Day 36 Oakdale Minnesota
It’s SNOWING!!!!!!
I’m looking out the window a bit after 9am and I said to John, it’s raining, he looked out the window and said no, it’s snowing and went back to his paper! 🙂 I ran and told Deb and she quickly got out of bed. It’s not something we see every day, a nice albeit chilly, surprise. We were outside in no time standing in it, it melted almost as soon as it touched anything. We got a regulation “selfie” and disappeared back inside to the warmth.
In the morning we went to see where John’s son, Pete, worked, had lunch there (he is one of the resident chefs there, and then went to visit Pete, Rebecca and their new daughter Naomi. They seemed very relaxed and comfortable together in their home. It looked like parenthood suited them very well.
After returning home we went out to John’s daughter, Erica, for dinner. It was nice to catch up with her and her children Nolan and Amelia. It’s been 6 years since we have seen the children and they have grown up into two very nice young kids.
We got back home around 8:30pm, and put our washing on for the next part of our trip. We leave here tomorrow morning for an 11:20am flight to Las Vegas.
It has continued to snow off and on all day. They call it “Flurries” (read not real snow) but for us it was the real thing.
Day 37 Oakdale/Minneapolis to Las Vegas Nevada USA Day 9
Katie arrived with Hadley a little before 8am and was soon followed by Emily. Katie was driving us to the airport and Emily was going to look after Hadley. We love the way that nothing is too hard or out of the way, John and Georgie have a very generous family.
We arrived at the airport a bit after 9:30, John and Georgie checked our bags through (saving us US$50 in checked baggage fee.) John and Georgie had TSA Pre-Approval on their boarding passes, we didn’t. The Pre-Approval means you don’t have to go through the full security screening check. So it was fully empty your pockets (yep, even tissues had to come out), laptop out of our bag, shoes off and humourless TSA staff. It’s a pain, but it’s the system! I am so grateful for the more relaxed regime at home. We got through no problems and met a patient J & G who had breezed through.
Our flight to Vegas is about 3 1/2hrs, we got away on time at 11:20am and arrived in Vegas at around 12:40 (there is a 2 hr time difference). The views out the window of the plane were magnificent, mountains, numerous canyons and steep river valleys, a huge lake and Las Vegas Itself from the air. It’s an experience landing in Las Vegas, as soon as we had left the air-bridge of the plane it looked like we had walked into a casino, yes the airport terminal had slot/poker machines at every possible location. You could keep playing them right up until you had to leave to get your plane. A short $20 cab ride and we were at our hotel, The Aria, around the middle of The Strip.
After a short break, settling in, and sorting out our wifi (that’s another story altogether!), we met John and Georgie downstairs (and no, Georgie hadn’t found a slot/poker machine of her liking yet!!) in the lobby. We left our hotel and walked along the strip to the Bellagio Casino. On the way we saw an amazing busker, just sitting in the air 🙂 .
We saw a spectacular water and music display in the lake in front of the casino, with a fountain ”ballet” to the Star Spangled Banner and a rock song. After the show was over we went inside to grab a late lunch. Inside the Casino is an impressive series of gardens and flower sculptures. Deb was delighted. We had lunch in a cafe that looked out both to the gardens and the pool area. All the casinos here are HUGE!
After lunch we walked along a bit further to Caesars Palace, and bought tickets to a show tomorrow night, Absinthe. We then went into the casino. As we walked in we saw a sign pointing to the wedding chapels, so we couldn’t help ourselves and we took a walk to check them out. They are on the first floor, up a very grand set of sweeping stairs. They had 3 chapels, and 2 were open so we had a look inside them.
They were much bigger than we thought they might be, seating over 100 would be my guess, but as expected, they were just a touch tacky! While we were there Deb saw a lift to the top floors, and being the girl she is, who likes a view, took a lift to the 36th (top) floor, where she found a maid that was willing to let her and Georgie into a room so they could see the views! Nothing shy about my woman!! They tipped the maid and came back down. From there we took a walk through the casino to “The Forum”. It’s a crazy amazing place, it is in the form of a Roman market place in perpetual dusk, with blue skies and pink tinted clouds. 
At 5pm there was an animated “robot” show at one end of the Forum, it was based around some roman myth we guessed. John summed it up by saying he couldn’t believe anyone would have spent the money putting the show together. But we did watch it right through, us and about 150 others!! Ben and Pat, Caesars Palace has a Sports Bar to die for, you’d both love it!!
We left Caesars and grabbed a cab downtown to Fremont St. It’s the original area of casinos, prior to the strip, where John and Georgie reckon the “Slots are looser”, and your chances on them are better. We walked around a large covered plaza area for some time taking in the sights. The number of beggars increased dramatically, as did the number of bazaar buskers, think mis-shapened super heroes, man-kinis, pasties (duct tape in some cases) and table/bar dancing girls. There is also a 4 line Zip-line set-up that runs the full length of the plaza, 250m+. It was fun watching people zoom passed us overhead.
We had dinner in an Italian restaurant in one of the casinos. I won’t tell you the name of it, the service was appalling and the food just a bit better than that!!
At 8pm there was a light and music show on the roof of the Plaza, it went for about 10 minutes. It was Suzi Quartro singing (you know, one of her songs, lol) and then a colourful light show that sort of matched it. It was more about the glitz rather than having any real meaning or point!!
Overall it was an interesting first day experience in Vegas.
