Well folks, another trip under my belt. Not a winning trip but not a big loser either. So hang on to your seats and let’s get going.....

Monday, Aug 18th.

Departed Spokane via Delta airlines, on time and arrived without a lot of fuss. Both Marie and I like the aisle seats. Since Delta allows you to select your seats, I selected seats where we sat across from each other on the aisle. However when we checked in our seat assignments had been changed with us getting the middle and aisle seats. Delta is using a Zone system for boarding their planes now. Under your seat number on the boarding passis the zone you are assigned to, kind of like Southwest with their "A", "B" and "C" boarding passes. I'm not sure how effective it is in speeding up the boarding process and I can't say much more about it.

Arrived on time and after a short wait for our baggage we were on our way to Bill's. We got to Bills a little after 12:00pm and though their web site says check in is at 3:00pm, we were able to get a room without waiting. I don’t' recall what the cab fare was, I want to say something like 14 or 15 bucks. Room 447 had a view of something. I think it was the roof of part of the Flamingo. Had a lot of what looked like a/c units on it. I'm not much of a "view" person. I'm not about to sit at the window at night with the lights off marveling at the view while I sip a glass of wine. I'll look once, say "Oh that's pretty" and pretty much blow it off after that, so I was not disappointed.

I have stayed at Bills back in the day, when it was the Barbary Coast, so I was not sure what changes or improvements HET may have made. I was happy to see none...... The room was just like back in the day, including a 42" plasma screen TV. Bed was very comfortable and the room was clean. I was surprised there were only 3 pillows for the bed. I would have thought they would put 4, two for each person.

It surprised me there were only 3 pillows on the bed
	The rooms are fairly spacious and clean
The 42" plasma is easy on the eyes at the end of a hard had
	And the big comfortable bed is easy on the bod as well

We unpacked and I grabbed a quick cool shower, just to knock off the road dust from the trip. Then it was down to get things going. I signed up for Bill's players card, and to my surprise the young lady working the counter told me she knew where my town was. I live in a little bitty town, population about 2k plus or minus a few, so I asked how she would know about such a small town. Turns out her folks live in another small town just in the next county that I know. Small world huh?

Anyway, I got my HET fun book and right off the bat scored my "free" 99 cent Margarita. Here’s a tip. Stir it up before you take a sip. I didn’t, so the first sip, I was sucking booze right off the bottom of the cup. After that all that was left was mix, which, while tasty does nothing for me.

We played a little slots at the Flamingo and Harrah’s with out much success. We had a lot better luck at O'Sheas, where Marie hit a few small jackpots. We had dinner reservations for 5:00pm at the Hofbrauhaus, so we headed back to the room too change and get ready.

This was one of Maries $50.00 jackpots
	Not sure where we hit this $75.00 winner.
Or this $50.00 winner. We did hit a lot more of these 50-75 buck jackpots, and everything went into the booty pool

We got in a cab with a driver named Kenny. This guy was a funny SOB. The whole trip over there he kept trying to talk us into going to the Voodoo lounge. I told him my Voodoo lounge days were long behind me and he still insisted on wanting to take us there. He told me that "we" could split the referal fee later". I asked him "What do you mean We, did you go to school in France?" It took him a minute to figure my meaning than said "Oh yea I see, Oui Oui...... There's only room in this cab for one comedian, and I already have the position"..... He was pretty funny and we had a pleasant ride. Fare was $14.00 including tip.

I have to admit, the Hofbrauhaus was a lot bigger then we thought. They had an Um Pa band going when we arrived. We took a pass on a salad and started out with the Bavarian potato soup with sliced sausage. It was sooooo creamy and smooth. I ordered the Jagerschnitzel with spezial and Marie had the Sauerbraten. Both meals were washed down with a couple of mugs of a light lager Bavarian beer, whose name escapes me. Unfortunately, by the time we were done eating, we did not have any room for desert. Cost of meal, including tip was $77.00. Money well spent.

We left the Hofbrauhaus and decided to check out the Hard Rock which is right across the street. The place was almost totally empty. I also have to admit it was way too dark for my taste. I like to be able to at least see the face of the person I'm talking to. Some of the displays were interesting. I saw the catholic school girl outfit once worn by Brittany Spears. So one more thing I can check off my male fantasy bucket list. We than cabbed it back to the strip and played a little more slots before calling it a night. We had been up since early morning and were ready for a good nights sleep.

