What We Did in Vegas

Here's what we did and what I thought of it:

Las Vegas LDS Temple: large and pretty, this temple has a little interior courtyard and a huge spacious front lobby. We did sealings (Seth's idea) to celebrate our 10 years of marriage. It was great!

Hoover Dam: You can pay a ton to go on all kinds of tours, but we paid zero and went on zero tours. We drove on the dam and to the back side, took pictures, and sort of drove away. I had to go to the bathroom REALLY BAD, or else we would have walked down onto the dam for a look around. We stopped at the Lake Mead Visitor's Center and read the little souvenir books about building the dam, plus we got our nerdy souvenir: the panoramic puzzle!! Ooooh! So this is a pretty cool engineering marvel, with a fascinating history. Worth going to and being at but I'm glad we didn't pay 31 bucks apiece for the tour, if only because I'm so pregnant and crippled right now and the walking would have about killed me.

Hush Puppy Outlet Store: Seth is loyal to Hush Puppy shoes. Everything else in dress shoes is horrible for him and uncomfortable. I have been scouring department stores and malls all over Denver for anyplace that sells 'Pups and have come up with NOTHING. We drove out of the airport 20 minutes after landing in Nevada and boomp! here's a whole dang outlet store of Hush Puppies, a gift from on high. So we went back after the Hoover Dam and got Seth Birthday and Christmas shoes for work, all for WAY cheaper than I've been able to find anywhere, including online.

Planet Hollywood Restaurant in the Forum Shops (Caesar's Palace): This place seemed like it might be cool but ended up with a "lame" rating from Seth and Wib. The service was incredibly slow, and they brought Seth the wrong dinner, and then made him wait incredibly long AGAIN for the right thing. I was LONG SINCE done by the time his real dinner arrived. And they charged us full price for it! If we were bolder we would have asked to speak to...somebody about it, but eh. Who cares? The decor was ok, including props and costumes from movies, and the entertainment video would have been ok had we not had to sit through it twice and a half. So, in all, this was not a place we would return to. We had 40 bucks to spend on our dinner there, from the timeshare people, and when they gave us another 40 we both agreed that even free, we didn't want another dinner in there.

Dunkin' Donuts: I LOVE Dunkin' Donuts and I am Loyal. On one of our trips to Las Vegas 10 years ago, there was a rumor of a Dunkin' somewhere on the strip. We finally found a busted down old donut cart, not selling any donuts, in one of the crappy off the strip casinos. So, pretty disappointing. This time, there were three or four to choose from in the phone book. We went for breakfast on our way to our TimeShare presentation. We looked for the address, but the stores just skipped right over the Donut address and then we spotted it: the Outlet Mall. Duh! So we walked right in and (this was a gift from heaven) there it was right there: a kiosk, pretty-fully-stocked Dunkin' Donuts. Seth was a little taken aback that I wanted to get the dozen but really, there's not point in doin' it unless you're going to do it RIGHT!!!

Time Share Presentation with Wyndham: We like their product and would love to stay at their resorts. We love the idea of paying once and using it for the rest of ever. What we don't like is how they won't just tell you everything upfront and then all the pressure to buy right then. "This is our offer for TODAY ONLY and after this, you won't be able to become an owner." and this one, we really loved,"This many points is more than you need, and we don't sell any package smaller than that. BUT I had a family come in last week who only needed so many points and so JUST FOR YOU I have THIS MANY left over and as a special deal, we'll LET you buy these leftover points, right now only! I'm not supposed to be doing this!!" So if they hadn't given us 50 bucks in cash and 75 bucks on debit cards, plus lunch, this would not have been worth it.

Madame Toussaud's Wax Museum: LOVED THIS!! We went in expecting it to be a little snooty and cold, but then it turned out to be a big old picture-taking fun-fest. We took SO MANY PICTURES, by the time we got to the last room, we had to go back on the didge and delete some dupes from the first room. This was expensive, but I think, worth it.

