From the City of Angels to the City of Sin

Wow, that's been a busy few days (close to a week?)... Since the last blog post I've stayed my entire time in Vegas... And whilst the term 'What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas' is true for most, I will tell a little bit more than nothing...

Sunday

Sunday started at midnight, when our alarm in the room decided that we needed to be awake... Never, ever, ever, take a nice hotel for granted!

Sunday started again when we woke up at a decent hour, packed our bags and headed for a walk to the Avis (the site of our episode with the guy wanting food but not money the night before).  We hired a car, got some breakfast (Belgian Waffle Slam from Denny's), then drove back to our dive hotel, checked out, and hit the road for Las Vegas!

We hit the freeways of Los Angeles and struggled through the web of entries and exits before making it to the city limits of San Bernadino, where dad quipped that the roads were 'as cracked as Greg Atkins face'... That is a family in-joke... For the rest of you 'as cracked as a dry 5th day wicket at the WACA'

Road to Vegas

The scenery was actually pretty cool

The road made it feel like we were rising and didn't go down at all the entire way... Like a slow rise into the hills... That's neither here nor there... We stopped at a 50s style diner called Peggy Sue's after about 90 minutes of driving.  The ads for the diner came every so often, just like in the Simpsons:

"Dad, can we stop at Flickey's".... 'No'

'I did not know that' Moment of the Day: (*just prior to stopping at Peggy Sue's)
Dad: "I reckon we stop at Peggy Sue's, I could go a milkshake"
Me: 'Milkshake?'
Dad: "Yeah, I often get milkshakes on long drives"
Me: 'Bullshiiiiit, I've never seen you buy a milkshake on a long drive'
Dad: "No, no, I used to do it all the time when I drove back from Canberra or Sydney and your mother wasn't around"
Me: 'Really?'
Dad: "Really"
Me: 'Wow, I did not know that'

The milkshake was like a thickshake... And once you'd finished the amount in the glass, there was enough in the tin they made it in that you could essentially go again... Lotta milk!  It wasn't all bad though, we got a free stick of gum at the end which lasted us well into Nevada.

On the road again we very shortly made it into the state of Nevada.  The line to leave the state and get into California was close to a kilometre long, I'm assuming there is a more militant version of the fruit and vegetable checkpoint we have at the SA-Victoria border... The other noticeable thing when entering the state of Nevada was that literally AS SOON AS we entered the state there was a casino... Like, if you didn't want to drive to Las Vegas you could stop at Whisky Pete's on the California/Nevada border and just gamble there... I mean, I didn't, but you could...

We took a detour on our way to Vegas and drove out to the Hoover Dam... And God Damn it is impressive... Sorry, I just had to crowbar that 'God Damn' line in there for Chris... Is it a God Dam?

View of the Dam (clearly very obscured) and Lake Mead

Back side of the Dam and the intake towers

Lake Mead

Danger, keep off wall

Bridge between Nevada and Arizona which caused us so much trouble, but gave us such a nice view!

Getting to the Dam proved difficult due to the new bridge that stretched between Nevada and Arizona, as our trusty GPS Blinky didn't have it programmed in that the bridge existed... It stopped giving us directions about 2km before the turnoff, so without meaning to we drove all the way to Arizona... Had to turn around, drive back to Nevada, and took our look at the Hoover Dam.  We walked over the new bridge which gave us such a good view, then we drove down over the Dam.  Rather than paying $10 on the Nevada side, we drove over to the Arizona side and parked for free... As it was dusk we couldn't stay long, but we did walk across and have a brief look around, I'd have loved to have taken a tour but again, too late in the game for that... I was really pleased to get to see the Hoover Dam though, after many years admiring it through the Beavis and Butthead Do America medium, and later through the television series Seven Wonders of the Industrial World.

We then headed back to Nevada, and on to Las Vegas

Back to Nevada

We missed another turnoff to get to our hotel, but we eventually made it to the land of the middle ages and knights and swords and all that novelty shit: Excalibur.

Excalibur

Sword in the Stone Bar as you enter the casino

Casino Floor

I had always wanted to stay in a novelty hotel on the Vegas strip, although I had wanted to stay at New York, New York, but that was a bit out of my price range!

(I later found out that I could have stayed at Excalibur on Hyatt Gold points that I obtained through my work at Ernst & Young... This is disappointing on one level, but given how I used these points I can live with it)

The interior was made up to look kind of medieval, and the 'Do not disturb' signs on the doors even had different sayings on them.  See below:

Our door

My personal favourite

We then went to get dinner at the Luxor Hotel and Casino... Meaning we went from Medieval Europe to Ancient Egypt... That's a bonus to Las Vegas, you're time travel is so much easier!  We went to the buffet, which was as much food as I've seen in one room since the last time I was in a Vegas buffet... Dad ate his fill and got two glasses of wine, his argument was that he was priced in, but I'm sure he just wanted the wine.

'Priced in' moment of the day: *Dad walks up with two glasses of wine*
Me: 'Two glasses?'
Dad: "Yeah, they priced me in"
Me: 'How?'
Dad: "Well, it was $5 for one glass... And $6 for two..."
Me: 'Ahhhhh... Yeah, they priced you in'

The worst part of the buffet was that the ice cream machine was broken, but I had plenty of choc lava cake with marshmallows, so I feel like I made the best of a bad situation...

After the buffet we played some slot machines in a few casinos and went for a walk along the strip.  They had slot machines for all kinds of TV shows and films such as The Walking Dead, Ghostbusters, Back to the Future and The Hangover. 

