LasVegas

las vegas

Wow! Why did I go to Vegas in July ?! We suffered through one day of 120 deg F and a few days of 111 deg, and the rest were a mere 101 during the day. Nights were cool in the 90's, until our last day when it rained (we dind't mind) and cooled off to the 70's. Here are the trip highlights, written in chronological order from my journal after I left. Other than the weather, it was a totally terrific trip; a great way to visit with my friend Jenn!

Thank goodness for my cell phone or I never would have found Jennifer Baker at the Las Vegas airport! We played cell phone tag and finally found each other. After my bag didn't come, we took off for our hotel, the Mandalay Bay, on the strip and had a great first night checking in and checking out the hotel. I chose this hotel since it was on the strip and has a BEACH!

We slept in every day until around 11 the entire week! What luxury! We only had one day of typical Vegas running around; hotel hopping from place to place on our first day. We ate our only buffett of the week at the Rio, toured through Ceasar's Palace, shopped in the Forum shops, saw Ceasar's free new animatronic show with lights, water, and fire, watched the Pirates battle at Treasure Island, lounged in the Mirage's Lagoon Saloon (my favorite bar to watch a Carribbean bandin Las Vegas), wandered through the Venetian's Canal Shops, and swore not to have another day like this the rest of the week!

I saw Grandma Goldman one day and spent the day at our hotel, eating in a great Grandma restaurant (you know how some restaurants are totally GRANDMA? Well there was one of those at our hotel very close to the door. that's how we found it). She won $200 in slots in her first $20 played, and enjoyed the day touring around and seeing our room. At night I watched my Uncle Arnie Goldman (lefty) bowl at a tournament at the Orleans Hotel/Casino and dined on pizza with Jenn, Grandma, and his interesting friend Dave Zejack. We learned about the race car (Nascar) industry, and what it is like from the materials marking perspective. Very cool job.

One day we spent entirely at the hotel and pools, enjoying the lazy river (which was about 95 degrees) and the wave pool (which was the coldest water temperature there at about 90 degrees). The other 3 pools were smaller and so hot I couldn't get in, about 100 degrees and I'm not kidding. That night we finally ventured out of our hotel again to the Freemont Street experience, a MUST SEE for Vegas, and stayed for 3 free music/light shows on the half hour. We saw the world's largest Golden Nugget at the Golden Nugget (where else?) and enjoyed ice cream and street vendors trying to impress us with their unimpressionable wares. The lights and music shows were the best.

Ethel M Chocolate factory tour appealed to the chocolate-loving process engineers in us, so we vistited and ate chocolate. We talked to one of the factory line workers and the conditions sounded exactly the same as working in a semiconductor line; personalities of the people you work with make or break the whole thing! Oh well. Good thing we heard from her or Jenn and I may have considered improving their line for the samples!

It was a scant28 mile drive out to the Hoover Dam from the choloate fantasy place so we did it, and took the really cool "Hard Hat Tour" of the dam. I say really cool because it WAS cool, the only thing indoors for most of the tour and underground so the temp was about 40-50 degrees cooler than outside! We saw tunnels, shafts, ventillation, darkness, long stairways, valves, electricity being generated for LA/Phoenix/Vegas/California and went in to all of these restricted areas that the other tours weren't able to go into. If anyone has the chance to go to the Hoover Dam, pay the $25 for theis tour; it's worth it! The best parts were when our guide shoved 20 of us into an elevator the size of a small half-bath and when we all hooted when she turned the lights off in a tunnel in the middle of the dam! Great way to spend 4th of July - very patriotic.

Speaking of patriotic, we didn't want to miss fireworks on the strip so we dined at Hard Rock Cafe which was much too loud and raced over to the hotels to ask the conceirge where the best places to view would be. Ground Zero was at the Stratosphere, so we walked all around the place (no one knew much about the fireworks there) and finally found the parking lot where we could see. Boy could we see! We were right under them! At one point during the mini-finally (in the middle of the show) there were so many 'works going off that we were showered with all of their paper wrappers!

One day was our BLUE day - we ate at the House of Blues and saw Blue Man Group at the Luzor Hotel. After seeing the lions at the MGM Grand (which weren't so blue this time) and the Star Trek Experience at the Hilton, where I won 400 quarters in a slot machine while waiting for Jenn!

We had a spa day, where we both were totally tired out from all the relaxing we did! I had about a dozen dips in hot, cold, steam, dry, lounge, read, massage, and do it all over again, while Jenn had some other unforgettable experiences herself. Great day and then off to Paris for dinner and to view the Bellagio Fountain Shows. Overall great trip.