Friday, March 23, 2007

Las Vegas, Nevada... and BEYOND!







Wednesday night, we checked into the Las Vegas Hilton Hotel (www.lvhilton.com). It is a huge hotel (about 3,000 rooms)! Something is always going on ... there AND in all the other places in the city! This really is a city that doesn't sleep

We ate that night in the hotel's buffet restaurant as none of the other choices caught our eye, this is one of MANY restaurants in the hotel. We walked all around in the hotel, and we were amazed at how many people were sitting in front of the slot machines, throwing their money away. And nobody smiled; they all seemed to be droning through the experience. It was very strange to see this! The rest of the casino scene was a blur of sights & sounds, everything was happening all at once, it was exhausting just walking around in that environment!

After a good night's sleep, we woke up Thursday morning. We hopped on the monorail, which is adjacent to the hotel. It was fun to ride it all around the main road. Each stop accessed so many famous hotels. We got off at the Flamingo Hotel stop where there is a Margaritaville Restaurant (www.margaritavillelasvegas.com), one of Jimmy Buffet's restaurants. We stopped there for lunch and to shop in their gift shop. All of Buffet's fans are called parrot heads. Since Charles is a parrot head, of course, we had to stop by and see what they had in the shop! The restaurant was cool; we ate lunch on the rooftop. It was fun to look down on all the activity in front of Casesar's Palace Hotel and all around it! Of course, we had a cheese burger! (Famous in the song "Cheeseburger in Paradise"). If you go, don't get the onion rings!

In the afternoon, we were back to our hotel, where they feature "The Star Trek Experience" (www.startrekexp.com). Charles is a huge fan, so he went through "it." "It" consisted of a lot of interesting things to see in their museum of artifacts from the Trek TV shows and movies. They had two simulator rides, as well. And the really fun thing is that it included him having his picture taken, sitting in the captain's chair of the Starship Enterprise. Before we left Friday morning, Charles got the chance to have his picture taken with a real-live Klingon!

It was a lot of fun, strolling around, window shopping and people watching! If a high-energy setting is your sort of thing, then visiting Las Vegas is the thing for you to do!

This morning (Friday), we set out for Death Valley National Park. We dipped into California for just a bit. Belinda had a bit much of the desert experience and so we reversed our steps and headed for Utah. Yes, Utah! We are headed for Salt Lake City.

Praise be to God, for all these amazing experiences that we are so blessed to be having at this time in our lives!

Stay tuned to see what happens in Salt Lake City!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

hey aunt b and uncle c. it's kyle. i guess you're not big gamblers. well anyway i was wondering if you were going to stop by the olympic training center were they had the olympics. well its awesome that ya'll stoped by las vegas.

KYLE HAMMITT