Vegas Baby!

Rolled into Las Vegas around noon on Saturday.  Here’s what we did:

• 12 noon:  Stopped at McDonald’s to use their wi-fi.  Booked a hotel, tickets to Cirque Du Soleil’s Ka show, and a kennel for Daisy.
• 12:30:  Dropped Daisy off at the kennel.
• 1:00:  Went to the hotel to find out when we could check in.  They had a room ready, so we went ahead and checked in.  Across the hall a little yappy dog was constantly barking, so we re-thought kenneling Daisy.
• Vegas Lesson #1:  Dog-friendly hotels (at least the La Quinta) are perfectly OK with you leaving your dog in your hotel room while you’re out gambling.
• 1:30:  Picked up Daisy from the kennel and brought her back to the hotel.
• 2-4:  Rest time (aka enjoying the air conditioning – it was 112 degrees by now).  Rachel took a nap and I updated the blog. 
• 4pm:  Walked (about 2 miles) to the MGM Grand to pick up our Ka tickets.  Dinner at Wolfgang Puck (delicious).
• 6pm:  walked up and down the Vegas strip until my feet hurt.  Saw the water fountains at the Bellagio ( worth it) and the gondolas at the Venetian (not worth it).  Got blisters.
• Vegas Lesson #2:  The Mall of America is NOT the biggest mall in the U.S.  The Las Vegas strip is the biggest.  Everywhere that is not a gaming floor is a series of high-end (and sometimes low-end) shops.  Also, every sightseeing destination (ex: the canals at the Venetian) is really just part of a giant mall.
• Vegas Lesson #3:  If you want to see the entire strip, buy a monorail ticket.  $5 one-way, or $12 for 24 hours of riding.  This is for two reasons:
• You will be walking multiple miles in 110-degree heat.
• Every block has about a dozen (*not exaggerating) illegal immigrants trying to hand you prostitute trading cards.  They smack them in their hands, then shove them at you at waist level.  I think the idea is that it gives you an opportunity to slyly take the hand-off so your wife doesn’t notice.  I had to try taking the hand-off, but as soon as I did the novelty completely wore off.
• 9pm:  back to the MGM Grand to see Ka.  They have concession stands there similar to at a movie theater, except here they serve alcohol.  Rachel and I each got a 32-ounce cocktail… a whiskey coke for me and a daiquiri for Rachel.  Our Ka seats were in the 7^th row on the very left of the theater, which meant that there were people FLYING ABOVE OUR HEADS during the show!  Very impressive, although I didn’t follow the plot of the show very well at all.  Then again, I was pretty drunk by the end.  

 The sides of the stage at Ka.

• 11pm:  Played penny slots.  At one point I had tripled my money (to $6), then I slowly lost it all.
• 12am: It’s hard to find a cheap blackjack table on the Vegas Strip.  We ended up finding one at Bill’s Gambling Hall (next to the Flamingo), right next to the front entrance (which means right in front of the dancing girls).  Seriously, it was the ONLY available $5 table.  Rachel didn’t want to play at first, but since nobody else was at the table, I gave her some chips and she tried it. She took to it very quickly.  We played with $160, and had lost nearly half of it by 3am when we finally got too tired to keep playing.  We tried so hard to keep going until we lost it all, but we were just too good.  

 

The only two other pictures we took of Vegas.