Viva Las Vegas

[fbhjr]

We got back to the hotel from my wife's birthday trip to the Grand Canyon about noon on Saturday. Our plane back wasn't until midnight Sunday night.
So, there was the question of what to do for a day and a half in Vegas.

It is a difficult question. Not because there isn't much to do, but rather the opposite. Picking what to do is not very easy.

We don't gamble. I don't drink. My wife doesn't drink much.
(My wife and I both have certain obsessive tendencies. We both feel the best way to stop gambling is not start. There were many discussions of "wait, we can try this and our luck will be different from millions of other people and we'll walk away with more than we come in with." But, we never tried.)

My wife was in favor of just staying in the room. And, we were both tired from lack of sleep and running around the edge of the Grand Canyon.
But, I couldn't stay cooped up in a little room for 36 hours.

So after a fairly long review of things to do, we decided to go on the "High Roller".
( http://www.vegas.com/attractions/on-the-strip/high-roller-las-vegas/ )

Remember last April when cosmicirony and I complained that Google lied to us and we walked across half of Cardif to get to something that was supposed to be a 10 minute walk?
Google still lies.

Google told us it was about a 20-30 minute walk to the High Roller from our hotel. So, we left our rental car behind, ignored the taxi stand, and set out up "The Strip" for it.
It took about 90 minutes to get there.

Walking up Las Vegas Boulevard/The Strip is quite an experience. And, not quite like any other I've ever had.
Part of it was like one of the main shopping roads I've been to in Shanghai. Part of it is like some parts of Orlando. Parts of it are like a circus. Parts of it are just strange.

Some things we saw:
Spider man talking to Hello Kitty.
Chewbacca begging for money.
More than one person playing Christmas music on an accordion.
Lots of people begging for money. One who had a sign that said "Why lie, I want money for beer."
People dressed as transformers.
People dressed as Avengers.
People trying to get you to go to their shows.
People trying to get you to go to their restaurants.
People collecting money for their churches.
People yelling at each other in at least 5 different languages I could recognize. (English, Spanish, Russian, Chinese and Japanese. I'm sure there were more...)

And, that's no where near all.

While a long walk through fairly big crowds I amused myself by thinking of it the way an alien who just landed on Earth would looking at it all.

We did get there. We did not make reservations to ride it. My wife was unhappy about this.
But, for all the crowds, this is the low season, and we had no problem getting right onto the giant ferris wheel.
It's a nice ride. We did not get on the happy hour car with a bar in it. We just went around in a regular car for half an hour.

My wife refused to walk back.

So, we took the Las Vegas Monorail!
There was some debate if you were really required to sing the Monorail song from the Simpsons cartoon. I thought you were, my wife said we were not.

We got back to the hotel around 4:30 in the afternoon. My wife wanted to eat at one of the nicer restaurants, so we ate at the steak house at the Luxor hotel. (We tried to eat at the sushi place, but it was closed for renovations due to this being the low season.)

The meal was very good. And, it only cost us $100 a person.
Yeah. That's a lot.
But, I considered it was part of the birthday present and put it on my credit card.

Then, at maybe 6 or 7 local time, we went to sleep.

Sunday morning I was up about 6 local time. Since that is 9 my normal time, it was actually fairly late for me. As my wife slept in, I wrote about the Grand Canyon and watched the sun light up the mountains outside the hotel windows.
After I had typed for a fair bit of time, my wife woke up to tell me to go off to breakfast without her.

I went off to the buffet at the hotel. They were very surprised that I didn't want any of the mimosas at breakfast even when I told them I didn't drink.
"But, it's included in your meal!"

The brunch buffet was interesting. I ended up having an omelette and some sushi.

By the time I got back my wife was up and we made the plan for the day.
The Luxor is owned by MGM. They have a deal where you get get to three attractions at any MGM properties for the price of two.
So, we chose one from three different hotels for the afternoon.

The first was the "Bodies" exhibit there at the Luxor. http://www.luxor.com/entertainment/bodies.aspx

Not really my thing. I only have marginal interest in anatomy. Biology was actually my best science class back in high school. But, I decided not to try and follow my grandfather's footsteps and be a doctor. So, I've never followed up on any of it.
But, not uninteresting.

Next, another chorus of the monorail song as we walked across the street to the MGM station and went back north.
We finally managed to get to the Mirage where the "Secret Garden" was.
http://www.mirage.com/attractions/secret-garden.aspx

We watched the bored unhappy dolphins and the bored unhappy big cats. We both felt sorry for them.
I was vaguely interested in the "Dolphin painting" package. But, it appears to be a dolphin trained to spit paint at you while you hide behind a canvas and you pretend the dolphin was trying to make art, not get you colored in paint.
Not for $200...

Then, back on the Monorail to go to Mandalay Bay and see the sharks.
http://www.mandalaybay.com/shark-reef/aquarium/
That was actually pretty cool. Much bigger than either of us expected it to be.
The only down side was it is a LONG walk from the hotel entrance. It took us more than half an hour to get there after we got to the hotel. Part of that was bad directions in the casino, but still.

The actual aquarium is pretty good sized for a hotel attraction. They have a lot of sharks, a crocodile, a Komodo dragon, and of course as it is Christmas season: Santa Jaws.
I did not have my photo taken with Santa Jaws...

Finally over to the Excalibur for the Tournament of Kings. http://www.excalibur.com/entertainment/tournament_of_kings.aspx

We got there early so shopped around for a bit. 25 years ago a friend of ours was out here and brought my wife an Excalibur Seatshirt she liked. So, we tried to find a replacement.
We failed. They don't make them like that any more. Sad.
We did ask the hotel concierge who said he was working there 25 years ago. He said he remembered them and having to wear a similar green uniform himself. He said he was glad when the color scheme switched to black.

The show itself was actually fairly good. The sword fights were reasonable and we really liked the flamethrower the bad guy had. But, swords and fire, we're suckers for that.

Then, back to the airport where I am writing this while sitting at a charging station waiting for our plane. We still have 2 more hours and I've got to be at a meeting at work in 9 hours 17 minute...

Sleep, not something I'm good at on planes.

We'll see how it goes. Someday I'll have photos uploaded...

Comments

[chaquir.livejournal.com]

it sounds like a great place to visit.
I wouldn't go gambling either. Chances you lose a lot of money are so big!

the sidewalks are quite interesting there so it seems ;o)

[meathiel]

Sounds ... errrrrr ... interesting. I'm not sure LV is a place I'd like to visit really. Well, apart from the being close to Grand Canyon thing of course!

[pallid-regina.livejournal.com]

I tried walking around which is apparently not what Vegas is for. Doing a roam of the Strip could be fun.

[chris-warrior.livejournal.com]

i have a feeling you wrung about as much fun from Las vegas as two people who don't drink and don't gamble could possibly have wrung from it. :)

[malterre.livejournal.com]

Exactly. It definitely was input overload!

[hindustar.livejournal.com]

interesting.

[endlessblush.livejournal.com]

It all sounds so fantastic! But I've seen the photos and I know it is.

As you found out there is plenty of things to do there if you don't gamble or drink.