Goodbye, Vegas–Hello, HOME!

I had a lovely lovely unbelievably fun time with my Dad! The weather was fair, we had a bit of rain, but it seemed to happen mostly in between what we were doing, and it didn’t affect us much!

I arrived on Tuesday, and found my dad waiting for me at the baggage claim….since my flight was delayed, he had been sitting there in a chair by my carousel for over two hours!

But this apple didn’t fall far from the tree, and the tree, being Dad, was busily engaged with his laptop, his phone, his e-reader and didn’t mind the wait!

We checked into our room at Treasure Island, dropped off our stuff, and went wandering to get our “lay of the land” and make plans on where we wanted to eat, etc. We also had to procure tickets for the two shows we decided on: Mystere, a Cirque du Soleil production, and Jersey Boys, a musical about Frankie Valli and the 4 seasons. Both turned out to be FABULOUS choices, and my favorite was Jersey Boys on Thursday night. I grew up to Frankie Valli music because my parents played it. It was just SO SO SO good! And since being home, I have to admit I added the Frankie Valli channel to my Pandora internet radio and am really enjoying these oldies! Especially when Christmas music 24/7 is getting a BIT MUCH for my brain to handle.

There is so much to see just walking the streets, and our favorite was the volcano erupting at the Mirage on the hour! We watched it twice, one night from the street level, and the other time from up above at the Mirage…..

These pics were taken with my phone, so pardon any night-time grainy-ness!

I think we walked MILES and MILES! You know, the hotels are SO HUGE, they are like little cities, with shops and restaurants all inside, and If the weather is really bad, you never ever have to go outside!

I am “NOT” a big shopper unless it is quilting related, or maybe bookstore type stuff, and the only thing I ended up buying was a pair of shorts and a top for the fitness center! I forgot to pack my own and I wasn’t going to pass up on the fitness center, it was awesome! That’s one area where Dad and I differ. I’m an early to bed, early to rise girl, and he pushes it past midnight and sleeps in til 8am, so I made good use of that time by getting up and going to the gym.

Dad found a great deal at the Sony store in the forum shops at Ceasar’s Palace—he turned in his old e-reader for a new one, and they gave him $75.00 off the price. He was as happy as a kid in a toy store!

Dad asked me where ideas for quilts come from….and I looked across the street and pointed to this building! Ideas for patchwork are everywhere! Look at this brick pattern. COOL!

Look at this tile floor! I see a quilt, don’t you?! After spending a few days pointing things out to Dad, I think he got the idea….

Look at this one!

And that triangle border! Weeeeeeeeeeee! I also like the cable as a quilting design..ideas are everywhere. I am very geometrically charged, so I tend to see things in squares, rectangles, triangles, etc…

We had a great time walking through the different hotels and their prospective malls just looking at things! ((More grainy pics, but you do what you can with what you’ve got! This couple offered to take our pic together and we obliged!))

The Venitian hotel had a canal going through it, and you could take a gondola ride!

However, the water was EXTREMELY blue, and it looked to me like there had been a tidy bowl accident to get it colored that way!

I’m still playing with pics and finding out how to get text to go where I want it.

The last time I was in Vegas was probably over 10 years ago, and it had changed SO MUCH. What I really liked is now they have pedestrian overpasses so you don’t have to cross on street level as much. This was great. It also provided a nice view as you crossed over the street, you could stop and take pics, etc.

However, food was much more expensive than I remember it ever being! The days of the $3.99 egg breakfast are LONG OVER, and I paid something like $12.00 for pancakes the first morning in the coffee shop in the hotel. From that point on we decided to be a bit more discriminating, and found ourselves at Outback for dinner that night, and avoided anything attached to any hotel. There was a Dennys for breakfast down the street the next day, our walking had showed us where things were that were more affordable.

Oh, and here is the other thing….though I got a great rate online for our room and pre-paid it…the hotel charges an additional $20 per day “resort fee” that you can’t get out of. That greatly increased our projected expenses. So plan on that if you go…And there is no coffee machine in the hotel room, you can order from room service ($$$) or go down to the starbucks in the lobby. I really missed having the availability of at least hot water for a cup of tea or cocoa in the morning!

I’ll write more later….this morning is already flying! Laundry needs to be started and errands need to be ran. Jason and Kim are coming for Christmas!