Home again.....

Home from our big trip to Vegas; all 140 miles of it! LOL But we got to find that all the stuff our dealer has had to do on the trailer works so now we can let the warranty expire knowing that we are on our own from here out. The list of fixes wasn't all that long; we just wanted to be sure things worked. Besides, it was a great opportunity to visit Las Vegas.

We stayed at the Las Vegas RV Resort on Nellis Ave. It was totally concreted and has quite a few people living there but it was clean, quiet and the people were nice. They even had a neat little double dog run so you didn't have to share the run with anyone else. It was about $35 a night which is lots more than we would usually pay but we did think we got a good value. The night we got there we went over to the Sam's Town Casino because it was only a block or so from our rv park. Found a steak house and decided to try it. Lousy food and worse service. I had to send my filet back since the cook couldn't tell the difference between med-rare and well done.

Tuesday morning we went out to breakfast at Blueberry Hill. It's a small local chain and my wife likes their blueberry crepes. I stuck to a traditional bacon & eggs thing but it was good. We spent the rest of the day just wandering around in four of the casinos: MGM Grand; New York, New York; Excalibur and Tropicana. They have a nice series of elevated walkways so you aren't trying to cross the strip in traffic. We had a nice time; nothing special but fun. Since we don't gamble to speak of, it was also pretty cheap. My wife had to try the NY,NY roller coaster. It was $14 and got her heart beating fast but she says she wouldn't go on it again. Too much whipsawing her head around. Went back to the rig and spent the evening eating some leftovers and harassing the animals.

Wednesday we again didn't do much during the day. We talked about hitting a few more casinos but were just too lazy. In the evening we went to the Fremont Street Experience. We'd read that it was in a lousy part of town and I have to say there were a certain number of questionable looking folks around there. We found a parking garage & roamed the 'experience'. It is about five blocks of the old Las Vegas casinos, strip clubs and trash-n-trinket stores that has been turned into a pedestrian. Since we don't gamble and it must be close to twenty years since I've been in a strip club; it didn't take long! Finally we went into the Nugget and found an Asian restaurant. My wife had Pad Thai and I had their stir-fry. The stir-fry had chicken and shrimp but I asked for chicken only as I have a shellfish allergy. Sure enough, I got all shrimp. Bah humbug! Sent it back and got barely cooked chicken but I ate it anyway. The Experience was starting to warm up a little when we left; mostly WAY too loud music and barricades that made it difficult to go anywhere. We left!

The wind had been blowing the whole week and it was supposed to get worse on Thursday afternoon. I don't like driving in gusty conditions. So when the cat got all weirded out about 05:00 on Thursday morning, we decided to pack up and hit the trail. The trip was fine, no problems, but being ahead of the commuter traffic may have had something to do with that. Between the truck and the trailer we are over fifty feet in length; not something I like to fool with on crowded on-ramps. Anyway, aside from a few nasty gusts on both sides of the pass it was a quiet trip.

Spent yesterday unloading a bunch of stuff from the trailer. It's only a couple days but there's a lot of unloading and cleaning that needs doing.

I enjoyed the couple days away from reading about whether or not this economy is dying. Also tried to ignore the oil well tragedy. Also the illegal immigration
situation in Arizona. Also the amazingly stupid politics of Nye County (where I live). Also anything else that wasn't glitzy, overpriced and tacky. It worked. I'm all better now. I'll pull my head out of the sand and do something next week. Until then, have a great Memorial Day weekend if you are here in the US; have a great weekend anyway if you aren't. Take care.

"The trouble with most people is that they think with their hopes of fears or wishes rather than with their minds." - Walter Duranty