Gondola Ride at the Venetian: This seemed like it would be so cool. It was expensive, though, 16 bucks a person. A PERSON. So, ok, we paid that and got in line and got into our boat with a pleasant older couple and a friendly gondolieri. And then we went maybe 50 yards, turned around, and came back. And that was it. The canal was not very long. This ride would have been way better if the canal went WAY further, and if it were $16 per couple. I really enjoyed the ride, such as it was, but would like to see this improved for next time. Listening, Venetian Hotel and Casino??

Dinner at the Flamingo (Hilton) buffet: This was so expensive. Everybody goes to Las Vegas expecting great buffets. We got the tip from the timeshare lady on which ones were terrible and which were fabulous. This one was right down from the Venetian, so we walked. It looks a lot closer on the map, and it probably is less of a stressful hike if you're not cripple like me. I hadn't been drinking enough that afternoon with all our activities, so I was hatin' it. Seth was probably hatin' it too, with all my "oooh, contraction, waaahh, this is so fast" whining. Anyway, we got there and waited in line and were seated in some fabulous seats right at this big old wall of windows, looking out onto the bird sanctuary place. We had a super waiter who really kept us hydrated. Rather than try to break a 10 or leave a tiny tip we later left him 10 bucks!! Felt like high rollers! Anyway, the food was pretty good, especially the crepes for dessert, made to order right in front of you, even though I was so thoroughly tuckered out that I could barely make it worth our buckage. The thing that made this so great was this big Black Swan that kept swimming by outside the window. He would go back and forth, back and forth, playing in the waterfall. He also had a very long neck and curly butt-feathers that were so endearing. This is a good buffet, if you can handle the 22 dollar tab per person, and the bird place is pretty cool.

Fountains at Bellagio: I LOVED THIS ATTRACTION!! We went to the 7:30 show and it was so cool that we waited until the 8:00 show. I was sorely tempted to stay for the 8:15 show but it was a long walk back to our parking garage. The lights, the music, the fountains shooting 50 or 60 feet in the air. It was really AWESOME!!! It's outside and totally free. GO SEE IT!!

Denny's WAY off the strip: We had these skillet breakfasts. Mine was sausages, bacon, hashbrowns, and scrambled eggs and then you're supposed to wrap it up in these tortilla pancakes. Cover the whole thing with syrup and it was SO DELICIOUS... Plus Seth ordered the whole carafe of orange juice, so we were really living large.

Shark Reef at Mandalay Bay: We chose to do this over the Car Museum and the Liberace Museum, and Circus Circus, and every other attraction. It was really cool! We saw all kinds of neat fish and water creatures, including our favorite little fellow, the Water Monitor lizard. He was just swimming and bonking around in his pool, then bumbling out onto the land. The other thing we really liked about this was the sawfish. They're so crazy! Look at that crazy saw nose! We touched the rays and took pictures with the lionfish and saw an octopus stuffed into the corner between the rocks and the glass. They give you these little cordless-phone-remote-control-type thingies and you dial up the number for what you're looking at and they tell you about it.

Planet Hollywood Gift Shop: Mostly overpriced t-shirts. We had 40 bucks to spend there, complements of the timeshare people, so we got a t-shirt for each kid. Eh. Nothing to write home about.

Security-check at McCarran airport. We waited in line for like an hour in Denver. We were rushed in line in Las Vegas, practically running to the next thing, the line was moving so fast. We barely had time to get out our IDs and get our shoes off and put the toothpaste in the baggie. We were expecting a wait and grumpiness. Instead we had nearly 2 hours at our gate to spend trying to find a reasonable late-lunch option in the overpriced airport fast-food places. Great security-check!

And that's what we did in Vegas. I guess it stayed in Vegas, though, so all for naught.

A Truly Retro Time at the Sahara

Sitting through a time-share presentation can be nearly fatal for a yes-girl like me. Especially when you have to say NO, not just at the end, but all the way through, so many, many times. But it can also lead you to a free three-day, two-night, Second-Honeymoon-type, 10th Anniversary, Free trip to Las Vegas, which is what happened to me and Seth.

