Today is Leslie's 32nd birthday. We are traveling from Mesa, AZ to Las Vegas, NV to meet Leslie and Pete tomorrow. The trip is a gift from Pete to Leslie for her graduation in December from Bradley. He made the mistake of asking her what she would like to have as a gift from him. I really am not sure he was thinking quite so big but they are to be here tomorrow. Pete has been in Seattle all week and rather than fly home to Peoria, he decided to fly to Las Vegas. He is due to arrive around noon tomorrow. He said he would make his way from the airport to the hotel so for us not to pick him up. Leslie does not arrive until 9:45pm tomorrow night so wel will pick her up --at least at this moment that is the plan. I'm sure we will spend money here on her as part of her birthday as well.
We arrived in Las Vegas around 3:00pm and we left Silveridge around 8:30am. It is around 330 miles from Mesa to Las Vegas so we did not make bad time getting here. We are staying at Oasis RV Resort which is absolutely beautiful. It is a huge park and spotless. There are two swimming pools, one for the children with a sandy beach and one for the adults. This is really nice to have an adult pool so those who do not have children with them can relax without being bothered by the kids. I don't mind it when I have my grandchildren but I don't like dealing with everyone else's when I want to relax.
We had to buy Internet service for a week which really is a rip considering what we already paid for our RV Site. If you want it you have to deal out the cash. I cannot stand being without Internet. When we went up to the office to pay for the Internet, we asked for a recommendation on a place to eat dinner. They highly recommended Deans Place which was on Dean Martin Blvd and just a few miles from resort. It was an Italian Restaurant so we had pasta again. It was good but nothing too special we didn;t think.
After we left the restaurant, we went to find a grocery store. The only one we found close was one called 'Food 4 Less'. It was actually a decent store and not at all what the name sounds like. As we were looking at the meat, we realized it's some form of a division of Kroger. There were many Kroger brand items in the store but could not use our Kroger card. The prices on the food was not what I considered cheap. We paid $11.00 for a 12 pack of MGD cans. We wanted canned beer to take to the pool tomorrow but MGD is much more expensive than any of the other brands here. It was the same in Mesa as well.
Came back to the resort and all the palm trees on the entrance drive are lighted. It is so pretty everywhere in the park with lots of palms and grass.
Friday April 1, 2011
Got up this morning and cooked breakfast then pick up and cleaned up motor home some as it was a mess from traveling. We got ready and drove down to the 'strip' to look around. We found that all of the Casino's have free parking in their parking garages. That is a break for sure as I assumed the parking would cost us our pension check for the month. We walked and looked at the Casino's and went into several of them. They are very up class places and inside most of them is lots of shopping. I felt like a farm girl arriving in the city with cow shit still on my shoes!@!! In all the places in the world I have traveled, this is my first trip to Las Vegas. It is quite a sight and everything is pristine from the landscaping to the spotless side walks. When we were walking on the elevated bridges and sidewalks. there was a lady with a mop scrubbing the concrete. We went into several of the gift shops as Larry was trying to find a hat or visor as the sun is terribly hot and very bright. The prices in the shops seem to be pretty normal for a tourist town.
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| New York New York Casino |
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| New York New York Casino |
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| MGM Casino |
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| Pool at Oasis Las Vegas RV Resort/ Kids Pool has Sandy Beach |
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| Pool at Oasis Las Vegas RV Resort/Adult Pool |
We walked a long distance and I suggested stopping for a margarita at an open air bar. We each got a 'house' margarita, which means it is less than a gallon glass--I could not believe my eyes when I saw the size of the glasses of the other margaritas. I do not exaggerate when I say a gallon glass--they were huge. Our margaritas, however, were very normal sized and if anything a little small compared to most I've had. I took a drink of mine just as the bartender collected from Larry for the drinks. I almost spit across the bar when she told him $26.00 for the two. As you probably have already guessed, we had exactly ONE each! Larry said he thought we made a down payment on the entire bar!!! I expected expensive but we could have had a beer and a hot dog at Wrigley Field cheaper than we paid for the two margaritas. I really didn't think anyplace was much more expensive than Wrigley. So the country girl had her first lesson on Vegas. We sat at the bar and nursed our drinks while watching the Chicago Cubs fall flat on their face on opening day! Two disappointments in less than an hour!
