Las Vegas Review

OK now I can finally give the wrap up the Las Vegas trip. The flight in was great. A little early and cold to start the trip (it was -1 when we left the truck in the parking lot at O'Hare). But the flight itself was great. There was spectacular scenary to be viewed as we flew over the Rockies and into Las Vegas. We landed and were off of the plane early if you can believe that. We spent most of Christmas Eve at the Sahara where we stayed. Both eating at the buffet and playing some of the machines. Angie was the luckiest one for the trip, she managed to win 1000 credits 3 different times on a nickel machine while playing Dueces Wild Poker. She hit her first jackpot Christmas Eve night.

The only thing we did outside of the hotel was to drive down to Aladdin's and check out the mall they have within their grounds. We saw their little rainsstorm that they do, and frankly it was a little disappointing. We look at some Christmas stuff, but even on Christmas Eve, very few places had much stuff on sale.

Christmas Day we all got dressed up and drove around to the different places that had done special things for Christmas. First stop was Sam's Town, which I had never seen before. For being a ways off of the strip it was a pretty cool place. The hotel part had an Embassy Suites style set up with all of the rooms looking out into a main atrium square. Down on the ground they had a bunch of animatronic animals that did a show coordinated to music, and accompanied by dancing water streams. Sam's Town also had a full bowling alley and an 18 screen movie theater within its grounds.

Next it was on the Bellagio, where they had their atrium done up for the holiday season with an incredible amout of work and money being put into it. They had polar bears that consisted of 25,000 carnations apiece, Gigantic Christmas bulbs made entirely of red roses, a 50 foot decarated Christmas tree, and cranberry pools. While there I managed to throw a dollar in a slot machine and win five on a single pull of the one armed bandits. I took a dollar token for a souvinier, gave one to my father-in-law, and cashed in the other 3.

After that we checked out Mirage's atrium next, and had a drink in one of their little bars nestled within their shrubbery.

Then it was accross to The Venitian where we had the nutjob cab driver from hell. In the course of driving accross the street from Mirage to Venetian, he managed to about run over a mother and kid in a stroller in the crosswalk, argue and get banned from ever coming back to the Venitian by trying to blow throught their security check, and then throw a tempertatrum when he only got a 10% tip. In the Ventitian we walked through their mall, which is modeled after the canals of Venice, complete with opera singing gondola rowers, and living statues. As a bonus they had a group singing Italian Christmas carols. After we were done in there, we watched the volcano eruption from the balcony, and then headed back to the Sahara.

Sunday we got up early and headed out of town 18 miles due East, and checked out Red Rock Canyon park. It was absolutely incredible. The scenary was beautiful, and they actually let you climb and explore into the rocks and mountians. I did a bunch of climbing and exploring myself, and took some incredible pictures in the process. I also managed to grab a couple more neat looking rocks for my own rose garden. Among other things they had a 13 mile driving trail they had through the park which we did. It was definately my favorite part of the trip.

That night Ang and I went and saw the Cirque Di Solie production Zumanity. It was their take off on Sex. Let me just say as an uncultured creatin, it was a strange, strange experience. Some of the things that went on, on stage, we pretty bizzare. Though the production was pretty incredible and detailed.

Monday unfortuneately was the flight home. On the bright side the flight home was under 3 hours, and the drive home was just as good. After some confusion over where our luggage was coming from, we managed to get from the parking lot at O'Hare to my inlaws house in an unspeakable 1 hour and 10 minutes.

All and all it was an awesome trip.