They paid for our airfare and hotel, plus gave us a whole fistful of coupons, mostly worth a lot less than promised, but some worth using. First can I just say, our flight was on Southwest, and I am now working my way up to Pretty Loyal to Southwest Airlines. They didn't charge us extra fees. They have no-nonsense check-in online or at the airport. They gave us drinks and snacks. It was the snack that won them my loyalty: we had to get up for our flight so early that I didn't really have time for breakfast. By the time we had done all that waiting for the security-check line in Denver (the security-check line in Denver does NOT win my loyalty. They win my frowning thumbs-down.), I was not only difficult-ly pregnant and hungry, but also very thirsty and tired. So the stewardesses bring me a fabulous ginger ale and some sort of soft and chewy appley-fruity bar and it was SO DELIGHTFUL. I proclaimed my loyalty right then, since I want to practice making mostly positive comments to Seth instead of Debbie-Downer comments.

So the flight was great. We used one of our fistful of coupons for a rental car, and I am SO GLAD we did, even though it cost us like a whole week's grocery-bucks-worth. But even that's not the main point of this post. This is: The Sahara Hotel.

Bless its heart. This hotel used to be pretty grand. It's pretty old, built in the early 50's. We found out at the end of our stay that the casino is spruced up WAYYYY better than the rooms are. So that's something. There are pictures in the lobby of the luminaries that used to haunt the Sahara halls, like the alleged Rat Pack, and so on. The room was ok, if you didn't look too hard. I did look too hard, though. First, on our way in from the parking garage (good thing about Vegas, if you're going, is there's plenty of parking and it's all free--if you can get to it and find the right entrances. I knew this going in, which made it easier to say yes to renting a car), we encountered what I like to call "The Ancient Elevator." Two elevators, actually, side by side from the top levels of the parking garage to the ground level. Original Otis elevators. The funny thing is, you push the button and here comes the elevator, and then the door begins to open and you think,"oh, yes, I'll just step in," but then the door is still opening and opening, slowly, slowly, until it only has maybe a foot left to go to be all the way open, and it slows down and comes to a stop. You're standing there wondering the whole time, is it going to make it? Is the door going to be able to open? Will we be trapped in the elevator on the other end? But it's open enough, so you get in. And slowly, slowly, the door closes and you are elevated or de-elevated, also quite slowly. And they're not taking any extra care to make sure the elevator's clean and inviting either...

And because the Ancient Elevator is in the parking garage, I may as well add this: there are huge concrete beams all across the ceilings of the parking garage levels and they are all COVERED with shoe-prints. COVERED. I didn't see or hear any shoe-gang activity while we were there for three days, but someone has to have been SO busy, smacking shoes up on the beams, to get them ALL so covered with shoe-prints. I should have gotten a picture.

So but up to our room, though. The inside elevators aren't real winners either, but they're better than the outside ones. Just to get from the elevator to our room in "Tunis Tower" we passed two room-service trays and one glass sitting on the floor in the hall, and they were there the whole time we were. One day there was a bug scuttling away from one of them, but I think it was a cricket and not something so much fouler. Inside our room, there was a track of pretty thick dust around the edges of the room, you know, where the vacuum doesn't reach all the way to the wall. But they weren't sucking it up with anything else, either. And then the bathroom was the scariest part. The floor: fine. The shower: fine. Toilet: fine. Sink area: fine. Wall, Ceiling, and Light Fixture: SCARY. You think, there have been how many decades-worth of people coming in here, in Las Vegas, and doing who-knows-what, but couldn't they at least wipe the brownish spatters off the light, wall, and ceiling??? I'm sure it was just that the morning coffee was so hot, someone was startled and whoops! Coffee spattered everywhere! Or else, probably a root beer that got "all shook up" on its way in from the car and whoops! Root beer spray!! That's what I'd like to think happened in there...