While watching the Cub game I kept seeing signs in the crowd saying 'This is the Year' --NOT! While watching them at Hohokam in Mesa, I saw nothing more than the same ol' Cubs. I think they had a record for spring training of something like 14-20. Not even close to 500 and they won't be any closer during regular season unless someone sets fire under them. It certainly looked cold, however, at Wrigley today. It was raining most of the time we watched and everyone looked like they were freezing--all of this while we are smothering in 93 degrees today. It amazes me how the weather can be so diverse throughout the US when at times there is only a hundred miles difference from 90 degrees to 30. This is true of Mesa and Flagstaff, which is a little more than a hundred miles apart. I guess we should be soaking up the heat because next week we will no doubt be shoveling snow when we reach Peoria.
We came back to motor home and Pete called. He arrived around 1:00 and went to their hotel, which is the Trump. He said he was going to go down and workout and take a short nap and call us when he woke up to see if we want to go to dinner or just have drinks with him. Leslie's plane does not get in until 9:50pm. We will meet Pete and all go to the airport to get Leslie. We told Pete before he arrived we would pick him up at airport and he said he would find a way to the hotel. The airport is right in the middle of Las Vegas Blvd where the strip is located.
We left before 7:00pm to pick up Pete. We got to the strip and it was bumper to bumper traffic. It took us an hour to get to the Trump Hotel to get Pete as it is on the far end of the strip. We were going to stop someplace along the strip for a drink but each time we saw the 'self park' areas they were either full or we did not make the right turn to get into them. The 'self park' areas are owned by a casino and are free parking. Anyway we spent so much time in traffic and trying to find a parking place, we decided we'd go on to airport and have a snack and drink there. When we got there, only one bar was open and they had no food. Larry and I had nothing but breakfast, which was several hours ago so we were getting pretty low on food. We had a huge draft and a bag of pretzels and a bag of nuts that we shared between us all.
Leslie's plane was on time and we found her without a problem and claimed her luggage. We got to the car and she changed her shoes and cloths--yep inside the car. The windows are pretty dark when it is dark outside so I guess her privacy was safe?? Her feet and ankles were very swollen so I hope after a good nights sleep she will be ok with that.
We left the airport and went back to the strip and parked in the Aria parking deck, which is where Larry and I parked earlier today. We went into the Aria Casino and bought a drink and walked around for awhile in the casino. They had several shops and restaurants inside. Larry bought four beer and a mixed drink for Leslie and paid $37. I guess that was pretty cheap compared to our two Margareta's earlier today. We left the casino and walked along the strip while drinking our beer--which is actually LEGAL in Las Vegas. Wild place here--seems just about anything goes. As we walked awhile, Leslie suggested we call it a night as she was very tired. I assume part of her being so tired was her big night out on Thursday night with the girls for her birthday. I don't think she got much sleep Thursday night. Anyway we made our way back to the car and took them back to the hotel and headed back to the motor home.
When we arrived at the RV Resort and drove down to our street, the fire department and a couple of security cars were blocking the street. One of the security guys told us that someone got lock.ed inside their motor home. How weird is that??? I guess one of the dead bolts stuck and they could not get out. I think they ended up breaking out the door window to get the door open. Kinda sounds like a blonde joke that they were locked IN??!!
Saturday April 2, 2011
Leslie called about 7:30am wanting us to come to the hotel to swim with them at the pool. I told her I'd talk to Larry and get back to her. Larry never did say yea or nah so we did nothing about calling her back. Then she sent me a couple of text messages wanting to know where we were. I just couldn't get excited about driving through the traffic to swim at that hour. When I lay around the pool, I like a beer and it just didn't seem right at 7:30am, however when she called me later, she said she paid $11.00 for a bloody mary so I guess it IS alright to drink at 7:30am as long as you are in Vegas--not to say I've never done it in my younger years!!! The next time she called, she said her and Pete would like to go to Hoover Dam since today was going to be overcast and possibly rain.
