Now, you may ask yourself, what does a very good Mormon girl find to do in Las Vegas? Let me tell you. In 2004 I asked myself the same thing when I joined Claude for 4 days there as he did presentations for his last assignment with the Peace Corp before retiring. I spent a great deal of time researching the Internet for possibilities. I found tons of fun things to do that don't require liquor, cigarettes or gambling. We had a wonderful trip. So bidding on this fundraiser item was an easy thing for us to do.
We left Monday, January 3rd from Cincinnati. Our pilot told us during our flight that Las Vegas was experiencing snow. Hmmm...we were fortunately aware it would be colder than summer in Vegas and had packed accordingly.
This time we did not rent a car. Our entire visit was on the strip (Las Vegas Blvd.). We booked transportation from the airport to the Tropicana and back to the airport with Grey Line. Our hotel was closest to the airport so it was a quick trip going and coming.
The Tropicana has completed a huge new building and some extensive remodeling. They are also in the process of adding to their pool area and changing some of the old rooms that were motel rooms. So we had a very nice room on the 18th floor. This picture is of the Paradise Tower over the casino. We were actually in the Island Tower which you reach via a sky bridge walk over the pool and garden area. The pool & garden area is under construction while the pool is closed for winter. It appears they are adding more meeting space, knocking out the old motel style rooms from many years ago and increasing the pool/garden area. What there was of the previous pool area was gorgeous. It should be truly grand when they have it completed.
Dinner Monday night was at the Rain Forest Cafe in the MGM Grand. It is a really fun restaurant. The food was very good. And the atmosphere was something that made us wish our grandmonsters were there to enjoy as well. There were several enormous fish tanks with brightly colored fish. In the center was a big tree trunk with the bar around it. The tables were all around under the tree. There were animals in and hanging from the tree. The walls were covered with plants and animals. Every 22 minutes a pretend thunderstorm occurred with simulated lightning. Also, periodically the animals along the walls would make noises, elephants blaring, leopards and cheetahs growling, gorillas thumping their chests. Over our table a night sky was painted on the ceiling complete withh stars and clouds and a planet. The stars twinkled and were set so it looked like shooting stars were going across the sky. It was quite enjoyable.
Further down Las Vegas Boulevard we found the Hawaiian Village. This is just a courtyard with lots of stands to purchase interesting junk. The food court behind seemed to be closed for the season. I did find a stand selling pashmina's and made my mental note to come back there the next day.
Eventually we made it to the Venetian. Claude was sure it didn't exist as we seemed to be walking f.o.r.e.v.e.r. But we did get there and found the Phantom Theater.
This beautiful theater was built especially for the Phantom of the Opera. We had seats on the 3rd row. The staging was covered with drapery over all the elements. There was a huge chandelier on the stage and three other chandeliers were strung out over the audience seating. No pictures were allowed of even the interior of the theater. The house lights went down, the drapery over the theater staging was lifted and the play began. Behind that drapery along the side walls was layers of balcony seating with dummies posed in costume as though they were in the Opera House watching the opera. Either side of the stage had an elegant box seat. These were used by the actors at various points in the play. This was an excellent production. There is no intermission. The show runs for 90 minutes. The actors have great resumes in the Play Bill. Eventually that chandelier on the stage and the three over the audience swung around until they nested in each other and formed a huge chandelier in the center of the theater. At one point the Phantom was hanging from that chandelier. We were very happy we chose this as one of the shows to attend.
We chose to travel back to the other end of the Strip via the Monorail. This is a lot like the Metro in Washington, DC. It was fun to watch Claude go into Metro rider mode. He just walked down the platform and picked the place for us to stand as he always did in DC. When you ride the Metro in DC as much as he did, you know where on the platform to be at whatever hour to get the best seat, even factoring in tourist season, etc. I just found it fun to watch him do that on the Monorail. We got off the Monorail at the MGM Grand stop and entered the MGM Grand. We found a great ice cream shop and had a nice scoop of dessert to end our evening. Then across the street to the Tropicana for a good nights sleep.
Tuesday, we slept in. Although, there is a 3 hour time difference between Sadieville and Las Vegas. I'm not sure we were ever really sure what time zone we were in. The night before we purchased a muffin and juice for each of us for breakfast. We enjoyed a nice breakfast, I read some in my book and then we were ready to be out of our room for a bit.
We decided to hike back to the Orange Julius place. It was time for lunch so Claude purchased us lunch from the Wienerschnitzel place. Actually he ordered him an Italian sausage sandwich with a large chili fries and we shared the chili fries. Claude totally enjoyed his Orange Julius.
Then we hiked on down to the Hawaiian Village so I could check out the pashminas. I purchased two.
