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This is an archive collection of entries from  my main personal blog, My Mundane Mid-Life.


This particular entry is from January 12, 2006.



Paris at night

After Carol left for the day, I wanted to go just a bit north, so I took the tram to Excalibur. God, I hate this hotel/casino. I hate the theme, I hate the way it looks. I walked across the ped bridge to New York New York and went down to the corner of Tropicana and Las Vegas Boulevard. NYNY has made a permanent memorial area of display cases that hold rotating items that were left right at this spot back in 2001. For some reason, many Americans felt the need to memorialize and remember anyone involved in the events of 9-11 and they picked this spot, at the foot of the Statue of Liberty, to leave notes, letters, drawings, paintings, Fire Department t-shirts and patches back in 2001. NYNY saved all of the material and now displays some of the items in permanent glass cases. It's something that needs to be seen. It's not big, but it somehow feels important.

I went inside and walked around the faux-cityscape floor of the casino. I was getting hungry so I stopped at Jodi Maroni's Sausage Kingdom. Great Polish sausage, but they don't have a friggin' clue on how to make a Chicago Style Hot Dog.

I walked back across the street and took the tram to Mandalay Bay and walked to the convention center, put on my fake persona (Carol had, ummmm, found a badge laying on the ground during booth setup so I was able to get in to the show). I went over to Carol's booth, hung out there for a while and Carol went on break for lunch. We found a table in the snack area of the convention center and carol relaxed as much as she could.

We split up after the break and I drove to one of our favorite casino's: Hard Rock. The place hardly changes year-to-year, and this year is no exception. I just love the look of the place (the use of hard wood everywhere) the music, the vibe... oh, yeah, and the cocktail waitress outfits...

I drove around a while afterward. I drove back to Green Valley Ranch and realized they were building a new parking garage and it screwed-up the current drive to the main hotel entrance. Found an actual rush hour traffic problem on I-215 by Green Valley due to construction.

I figured-out the main traffic problem that we've been hitting daily on the Strip - almost doesn't matter what time of day it is, though it's much worse in the evening. The strip northbound is at a standstill between the M&M's Store and Harmon Avenue. One reason is due to the extreme right lane having to merge into another lane. But the real culprit is at Harmon itself, just about killing the right lane: it's the pedestrian traffic crossing Harmon - it's slow and at times extensive, stopping any traffic try to make a right turn eastbound on Harmon. the whole block or two could delay your travels up to half an hour.

I briefly saw the Las Vegas Premium Outlets and the World Market Center during my tour around town. Anyway, I headed back to the Luxor and waited for Carol.

Carol has been wanting me to have a nice sit-down dinner this week, so tonight we drove over to Paris. We walked up without reservations to Mon Ami Gabi and got a very nice table for two overlooking the the strip and the fountains at Bellagio. The food here is always great and the atmosphere is as well. And - if you're close to the doors or actually sitting under the heaters al fresco on the patio - you have the entertainment of the music and fountains from across the street.

By the time we finished dinner, it was definitely dark, so we did something that Carol has never done - we went upstairs to the top of the Eiffel Tower to see the view of Las Vegas at night. The winds were about 10-12 mph (according to a wind gage I found near the elevator upstairs). this is really the only way to see Las Vegas at night - forget the Stratosphere. It may be taller, but it's too far north of the central strip area. Carol was really tired from the show, so she stayed upstairs to watch one Bellagio fountain show and she went back to the casino to sit down. I stayed upstairs for almost another half hour taking all kinds of pictures from up there. Eventually, I felt I had to get going to get Carol home. I went down and found her sitting at some slots - she couldn't find an open blackjack table (with the correct minimums) for her to play.

We slowly walked to the car and drove back home. The show closes tomorrow and we're staying an extra day - but at a different hotel - which means packing. Tomorrow, not tonight. We're too messed-up to attempt to do this tonight. We'd fall asleep gathering stuff.

posted at 10:06 PM | Link | Las Vegas | § |


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This Blog was last updated Friday December 18, 2009 13:03:12 CDT (-06:00 GMT)
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