We left the resort to pick them up and I suggested we travel route 15 down to almost the end of Las Vegas Blvd, in hopes we would cut out the traffic issue. We made it to their hotel in about 15 minutes going that route. So at least we learned a better way to get there. We picked them up and headed to Boulder City which is technically where the Hoover Dam is. It is about 25 miles from Vegas. We crossed over the dam on the bridge and couldn't see a road that looked like it took us down to the dam. We turned around and headed back to the bridge and saw a sign pointing to the dam. We drove down the mountain and ended up parking on the other side of the dam. We had to walk quite a distance to get back to the visitor's center. It was terribly hot and the sun was out in full force when we got there. We walked up farther to a snack shop and got something to drink as we were all hot and dry. Leslie and Larry both wanted to take a tour of the dam so before I could tell Leslie that I preferred to just wait for them, she had bought us all tickets.
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| At Hoover Dam | <><><><>
We got in line and they told us we needed to watch a movie about the dam before the tour started. We watched the movie and then got in line to wait to take the elevator down to the bottom of the dam, which was something like 500 feet underground. I am a little claustrophobic, so I was a whole lot anxious while down there. They took us through a tunnel into a room where the water flowed through HUGE pipes that ran under the floor of the room. We then took the elevator up a ways and this room overlooked the big generators that create the electricity for park of Arizona, Nevada and I think some bordering states as well. There were seven huge generators on the Nevada side and the guide said the Arizona side had six. It is hard to imagine that this was all accomplished in 1937. Even with our modern machinery, it would be a very complicated project. The workers worked 7/24 and were paid $4.00 a day. They indicated that was very good pay for that era but these people had to work like slaves for their pay. Also the pipes that carry the water were so huge, they could not transport them so they made them on-site. I was impressed by all the information and what it took to accomplish. It's not something that I would have had a problem with had I not seen but it was another 'tic mark' on Larry's 'bucket list'. So one more down and who knows how many more--we have been working on his 'bucket list' for quite awhile now.
We got back to Vegas around 3:00pm and the kids wanted to go back to their hotel. Again Leslie begged us to come swim but I told her that when I laid around the pool I'd like more than just one drink and couldn't afford it at their pool. I told them to come to our pool and we could bring our own drinks but they just decided to go to the hotel to rest awhile. They called later wanting to know if we were coming back to the strip and both of us said no. Guess we sound like old fuddy duds but I don't enjoy gambling and spending half my pension on the crazy priced drinks. We are going to go to dinner tomorrow with them so will probably do the strip again tomorrow. They were going to try to see a show tonight and they already have tickets for a show on Monday night. My 'bucket list' has included seeing the Jersey Boys for a long while now. I had checked on tickets before we got here and they are quite expensive. I checked again this afternoon and talked Larry into spending the money, then could not purchase the tickets on-line. We will probably just check while downtown tomorrow about tickets for either Monday or Tuesday night.
Pete had a few things he needed laundered so I did all my laundry as well this afternoon and tonight. Almost have it all done and just waiting for my towels to dry.
I think the weather is going to cool down some tomorrow and quite a lot on Monday. It was much too warm today so I'm ready for a little cooler weather. I say that and each time I think about how cold it will be when we get back to Peoria. I am trying to enjoy the heat but I have a hard time when it gets in the high 80's and 90's.
Sunday April 3, 2011
Went to breakfast and then to Walmart--OH DUH--isn't that an everyday trip??? We needed chemicals for the motor home and a few grocery items. We headed back home and let our wonderful kittys outside for awhile to brake their cabin fever. Sat outside with them and had a beer then got changed and walked up to the pool. Since we have an adult pool they allow alchol and smoking! That's relaxing!!! Had our beer and sat around the pool for a couple of hours and read.