There were some good things about our room in The Sahara. First, we had a breath-taking view of the parking garage, RIGHT outside our window. So, pretty fabulous. But seriously, one thing I thought was awesome was the curtains. I woke up after the first night not having ANY IDEA what time it was, because the curtains were so effective at blocking light. That's super-nice in Las Vegas especially where you could come back to the hotel in any state and not want to know when morning comes; so the curtains were really good. Ask Seth. I kept remarking to him how great the curtains were and how effective the curtains were. Then the other good thing I was remarking to Seth about was "they don't build them like this anymore." I couldn't hear ANY noises from other guests, during our whole time there. It was seriously so quiet. Maybe that's because they were all out at Casinos partying when were were wet-blanketing it in our room, actually going to sleep at bedtime, but I also couldn't hear them in the morning or in the afternoon, or ever. It was nice and silent. So, good curtains, silent hotel.

My recommendation would be two-fold. First to anyone going to Las Vegas who has enough money to avoid the Sahara Hotel, Avoid the Sahara Hotel. Again, bless its heart. It means so well. And the second piece of advice is for the Hotel itself: use some of that casino money and remodel, but in remodeling, totally PLAY UP your history and your 50's chic architecture. Everyone on the Strip has a theme and you could really make yourself something, like the Art Deco Hotels in Miami or whatever, if you could just play to your strengths instead of remaining a dingy relic.

What's Suckin' Lately

This is my brother-in-law and sister's ice cream store, Thursday night. In the background of the white truck you can see the SUV that caused the carnage, tipped up on its side. Both the driver and the passenger in the white truck were killed, and the truck hit a utility box which busted into the store and snagged a little 3-year-old boy and killed him.

I was just crying and crying Thursday night when we found out how horrible it was. Seth and I couldn't really get to sleep. What on earth can we do? Basically nothing. Just check the online news sites constantly for updates on what is sucking with this story and the families involved. Mostly the news stories concentrate on how bad things are sucking for the families of the deceased, and that's right. But things are also sucking pretty bad for the store owner, who has six little kids of his own, and now has to clean up the mess and get back to running a happy sunny business at the scene of a triple-vehicular-homicide. Here's the most informative and most-often-updated online news story:

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2008/sep/05/car-crashes-baskin-robbins-kills-child/

Tomatoes: a Review

My whole life, everyone who cares has always asserted FORCEFULLY that homegrown tomatoes, vine-ripened and freshly harvested, are INFINITELY SUPERIOR to store tomatoes and that store tomatoes are trash. I have always agreed that store tomatoes are not awesome. Too...tomato-ey? Anyway, the other evening we harvested our first tomato from our garden and diced it up to put in a pasta salad. It was much lovelier to cut into than a store tomato, and we didn't harvest it until it was actually ripe. Those store tomatoes that say,"vine-ripened" are totally lying, since they're not ever actually ripe. Anyway, it was actually edible. I don't really like tomatoes, since they taste so tomato-ey and not as fruity. But this one from our garden was almost fruity and that nasty pungent tomato flavor was mellowed into a tastier, riper, and more-fruity taste. So, in the end, I agree that store tomatoes stink and home-grown and vine-ripened tomatoes are much, much better. But I'm still not to that tomato-activist point of saying that you can just go out and pick the tomato off the vine and eat it like an apple. THAT'S too much for now, but I did like our ripe garden tomato.

TV Show Review

So I don't really watch TV that much. Seth and I like to catch the occasional season of Survivor and I like the first few weeks of American Idol. Also we never miss The Office. But honestly, not that much tv. So my brother- and sister-in-law told me about this show: WipeOut. Just hearing them describe it, I was CRAZY to watch it. I LOVE stuff like that. And so I watched it, after missing it several weeks in a row. Can I just say, I LOVE THIS SHOW!!!

Bloopers and Practical Jokes was funny; Funniest Home Videos was funnier. People falling down is so hilarious, I can barely keep myself from laughing just thinking about it. So the premise of this show wipeout, is to put people on an impossible obstacle course and see how much they fall down. Then you take the winners from that and put them on harder impossible physical challenges. The Sweeper event puts contestants on poles and then just runs a pole around to sweep them off while they're trying to jump it. The first time I tuned in, there was a guy trying to get past the boxing-glove wall, where you have to cling to the wall and try to get by but with boxing-gloves punching out at you, all up and down, at random times. I almost peed my pants I was laughing so hard.