We also re-visited the M&M Store. This is a 4-story business with lots of fun things made with the M&M logo. They have a wall with all colors of M&M's. You can even pick your own decorations to have printed on the M&M's and have it done right there. It's a fun stop. Claude noted a poster that he was sure Hayden would enjoy with his new found love of Star Wars.
Dinner would be at the MGM Grand. Claude wanted to try a buffet. I have to say this was our worst meal of the trip and probably the most expensive. Thus goeth the lesson.
Our show that evening was a Cirque du Soliel performance entitled KA. It was at the MGM Grand. We have seen two other Cirque du Soliel live performances and totally enjoyed all of them. This one was absolutely amazing as well.
The KA Theater is a massive 9-story affair. During the show, in the pit that is 51 feet below the staging area, there are 195 carpenters, riggers and lighting technicians and crew members performing a carefully choreographed performance of their own. Above them are 7 stages that appear as if from no where. The main stage of these seven is 80,000 pounds, 50-feet long and moves from the bottom of the 51 foot pit to above the pit and can rotate 360 degrees and tils past 90 degrees. It is just amazing to watch. This stage has all kinds of features in it to aid in the performances. At various points it is a sandy beach with animals coming out of the sand, a snowy mountain the characters have to scale, and on and on. The rest of the theater made me think of a stylized 'Waterworld' building. The actors move all over these runs. As with other Cirque du Soliel performances, it is nice to have someone else with you who might see something you would want to see and can catch your attention from what you are watching so you see it. There is just so much going on it is hard to follow it all.
A really cute part was a finger play done by have a lamp between two characters sitting on the edge of the stage. They have the big stage perpendicular to the edge of the stage where they actors are sitting with the lamp. Then they can do the shadow hand puppet thing with all kinds of animal characters.
We again were glad we picked this as one of our shows to see.
Back to the Tropicana for another good nights rest.
Wednesday, January 5th would be our last full day as tourists in Las Vegas. We slept in a bit and then chose to cross the highway and walk south on Las Vegas Boulevard this day. This would let us visit the Excalibur, Luxor and Mandalay Bay. We found a Krispy Kreme and had a donut for breakfast. There is an escalator system that stays inside and travels between these three hotels. We used it to get from one hotel to the other and then roam the inside of each hotel.
Claude really wanted to see the Shark Reef at Mandalay Bay so we determined to go there first. Once again we had to walk to the very far end of Mandalay Bay to get to the Shark Reef. These buildings are ENORMOUS. But the walk was worth it and we did enjoy the Shark Reef. Here are a few of my favorite things from that visit.
We saw many other fish and animals from pirahna to a giant octopus to lizards. It was worth the walk. And we definitely earned lunch.
We knew there was a Quiznos back at the Excalibur. We don't have one of these close to us in Sadieville so we decided to head back to Excalibur for lunch. The trip back we would do on a tram that is outside between these three hotels.
I wanted a picture of two of the Luxor. Here are three. If you look closely to the right of the Obelisk you will see a helicopter.
Back to the Tropicana for that afternoon nap before dinner and show time.
Wednesday nights selection would be Blue Man Group at the Venetian. This time we chose to go to the Flamingo for dinner at Jimmy Buffet's Margaretaville. Now we knew it was a long walk so this night we decided to use the Monorail to get to the Flamingo. Dinner at Jimmy Buffets was excellent. The interior is decorated like a dock. I really liked the simplified fishing boats, 4 in a row, that were used for tables. The nose of the boats faced where Claude and I were sitting and two people could sit at the nose of each boat. The inside of each boat had a table with seating more people. This was just clever to me. There was even a small plane hanging from the ceiling and a lighthouse light on corner that kept flashing. Great atmosphere and excellent coconut shrimp.
We walked from the Flamingo down the next block (these are long blocks) to the Venetian. Blue Man Group was as much fun as when we saw it in 2004. They have changed a few things but it was just great fun again. I highly recommend this group to anyone to see. You need to be able to tolerate loud drum noise and strob lighting.
After this show we treated ourselves to gelato for dessert. Then back to the Monorail and the Tropicana.
Thursday we were in the lobby by 9am to meet our bus back to McCarron Airport. Claude was not feeling well. This would just get worse as the day wore one. We ate what would have been an early lunch at Ruby's Diner but we were trying to get back to Eastern Standard Time and realisitically knew it would probably be our only meal of the day. This turned out to be the right choice.
Our plane ended up leaving an hour late from McCarron. Our pilot was at the airport in Salt Lake City and having a hard time getting out because of the weather. Our plane was at McCarron. They were kind enough to not board us until just before the pilot arrived. We boarded and the pilot did his flight check. We were offered an early beverage while we waited. By now my poor hubby was really coughing bad. It was a really wierd cough that was very dry and you could tell it wasn't going to get better in the future.
