Vegas 1-4

So I had the best of intentions of doing a short entry every day...and I'm 4 days behind :) So here's a summary of the trip so far - no pictures as I forgot to bring the cable to download from the camera.

Wednesday night (after work) - drive to Roseville and once again enjoy the hospitality of cousins Brent & Cindy's house (the best place to be if you have a 7AM flight the next day)

Thursday - leave at 4:45am for the airport ugh. After finding the Park'N'Fly and taking the shuttle, we arrived in plenty of time to get an egg mcmuffin and a Caribou coffee. Flight was great, 10 minutes early in fact. We didn't get to sit together - I have no idea what the airlines are doing with flights and seating and charging extra for stuff - why can't they just be normal? Shuttle to the Mirage Hotel & Casino, where we dropped off our bags (checkin was not until noon). Decided Erin would enjoy going through the Venetian and getting breakfast, which we had at a nice little cafe. Not quite noon so we hit the Fashion Show mall (which is pretty much like any other mall in the world). While we were there I found the 1/2 price show ticket counter (for shows that aren't sold out for that day, they sell 1/2 price tickets, a good deal if you don't want a specific show on a specific night). At 7:00pm we headed down to the Imperial Palace right across from the Mirage, and saw "Legends In Concert", a tribute/impersonator show to singers from the past. The ones we had that night were Jay Leno (hosting), Tina Turner, Dusty Springfield (who was AWESOME - she was there because she won Britain's version of American Idol), the Blues Brothers, and of course Elvis who always ends the show. I saw the show two yeras ago and the Elvis was the same (great) but the rest were new.

Friday - decided to try "The Roasted Bean" coffee shop in the hotel, which was kind of an overpriced disappointment. Everything here is overpriced but usually it's good :) The Mirage is home to Siegfried & Roy's Secret Graden which has dolphins and lions/tigers so we decied to check that out. The dolphins were pretty neat and we saw the trainers working with them. The lion/tiger zoo had 15-week-old white tiger cubs wihch were adorable, as well as a mix of full-grown ones. Decided we should spend an hour or so at the pool and start getting some sun. At 1:00pm, we made the "trek" over to the Hilton to the only must on the trip, The Star Trek Experience - which, sadly is closing permanently on September 1 after 10 years (so we were lucky to get to see it!). I saw this two years go and spent about 4 hours looking at everything, doing the two rides, and eating at Quarks. It was just as good this time, and we did the additional "backstage" 1 1/2 hour tour which was totally worth the extra money. I'm so glad I got to see this one more time! Took the monorail back to the hotel (walked there, it's a long walk!) and grabbed something to eat and made it an early night as we had a full day the next day.

Saturday - walked across the street to the Wynn for breakfast, where I remembered a nice cafe from last time (great food, great view of the back of the Wynn resort). Walked over to the Fashion Show mall again to do a little more looking. Around noon hit the pool again, this time stayed out a little longer and remembered sunscreen :) Lunch at 3:00pm in the hotel at the California Pizza Kitchen, which was a little less than expected - good food, bad service. Our plan for the night was to go and see the Blue Man Group at the Venetian, and we sort of took a nap for awhile. We thought the show was at 7:30, but it was actually at 7:00, and so we were actually a few minutes late (fortunately that is no big deal, they just get you in). I would DEFINITELY recommend this show to anyone visiting Las Vegas. The tickets were $140 each (there are cheaper upper deck ones too) and totally worth it. Last time the big ticket show I saw was Celine Dion which is gone, and that show was still the best, but this one was fantastic. Erin was even picked out of the audience and got to throw some pieces of candy to one of the "Blue Men" which he caught in his mouth (he was doing this same thing on stage). Unfortuantely we weren't allowed to take pictures or anything but it was cool that he was one of about 5 people picked out to do something. After the show we walked down the strip to the Bellagio so that Erin could see the fountains (these are the fountains you see every time you see Vegas on TV, and the show is really neat, even if it is only 5 minutes).

Sunday - Decided to try the buffet in the hotel, "Cravings". So, I decided a buffet is still a buffet - certainly higher quality food than say Old Country Buffet, but...still a buffet :) They did have great hash browns which I got two servigs of. We let the massive amount of food settle and Erin went down to register for his conference (the main reason we were here in the first place). Hit the pool at 11, spent a couple hours there, and then headed out to wander down the strip - we wanted to find the CVS drugstore to get some more suntan lotion and just see some more of the strip, including the other "mall" which is down by Planet Hollywood, Paris, and Bally's. They have about 6 blocks all torn up between Monte Carlo and Bellagio, building the "City Center" which looks to be bigger than anything else here - supposedly hotel, shops, and condos. At 4:30, Erin had to go to the first day of his conference, so I walked over to the half price ticket counter to see if I could find a cheap show - I decided on "V - The Ultimate Variety Show" which I wasn't sure about, and wasn't thrilled about standing in the general admission line for (Planet Hollywood's theater has a bad setup IMHO) but the show was pretty good. The juggler who was the main performer was really good, and there was also a strongman duo act, trapeze artists, comedy act, and magician. Good for a half price show :) Met up with Erin and some of his colleagues from the conference and did some wandering and hit some of the Vegas night life.

Vegas Observations

• More is More, Bigger is Better - everything built seems to be trying to top whatever the last thing built was
• If your casino is over 10 years old you're "old"
• Everything here is wide open - not only can you go anywhere any time with anything (including your drinks), they WANT you to - they go out of their way to get you to have to walk through the casinos and shops (which is great because they're air conditioned)
• This is NOT a family vacation destination, no matter how much you want it to be (I've seen so many little kids - sure, there are some things to do but I wouldn't bring my kids here)
• The average age of the visitors is probably over 55 :)

Time to go hunt down coffee. Erin works all day today, so my assignments are to spend lots of time by the pool and find another half price show.