Then this last week they did the sort of "best of" show, which was great because there were just clips of wipe-out after wipe-out and each one would be more hilarious than the last. They have these big huge rubber balls and you have to try to jump on or run across them all, but of course they only had footage of one guy ever being able to do it. And he had to be the first one of the day, because after you fall in, you are all muddy and that gets on the big rubber balls and makes them slipperier.

In summary, this is a really great show. They have a lady-reporter down by the track and she doesn't even try to hide her laughter. Clearly this show is all about getting fabulous footage of people falling down, bonking off of huge rubber balls, getting boxed in the gut at random times, and in general being super-hilarious. Two thumbs up!!! tuesday nights on ABC

Holy Horticulture, Batman!

Here's my garden now. Those there, up front, are the tomato plants. I had to give up on raising my tomatoes from seed this year and just go buy these. Luckily they were on clearance or the price of each little plantling would have given me a stroke. THAT'S the last thing I need this summer, eh? Then there's a row of dud beans, then a row of half-duds and half-awesome beans. Then another row of tomatoes, of a different variety. Thanks, Dot and Jay for your cast-off tomato cages from last year. My dad laughed at how big they were when he saw them, but I feel that our little 'maters are doing them justice. Behind the second tomato-row are two rows of corn, with vigorous pole-beans climbing every stalk. And behind THAT you can see some extremely bushy beans. They are going crazy and this next couple weeks - hopefully - will see me canning some huge bean-harvests in my pressure cooker/canner. Thanks for that, Will and Jodi! You guys are great!

Then in this here picture you can see my poor sad little pea row, staked up with string and branch chunks right from our dead backyard trees. Then an enormous, bushy cucumber row. I plan to use that harvest to make little pickles, and maybe some big pickles. I got the gallon-size pickle chips from Sam's Club and the kids are kind of going crazy on them, so maybe I'll use my P-Chef crinkle cutter to do up some fancy old pickle chips. That's a big maybe. Anyway, beyond my little green garden stool you can see the king of the garden: my enormous, outrageous, novelty, competition-size pumpkin vines. Just vines, so far. With plenty of flowers. Every day that I can, I go out and poke around looking for a little gourd to appear but so far, it's just a bunch of flowers. Soon, little gourds, soon. You'll have to come soon in order to be ready and hilariously large by Fall. Then next to the big old pumpkin vines are some smaller but equally vigorous Butternut Squash vines. They have flowers too and no gourds. But it's just super-cool to have something growing so dang well in my garden, where nothing but rocks and debris were flourishing when we moved in.

Seriously, when we moved in, this was a nasty dump-hole. My mother-in-law came to help turn over the soil and get the garden ready, but first we had to move a box of busted-up mirror tiles, two of those concrete-based poles for mounting what? satellite dishes?, a long strip of galvanized flashing, lumber scraps, and literally TONS of landscaping rocks that were a couple inches deep under the deadish grass. I still have more of those to pick out for next year's optimistic, expanded garden. Plus all the stuff we un-buried while rock-picking, like lots of pennies, old batteries, matchbox cars, two bbq grates, some pavers, busted bricks, and more plywood scraps. And pens. Plenty of pens. And toys. Little mini toys.

So, thank goodness something good is happening in the garden, and hopefully lots of it will result in harvested vegetables. And none of the vegetables will be malignant!

My First Cancer Flowers

Eric came down and said, "There's a guy at the door with flowers." So within 18 hours of posting my new medical situation online, my brother and sister-in-law, Will and Jodi, had these flowers delivered to me. I was sobbing and sobbing for two reasons, one good and one not as good. First, because it was so unexpected and so dang awesome and so soon. But second, because Cancer Flowers! I have Cancer! so the children were lined up, one, two, three, asking what was wrong and was I ok. I had to calm it down and explain to them as nonchalantly and lovingly as possible, how sometimes the cells that we're made of go bad, and I had some bad ones in my neck , but not to worry, because the doctors are all over it, taking care of it and after a little while, there won't be anything to worry about, children!

Thanks, Jodi and Will! YOU guys are awesome!