We had one stop in our flight that day. It necessitated a change of planes in Memphis. The layover to make that change was one hour. Our one hour delay in Las Vegas meant we would have to hoof it pretty fast to try and make that connection. My hope was the connection plane would be just across the concourse from our Las Vegas plane. That was not to be either.
We got to Memphis and the flight attendant told the passengers at least 3 times as we taxied to the terminal that only those who had to make a connection before 7pm should exit the plane first. Our connection was at 6:55pm. At the terminal she stated this need again. Believe it or not...EVERYONE on the front half of our flight had a connection before 7pm. Well...at least they all left the plane before we were able to get off the plane. I quickly checked the board and found our connecting flight was on the A concourse. We were at the end of the B concourse. I looked at my poor hubby who could hardly breath at this point and said, "I think we have to run." He nodded agreement and we were off.
We ran down concourse B. He was struggling to keep up. We were at the center and looking for the A concourse. Found it. Headed down to it and then half way down it to find our flight. As we got nearer I ran ahead of him and waved at the attendant that we were for that flight. She was very relieved to see us coming. She quickly checked our boarding passes and let us into a staircase. Oh no...this was not a good omen. Our plane was on the tarmac and we needed to walk in the below freezing air to the middle plane of the group where it has snowed previously. I grabbed Claude's hand and we headed to our plane.
By the time we got in our seats, Claude was starting to run a fever. You could see it in his eyes and hear it in that awful, dry cough. The fever got worse as we flew from Memphis to Cincinnati. By the time we got to Cincinnati Claude was very hot to the touch.
Sure enough we had to get off the plane and walk across the tarmac to the terminal in Cincinnati where it was even colder and there had also been some snow. I got Claude's hand again and we headed out. By the time we got to the terminal he was shivering uncontrollably. I was very worried.
We found the shuttle underground from concourse B to baggage claim. With the delay we were pretty sure our luggage might not make the change of planes. Since we were supposed to fly out the next day to Albany, we really needed the contents of that bag. We had talked about staying until the next plane came into Cincinnati to get our luggage if it wasn't there. Amazingly, when we got to baggage claim after everyone else, there was one red suitcase on that turnstile with our name on it. A quick prayer of gratitude passed quietly from my lips.
Our car was in long-term parking. I went outside leaving Claude in the warm building to wait for the shuttle. I called him out when it arrived. So we quickly got him in the shuttle and the driver took us right to our car. It was then just a matter of getting the Jeep warm and doing the hour drive to Sadieville.
We got home and I told Claude to just get ready for bed and I would check on possibilities of changing our travel to Albany the next day after we saw what a good nights rest would do for him. I found my strong cough syrup from my December bout with bronchitis to give him some of it. I do not share my prescription drugs with anyone, ever, but there was a real need here for something and I felt it was the right thing to do. As I put the suitcase in bedroom, I could hear Claude rumbling around in the kitchen. When he got to the bedroom he had a HUGE yucky bowl with him. It was actually my largest bread making mixing bowl. I knew then we were in for a tough night. Bless his heart.
The bad part is...we didn't make it to Albany the next day.
The good part is...when I check SouthWest Airlines, they were offering a one time free change of flight to those flying to Albany the next day because of severe snow storms coming that would clog the airports. Sooo...we didn't have to pay extra to change our travel to another weekend.
Claude had a good nights sleep. I got up the next morning and spoke with our friends in Albany and explained our situation and set up our travel there for a later date. Then took advantage of the on-line offer for a free change of flight.
The end result of this saga is that by Saturday I was beginning to cough. It was a bit different cough than Claude but it felt like it might get worse. I took meds and headed to bed Saturday night. I went to Church on Sunday, taught my gospel doctrine class, played the piano for Relief Society, attended choir practice and then headed home to my hubby again. We had salads for lunch. I curled up on the loveseat to rest. My tummy started aching. I headed to the bathroom and hurled and knew I was in trouble now as well. And I thought I was doing sooooo well Sunday morning.
Monday we both headed to our doctor. He stuck the Q-Tip up my nostrils and processed the thing to determine I now had Influenza A. Claude did not have to have the test because our doctor was sure we had the same thing. We headed to the pharmacy and got our matching inhaler prescriptions filled. The doctor also gave Claude a prescription of the same heavy-duty cough syrup I used with my brochitis and I felt I did the right thing by giving him that when we got home from Las Vegas that first night.
We are on the mend but we have learned..."What happens in Vegas does NOT always stay in Vegas." Flu germs love to travel!!!
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