Wednesday, March 14, 2007

DAY 70: From the AZ. Desert to Downtown Las Vegas!!!!

AHHHH…..we have now been on this winter retreat/journey for 10 weeks!!! And…..we have not yet set the return to Missouri date…..sometime in early April????? We have some things that must be done before we leave the last week of May for a summer journey…..to parts unknown as of now.

Today……WELL…..we were hooked up to the truck and pulling out of our desert boon docking spot by 8:30 this morning. We went west on I-10 for 15 miles, crossed the line into California (Blythe) and then headed north on US 95 for 235 miles…….ACROSS THE DESERT….the most uninhabitable desert we have seen yet……..I thought we would never reach Las Vegas!!! The first 100 miles were up and down, and the road rolled from left to right……making driving very difficult, especially pulling the 38’ HowserHouse behind us. BUT…..by 12:45pm we were driving into the city on I-515.…and soon pulled into the RV Park of Sam’s Town, and just a few minutes later we were “working” to get TheHowserHouse into this narrow little site. It took a few disagreeable words between the 1st Lady and myself before we finally got it situated where I could extend the slides without hitting a pole……and with the front and rear ends of the rv not sticking out into the street in front and rear!!!!! VERY TIGHT!!!!!!!

We rested a bit…..and then decided to drive to the Strip. It took longer than we thought with the afternoon traffic but we did find a place to park the LONG truck just off of the strip with no parking charges. And then…….the touring walk began……..

We went to each hotel that we came to: Caesar’s Palace, the Bellagio, the Aladin, Harrah’s, The Venetian, and others which are too numerous to mention. Our feet are now sore and our legs a bit tired…….didn’t I keep in shape with my 5 mile bike rides these past few weeks????? I THOUGHT I did………….????!!!!

I was most impressed with The Venetian!!!! Perhaps because Venice is one of my very favorite cities…..having been there no less than 12 times over the past 20+ years. I thought it was a very good replica and they did a great job of compacting the various aspects of the city into a Las Vegas city block……however…….they made all of the street scenes and hallways and walkways…….TOOO NEW!!!!! They should have been more realistic and had cracks in the walls, plaster chipping off and missing…..paint not soooo freshly put on…perhaps a bit of mold would have helped greatly!!!! It just didn’t have the right ambience for Venice……the real character of the city, the personality of the architecture was missing. Too bad…….

We dined in the Aladin Hotel/Casino…….at an Oyster Café/Bar….and had some wonderful fish entrees!!!! VERY good! The waiter sucked……..he absolutely paid no attention to our needs……I asked him twice to bring me a glass of water…..and no water appeared. Soooo, I finally got one of the other guys to bring me a glass of water. He was just plain lazy……and I didn’t want to leave him more than 10%….but the 1st Lady wanted to give him the standard 15%….and so I did…..hmmmmm………

We have returned to TheHowserHouse…..tired and a bit numb. Soooo, I will try to get some pics posted from yesterday and today…….again I am on my phone to get online. I absolutely refuse to pay $7.99 for 24 hours of online wireless service!!!!!!! Soooo, I will do the best I can at getting online to post this and some daily pics.

The desert drive was not an easy one……and my feet are aching right now, but nevertheless…….

Life is GREAT…..and I hope it is for all of you, also!!!!!!

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