the full cast - including the sinking of the titanic as well as Sampson and Delilah. It was good - and it was exactly what Maricela wanted to see - so I did good ;-) After the show we crossed back over to Ceasar's and I played almost 2 hours there on penny slots pulling 20¢ a pull on $20. So that was good. It's nice to win even if you are just going to throw it back out. $20 for 2 hours is after all, about the cost of a good movie and I did get several bottles of water for free in the process ... lol. From there, we came back to the Imperial Palace and I played another hour on a different $20. I had been looking for a penny unicorn machine, and they had one. I was actually doing well enough on the machine, that I probably could STILL be playing that 20, but I was tired. My goal was to play down to $3 so I had enough money to buy Mario and I drinks on the way to the room. About 4 different times, I got within 2 pulls of $3 and won $10. So I eventually put the machine on $4 pulls and played a few more minutes before getting down to my $3 and we headed up to bed.

Today, we've got to get up and pack and be out of the hotel by 11. I start my juice died today in prep for surgery on Thursday, so food is not on MY agenda today. We'll get checked out and store the luggage with the bellmen and then do a little more of the strip. Mario wants to go to New York New York and see if they have a t-shirt. Then it's catch a cab and head to the airport and home. Another great trip. (But my body is in serious revolt. My feet are killing me, my back and knees are none too happy either, and Mario's back has been bothering him since we left home.)