Las Vegas

I have just spent 2+ hours trying to find a decent blog template to match with any number of winter/holiday header photos I have.  What an ordeal.  I'm not thrilled about the way things are looking right now but I am (no surprise) tired of playing with it ... so I will catch you up on my life these past several days without my computer.

Most of you assumed that my computer was going away for some repairs or upgrades of some sort.  I can understand why you thought that, but the computer stayed right here on the dining room table.  It was me who went away.  I didn't want to post ahead of time that I would be gone for a few days & I'm sure you can understand that decision   : )

John has been wanting us to travel someplace together for months now, but with my surgery & health issues it hasn't been possible.  Although my health is still rather iffy, I figured I was well enough to go somewhere for a few days.  John decided we'd go to Las Vegas.  He had been there not long ago & really enjoyed himself.  He loved the weather & enjoyed walking around & seeing all the hotels.

I had been to Las Vegas when I was 19 ... 41 years ago.  Two friends & I decided to leave home (Pittsburgh) & move to California. Hard as it is to imagine, I was a model during the brief time we lived there.  The photographer I worked for took several of us girls to Las Vegas for 2 days for a photo shoot at a nearby ghost town.  It being my first time away from home, I was in awe of being someplace so famous that I had only seen & heard about on TV.  Here I am back then ... 1972.  I asked the photographer to take a picture of me as we were heading back home so I could remember my visit.

  

I had hoped that John would be able to take my photo with this scene in the background ... kind of a "then & now" kind of thing, depressing at that would be ... lol! Unfortunately, that sign ... that whole area is no longer the same.  I guess I didn't really expect it to be, but I hoped that the hotel would have had the sign on their grounds somewhere.  They didn't.  This is a photo I found online of the Las Vegas strip when I was there.

Here it is today.

You just can't imagine what it's like being there unless you've been there.  New York City, San Francisco, London ... nowhere I've been comes close to the constant bombardment of noise, advertising, excess & overindulgence. 

It rarely rains very much in Las Vegas, but it started raining the day we arrived & it never stopped until our last day there. Three days of constant rain.  It was also windy & cold.  Thankfully everything is close to everything else so it was easy to duck in & out of hotels, casinos, & shopping malls. Before we left the devil's playground, I did a bit of research & found that there is a great cross stitch shop & knitting shop in the town of Las Vegas (not on the strip) & I was looking forward to visiting them, but the weather was just too miserable to catch buses & trot a few blocks to get to these places.  

We saw a couple shows while we were there. Jersey Boys, which is the story of how the Four Seasons got together, & a show called Divas.  Both were okay.  Nothing to write home about ... or in this case, nothing to write a blog post about   : )   

The shopping opportunities were beyond my imagination!  I had a lot of fun looking through the different stores.  We found a Teavana & I stocked up on some yummy teas while there   : )   The food offerings were also amazing!  I will miss having all that good food!  I went off my diet while we were there & ate such things as pizza & burgers & fries & chocolate, yet I only gained a pound & a half.  Maybe I can chalk that up to all the walking we did   : )

I took very few photos because of the weather.  It was so cold that it snowed on the surrounding mountains so I did take photos of those   : )

The hotels & malls were in the process of getting their Christmas decorations out on display.  Here is a photo I took in the Wynn hotel.  Those Christmas baubles are actually made of all different kinds of live flowers.

We asked a security guard to take our photo in front of one of the displays in the Encore hotel.  Of course we blocked out most of it!  

Here's the display without us being in the way.

I thought it was pretty cool   : )

This next photo is the ceiling in the lobby of the Bellagio hotel.  The ceiling is like this all year.  All those flowers are made from colored glass.

In this same hotel there was a French patisserie, Jean Philippe Patisserie.  I couldn't pass up having some French pastries!  They weren't as good as they are in France, but I enjoyed the vanilla eclair I decided to have. I took a few photos of all the sweet baked goodies to show you   : ) 

There was a chocolate fountain there because Jean Philippe not only makes pastries, he makes chocolates.  There was a plaque next to the fountain telling how it is the largest chocolate fountain in the world. There is a place for white chocolate, dark chocolate, & milk chocolate.

I took this next photo while on a portico of the Bellagio.  It shows the Paris hotel in the background with a replica of the Eiffel Tower which is half the size of the original tower in France.  John & I went up to the top to look at the views.  Quite scary for someone who is afraid of heights but once I got up there I felt safe.  It's all enclosed so no chance of slipping & falling out   : )

We stayed at the Trump hotel.

I meant to take photos of our room, but every time I thought of doing that we had our stuff laying everywhere.  I did take some photos of the bathroom though.  All marble & glass.  The shower was huge!  (Yes, that's a bit of the bedroom in the second photo.  We had a one bedroom suite.)

Our first night there we decided to take the hotel van to Cesar's Palace.  While waiting at a light to turn left, a car plowed into the back of us & hit hard.  It's amazing that the driver was not hurt.  He wasn't paying any attention at all ... he just rammed into the back of the van at high speed.  The front of his car was totally demolished.  There were 10 of us in the van.  John felt some back pain.  I had a pinch in my neck that shot a kind of electrical jolt across my face to my eye.  We reported this to the hotel & had to fill out a bunch of forms.  We seem to be getting better.  I hope so.

Our flights to Vegas were uneventful but the return flights were exciting   : )   The connecting flight in Denver was late coming in so we ended up leaving late.  It was snowing to beat the band (I loved it!) & by the time we all got on the plane & the plane was de-iced, we were too late getting to Chicago to make our connection to Cincinnati.  We had to kill 3 hours waiting for the next flight to take off.  It was snowing in Chicago too, by the way, & I loved it there also   : )   We arrived in Cincinnati at 10:00 p.m. & yes, it was snowing   : )   We got back home at about 12:30 this morning.  No snowing here but it had snowed.  There was snow laying here & there in the yard.  It did snow earlier this evening, however, so woo-hoo!!!  

Getting back into the swing of things is a little difficult due to the 3-hour time difference between here & Las Vegas.  It is going on 12:30 a.m. right now & I am wide away.  My body thinks it's 9:30 I guess   : )   Tomorrow we are picking up some meds, some groceries, & I'm hoping to maybe find a fresh turkey breast at this late date.  I would not have had the time to defrost a frozen one after getting home.  If I can't find one, we'll be having some spaghetti for Thanksgiving dinner   : )

Are you still being thankful?  I hope so! Today I am thankful that we were kept safe during our trip.  

I'm sorry this post is so long ... & probably so boring ... but there you have it.  I've caught you up   : )