Case

We made it as far as Planet Hollywood before we turned around and walked back to Excalibur.  From there I did some blogging, watched TWD and then went to bed, ready for a poker tournament the next morning.

Monday

I awoke Monday feeling tired, but I wanted to head downstairs and enter a Poker tournament, so I didn't have time to be tired... I got up, showered, headed down and bought in for the tournament... Around 30 people were involved... I lasted about 40 minutes, and much to my shame, I failed to win a hand, though I was beaten on the river 3 times, twice by the same guy who rivered a King both times (I know, I know... Excuses don't solve the problem... But I'm just reporting the facts)...

Dad made his way down just as I exited the tournament, and I went back upstairs with him, put on our walking shoes and headed out for a walk up and down the Las Vegas Strip.

Greenwich Village in New York, New York

The end of the roller coaster through the Casino at New York, New York

Entrance to the Monte Car

Paris

The Bellagio, the lake and a view to Caeser's Palace

Caeser's Palace

Planet Hollywood

We made it to the Bellagio just in time to see the guys cleaning the lake (and picking up all the coins I assume) and the water show... I wasn't able to see this the last time I was in Las Vegas, so this was a lot of fun to see,

Cleaners going fishing

Water show starts

... And goes...

... And goes...

 

 

...... Aaaaand goes....

I had a video depicting the ending, but Blogger seemed to have an issue with uploading it... Something about file size being too large... I'm not sure if I can be arsed posting it to YouTube when I'm sure there are more impressive videos of it to see... Anyway, suffice to say, it was a pretty swanky show

We then headed up to The Mirage so that we could buy tickets to the Cirque du Soleil show 'Love' which was about The Beatles and their showcase of music.  The line was a solid half hour long, the Box Office had 3 people working, but for some reason two of them walked away just as we got to the line... So we waited, and we waited and eventually got to the front to get the tickets... Though not without a few aggressive moments from Dad towards the attendant, who wasn't necessarily that well mannered either... It was kind of disconcerting, but then again, she was being a bit of a hag...

Love

Hotel wide advertising

From here we made our way to Treasure Island, or TI as they're trying to market it... We made our way to the buffet and had our fill, the ice cream machine was working this time (also, there was no ice cream machine, it was a scoop place) so I managed to get all the ice cream I wanted and good times were had by all and sundry... Also had my first taste of ribs and BBQ on my current trip to the US, what was surprising was that Dad didn't get into it as much as I did...

We then hit the blackjack tables... Dad was looking to me to teach him how to gamble/play the game, and this is what I tried to do... I busted fairly quickly, you can't really do much with 13s, 14s and 15s against the dealer's 10... But Dad made a killing, employing some of my tactics on his way to a 3 figure win...

He was pretty annoyed by the end of it though, a guy at the end of the table was as much a novice as he was, but then another guy sat next to him and played Box 1 (Dad being in Box 2), and the new guy took all of Dad's cards (this guy came in and in his first 10 hands would've hit Blackjack or was dealt a 20 at least 8 times)... He cursed to me a bit but nothing over the top, certainly not in the way I would be cursing.

We walked through the Venetian (mostly so I could show Dad the indoor canals that look all outdoors) and eventually began to make our way back to Excalibur using the Las Vegas Monorail.

Simpsons Joke of the Day: The Monorail Song... Like you had to ask?
(Ignore the captions, I don't know what the hell is going on there...)

Treasure Island

Outdoors? Indoors?

Getting back to our hotel we decided to make the most of the resort fee we were paying and made our way to the pool (which due to the season were half open and therefore those open were full of kids and pasty Englishmen).  The pool facilities closed at 5, so we made our way through the casino floor in wet boardies and got ourselves ready for the show at the Mirage. 

We stopped in New York for a Nathan's hot dog and then making it to The Mirage we were confronted with another ridiculously long line, though this one was for actual admission.  You see all kinds of dickheads in lines, especially when they think that they're being disadvantaged in some way... Getting towards the front of the line we were told we could split into 4 lines.  Dad tried to go by some old guy who made a point to stick out an elbow (Mark Bickley would've had a tear in his eye at the sight), so we got stuck behind this guy... The guy got to the front of the line and DIDN'T HAVE HIS TICKET READY... Moron... Makes a point of keeping people in the single line and boxing people in so he could be first, and then wasn't ready to actually scan his ticket... Dickhead...

The line for admission... Stretched several hundred metres

You're not allowed to take photos or videos in the theatre when they acrobats are performing, but I will simply say this... Even if you're not into Cirque du Soleil (which I didn't think I would be), go and see a show... It is amazing the kind of things the performers can do... I mean, crazy French Canadian performers sure, but amazing crazy... People coming in from the ceiling barely anchored/harnessed to anything, the crazy shit going on on the actual stage, the continually moving and changing stage beneath the performers... We saw all the acrobatic stuff, we saw skating, we saw dance... It was really amazing... And then there was the actual music... Dad was in his element, consistently leaning over and telling me who wrote the song, what it meant and on occasion, what it didn't mean... It was an amazing show and one that I would recommend to anyone.

We walked back to the hotel, intermittently gambling along the way and went to bed, but what an amazing two nights in Vegas!

Writer's Note: It's been nearly a week since I last put a post up... So, I'm going to post this now (even though there is more Vegas to come)... The next thing I post will be the rest of Vegas, even though what happens there should stay there...