Homer's Travels: A Weekend In Las Vegas

Wednesday, October 03, 2007

A Weekend In Las Vegas

We went to Las Vegas last weekend and met up with the Matron of Honor (MOH)and the Best man (BM). We had a pretty good time. Here is how it went down.

Las Vegas 2007 - 014We left Saturday morning and we headed to Mojave to avoid most of the Los Angeles traffic. We pulled into a rest stop on Highway 58 outside of Boron to use the facilities. Unfortunately we had to share said facilities with a busload of pushy Japanese tourists.

We managed to get out of there in one piece and moved on to Barstow where we stopped for lunch. Being the discriminating food connoisseurs that we are, we ate at Denny's. This place had one of the most eclectic mix of people I have seen in a long time. The number of teeth per person varied quite a bit with most people missing at least one. There was a guy who could have been a rapper - or at least a rapper wannabe. The table next to ours had a couple of men speaking what sounded like Russian. The food was good enough. I like their cherry coke - it has a stronger cherry taste then the regular stuff.

We ended up in Las Vegas at the Excalibur around 2:00 pm. We met up with the MOH and BM and looked over our plans. We had a Magician show at 9:00 so we had some time to kill. We took the monorail down to the Stratosphere. (There were cool motion controlled displays in the monorail stations.) None of us had been there and we didn't realize that it no longer had a roller coaster. The rides that are there were a little too much for us so we decided just to go up and look around. That decision lasted as long as it took to realize that they charge you $11.00 just to go up to look out the windows. I thought it would be free to draw people into the casino. We did not pay. Instead the wife and the MOH got airbrush tattoos while I and the BM just shook our heads. We did manage to convince the wife and BM that the Oxygen Bar was just a scam and it was not worth the $20 bucks for twenty minutes of oxygen up your nose.

We got back on the monorail and made our way back to the Planet Hollywood casino. We picked up our tickets to the Magician and looked around for a place to eat. We found a Hawaiian Cheeseburger joint that was pretty good. A lot of the stores had a Hawaiian theme including the first ABC store I have ever seen outside of Honolulu. We topped it off with some Gelato. I mixed some chocolate with some banana which turned out to be a good choice - Yumm.

The Magician was Steve Wyrick famous for his "Blades Of Death". I entered that show wanting to see some good magic. I began to worry when the theater was only about a third full. The show started and the first trick was the appearance of a full size helicopter on the stage where the magician exited the cockpit to ... silence. It took amazingly long time for the crowd to applause. I don't think we thought that the appearance of the helicopter was supposed to be magic. The rest of the act was a mixture of flashy stage magic and up close, in the audience, street magic. I'm a little confused as to what were the "Blades Of Death". There were two tricks that are referred to as "Blades Of Death" - Walking through spinning 747 engine blades and an escape from a chamber with six spinning saw blades dropping towards him. I really wanted to like it and maybe I was just tired from the five hours of driving I already did that morning but I wasn't impressed. The BM, MOH, and wife liked it though so it was probably just me.

The next day we met the MOH and BM and went to Mass before heading downtown to Fremont Street. We did a short little walk through the area and got some lunch before heading back to the strip. It was the day time so there wasn't any laser show or anything but I can now say that I've been down town. We had tickets to Mystère at Treasure Island. The wife and I had seen "O" years ago and had loved it. Mystère was also well done. I liked the acrobatics and the music. The wife, MOH, and I liked the show. The BM was not so entertained. I think the BM and I have different tastes in entertainment. I guess Mystère and Steve Wyrick balanced each other out.

We separated at this point - the BM and MOH going to a car exhibit at the Imperial Palace - the wife and I gambling at the Mirage. I use the term gambling loosely as we were playing the Penny Slots and I doubt we gambled more then 20 dollars the entire weekend. The wife did better then I did winning $50 on a $10 worth of bets. I think I just barely broke even. The BM won $181 on $10 worth of bets - he was the big winner of the weekend.

We met back up and had dinner at the Carnegie Deli at the Mirage and had some good food. I topped it off with some Chocolate Mousse Cake that was delicious but was a little too much. I've been trying to cut back on the sugar but I was not very successful this weekend.

After dinner we split up again with the wife and I going to the Beatle's Love show. This turned out to be a disappointment. About twenty or thirty minutes into the show, the performance was interrupted by technical difficulties. It took about thirty minutes to clear up before they could continue the show. The only funny thing was a guy who ran up on the stage during the wait and break danced on the stage. The ushers got him off the stage and shadowed him the rest of the show. When the show continued, the rhythm was just not there. It felt chaotic, out of sync, and a little unrehearsed. The show was essentially interpretive dance and I have to say that I have confirmed I do not like interpretive dance. We did like the remastered Beatles music enough to buy the CD.

The next morning, after seeing the MOH and BM off, we headed for a store where the wife had seen a bag she wanted. Unfortunately they had sold out in the day and a half since we had seen them. Bummer. We checked out of our hotel and headed for home.

Calico Ghost Town 2007 - 017On the drive to Vegas we had seen a sign about an Ancient Man Site so we stopped on the way back. Unfortunately it was closed on Mondays so we settled for a visit to the Calico Ghost Town instead. It was OK. I took more pictures here then in Vegas. This time we competed with a couple buses full of Korean tourists. The Koreans were a little jumpy when the Sheriff gave a gun slinging demonstration. We ate a light lunch there, walked around a little, purchased some treasures, and drove on home. The drive home seemed a lot longer on the way home then on the way out. I guess I was tired.

We enjoyed the company of the MOH and BM. They say in polite company you shouldn't talk about politics and religion but when ever we get together with the BM and MOH our conversation ends up on religion and politics. We rarely agree 100% but we like each other too much to let it bother us. Most of our time in Vegas was talking over food - the perfect weekend. Vegas pictures can be found here and Ghost Town pictures are here.

3 comments:

  1. Sounds like a fun trip! I really must get out to Calico someday...

    ReplyDelete
  2. I have been to Vegas several times. It grows old. Calico was more interesting even though it was just as touristy as Vegas.

    This weekend was fun. It's nice to get out of town every once in a while .

    ReplyDelete
  3. LOL, I have to agree with you on this one. I've been to Vegas once, and the best time I had was when we went out of town to hike in Valley of Fire State Park!

    ReplyDelete