06/06/10
June 2 (Wed): If you missed the previous write-up and pictures from our Vegas trip, you can click on "May '10" above to get to it.
I talked about the shows we saw, but it's SO hard to describe them, so luckily it's YouTube to the rescue! Le Rêve was phenomenal!!!
Looking at this promo for "The Beatles LOVE - Cirque du Soleil", I am at loss to explain why we both found it somewhat disappointing.
And of course we saw Cher, more for my benefit than Andy's. I've loved Cher since I was a little kid. She was great.
We did have one trip glitch. Of course we did. It's us after all. The day we left we got to the airport, checked in, then Andy went ahead through US customs and security to the gate. I waited by the main entrance for Steven. He was coming to pick up our truck for the week via the subway....however, the subway was under construction and I got a couple calls from him reporting on his lack of progress getting to us. This was a problem because we had parked in the short term lot. So.....either he had to get to us in time for me to make the flight or I had to go move the truck into the long term lot. At my great encouragement, he got off the damn subway and got a taxi......and got to me just in time so that I didn't have to panic. Unfortunately, he had already panicked so by 7:20 AM, he was toast for the day! I handed him the keys with a hug goodbye then headed through the forever winding customs line and security.
I got close to the gate to see Andy waving at me to hurry to join her at the desk. It seemed we were bumped. We thought it had been odd that we weren't assigned seats when we checked in. We had to wait around to see if anyone didn't show up for the flight. Everyone did, which apparently is a fluke. We don't understand how the heck this happened when we had booked back in January, I believe, but there was no point in getting too angry and going nowhere. They immediately gave us a couple options. So we flew to Los Angeles, got a quick connection to Vegas, and for our trouble we each got a $200 voucher for Air Canada. Not bad for only really losing a few hours. One small hitch was that our luggage (you knew this was coming, right?) had gone on the original flight, so we were now separated from it. We looked around at the airport and then discovered it would be over in the international terminal, but we were in the domestic terminal. Took a shuttle over, looked around but the place was quite deserted, finally found an Air Canada rep, and got directed to the Servisair office. There we happily found our luggage. Phew! Shuttled back to the domestic terminal because that's where the hotel shuttles were. Got one of those and soon discovered that Las Vegas is completely INSANE.
One more thing I must mention is the smoke.....cigarette smoke. We are not used to it here anymore as smoking is banned in all public, indoor areas like restaurants, and in a lot of places it's even banned outdoors. But smoking your brains (or lungs) out is totally ok in Vegas, so walking through every casino or restaurant or basically anywhere was quite smoky. And just in case you didn't know, most of the time you have to walk through a casino to get to anything else...like we had to walk through ours to get to the elevators to the guest rooms, or to get to the shops or the pool. That's just the way it is. AND...you can walk around with beer or any other drink in public areas, even on the street. Andy was really taken by what they called the "Yard" drinks making their way up and down the sidewalks. They were glasses, three feet long, full of drinks such as a Margarita.
Anyway, now a gazillion pictures - part 2 - Wednesday through Friday.
We had a fun & delicious lunch at the Hard Rock Café.
We weren't allowed to take pictures inside the exhibit, but the finale brought you to this 15-ton, 15-by-30 foot portion of the ship's hull recovered from the ocean floor (I've stolen this picture from another website).
As an add-on to our tour package, we went on a pontoon boat ride on the river side of the dam.
Looking up at the new bridge, soon to be finished, so that traffic will no longer be travelling over the dam, which is considered a security risk since 9-11. Our bus was even searched by Homeland Security each time we got near it on both the Dam trip and when crossing over it for the Canyon trip.
The water intakes for the hydro generators.
We also were taken to tour a cactus garden.
On the way back into town, we finally got to see the famous sign.
And finally, Andy has created a lovely collage of us.