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| Ceiling in Caesar's Palace |
We came home and showered and left to pick up Pete and Leslie for dinner. We went to the Mesa Grill inside Caesar's Palace. Don't let the word 'grill' fool you into thinking it is a snack shop type restaurant!! Our bill for 4 meals was $256.00 PLUS TIP! The food was good but not too sure it was THAT great! I had salmon, Larry had veal, Pete had pork tenderloin ,which was very different and Leslie had some type of chicken with a sauce. We had appetizer of shrimp which was prepared in a corn husk like a tamale which was very unusual and tasty. Everyone liked their meal and we were so full we could hardly move when we left. We walked through Caesar's Palace, which is just a huge place and so beautiful. Leslie and I saw the cutest nightgown that was in the style of a Greek goddess. It was sheer material in white with gold trim. They had the gold slippers to match so Leslie bought the gown and I bought the slippers to give to Morgan for her birthday in July. We walked forever looking at all the decor in the palace. The place we bought the things for Morgan had a high domed ceiling and the ceiling was painted to look like the sky. It was hard to imagine you were not outside on a sunny day with the clouds floating overhead. It was beautiful.
While we were in this area, I noticed a desk that was selling show tickets. I have been on the Internet trying to buy tickets for The Jersey Boys but could never complete through ticketron. We walked over to find out what was available either for Monday or Tuesday evening. We bought two tickets for Monday night at the Palazzo for $260. Money just flows from our hands here. I didn't really care how much the tickets were as I have been wanting to see this show forever. They were in Chicago several times and again in Phoenix while we were there, so I decided if I was ever going to see the show now was the time.
We must have walked a mile or more just inside Caesar's. Every room in the place was different with unimaginable decor. We went upstairs and when we came down we rode a curved escalator. I have never seen an escalator that curves around like this. There was a thousand shops inside from all the top designers, ones I've never heard of, which is not surprising considering how many designer items I've purchased in my life. Leslie and I could not resist going into The Kid's Kastle, which was a clothing store and when we came out our knees were buckled. OMG, I have never seen prices like they had attached to their clothing. The clothing was just adorable, of course, not like 'off the rack' items from WALMART!!! We really enjoyed looking at all the beautiful little outfits for the girls. I don't think my lovely granddaughters will be able to enjoy anything from this place --at least from their grandma Stafford!!
We finally stopped at one of the bar's inside the palace and had a drink. I was getting to the point that I didn't think I could take another step. It is just hard to imagine how huge this place is. After we sat awhile, we headed out again. Leslie wanted to take us to the Balligo Casino to see the flowers. I had no idea what she was talking about but even being so tired of walking, I told her we would go see them. When we walked outside it was like a winter blast! It was freezing. It was very warm when we first went into Caesar's for dinner earlier in the night. Larry had on shorts and I had capri's and a top with medium length sleeves, which felt good. Pete and Leslie had long pants but Pete had a short sleeve shirt and of course, Leslie had on Pete's jacket, so needless to say, we were all freezing.
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| Swans standing in water with flowers in The Ballagio Casino |
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| Carousel among the flowers |
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| Butterfly is made of flowers also |
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| Musical Waters in front of Balligo Casino |
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| Eiffel Tower where Pete and Leslie dined on Saturday |
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| Pete's first gambling rage! Spent $2 on penny slots |
We FINALLY found the car just as I was placing my last foot forward! I don't think I could have walked another step!!! We got in the car and started to exit. Each time Larry would take an exit, we would end up back in the same place. Of course Leslie and I started laughing so hard we had tears in our eyes and Pete said that this is what Larry gets for being too cheap to have the car parked by the valet. We always go for the 'self park' area because it is free. Of course Pete was joking as he and Larry and I had just talked at dinner about HOW expensive it was to be in Las Vegas. Anyway around and around we drove and FINALLY we accidentally found the EXIT!@! All of us were laughing to the point we couldn't breath and probably most of it was that we were exhausted so everything was so much funnier than normal. It was one of those things you had to be there to appreciate! Anyone who know our daughter Leslie, knows she should have been a comedian as she has been this way her entire life. Pete kept asking each time she'd say or do something stupid--'Is this YOUR daughter'!! We love Pete as he is such a great guy! He treats our daughter so wonderful and is so respectful to everyone!
We took Pete and Leslie back to Trump Tours and dropped them off and headed home. It was almost midnight--LATE for the old farts. We had a cup of coffee and I headed to bed. Read probably 25 words before I was sound asleep!
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