Tuesday, Aug 19th.

We got up early and as usual I got elected to hoof it to the coffee shop in the casino and bring back the morning eye openers. I wanted to just order coffee from room service but Marie is the frugal one in the family and said the walk would do me good. Now if the walk was going to be so good for you, I wondered why she didn't make it. But I wisely decided not to ask. We than walked over to the Flamingo's buffet for breakfast. I'm not a expert on buffet's. I've heard people bad mouth the Flamingo's, but I didn't find anything wrong with it. They had the usual assortment of breakfast meal items. My omelet was cooked the way I like it. The bacon was crisp and the fruit was fresh. The waitress keep my coffee pot full of coffee and my orange juice glass full of orange juice. To me that pretty much says it all. I was surprised to find even the corn beef hash was good. Yea, I'm one of those weird people who actually likes corn beef hash. Must go back to my days as a little tyke on welfare back in New York, where corn beef hash and powdered milk were staples in our house. My mother used to mold hash into the form of a turkey on Thanksgiving. Imagine my surprise when at around age 13, I discovered a turkey was actually a bird! But I digress.......

Cost of breakfast, $30.00 plus tax with a $3.00 tip for the waitress.

After breakfast, Marie wanted to check out the shops at the Forum in Ceasers. So we spent a few hours walking around there checking out things we will never be able to afford. We took in Neptune’s show, and I was disappointed he decided to let the God's decide who was gonna take over. I was rooting for his daughter, only because she reminded me of a female Klingon warrior.

I have always like the theme for Caesars' Palace.
	Especially after watching the HBO special Rome on DVD.
Makes me long for the glory of ancient Rome.
	This is the original full sized version of this photo. I am using it as a wallpaper on my computer. You can click on this thumb to open the full sized image, then right click on that to save it and use it if you want.
Render unto Caesar that which belongs to Caesar
	I'm not sure who these 3 babes are, but I thought it made a good phtot.
I never saw a curved escalator before until I went shoping at the forum.
	Marie seems to think there is some common thread behind these statue photos I keep taking, but personally I don't see it.
I mean, there just well carved statues that must have adorned Rome back in the day.
	I really like the way they did these shops on 3 levels and all.

We did find an interesting toy store at the Forum along with a Trojan horse.

One of Neptunes daughters. I don't recall her name. I had to enhance this image a little to make her easier to see. My little digial camera's flash has trouble with distance.
	The torjan horse, which gave rise to the expression "Beware of Greeks bearing gifts" You can go inside this horse but only a little bit
This toy store has some of the biggest stuffed animals I have ever seen.
	You would expect to see this hanging aroun the Excalibur.
Bestus of friends
	Is this what they mean by a high fiber diet?
It followed me home. Can I keep him?
	Never mind.

We played some more slots with not a lot of return. Here's what Marie and I do when we visit Vegas...... We have what we call our "booty pool". Any of our winnings or booty go into the pool. That is money we don't touch, period. Then when we get home, we tally up the booty pool to see how well or bad we did. When we get a little slot jackpot win, we cash out and save that ticket till we leave the casino, than redeem it. Needless to say, the booty pool was looking a little shallow up to this point. We had a reservation for the Lake Mead dinner cruise, so we decided to head back to the room to get ready for that.

Now, in our email confirmation, it said we were supposed to call Showtime Tours the day before to let them know where we were staying and the room number and they would tell us where our pick up point was going to be. So I called them when we got in on Monday. They confirmed we were to be picked up at the north entrance to Bally's at 4:55 pm. They said to be there 10 minutes early to take care of the paper work. Well this trip started out pretty badly.

We were standing at the north entrance at 4:40pm watching for the bus. At 4:55, when no bus arrived, I called them to check on the status. The woman I spoke with told me the bus had probably gotten caught in traffic and would be about 10 minutes late. At 5:05 a Showtime tour shuttle bus pulled up and dropped some passengers off. I asked if he was there to pick up the Lake Mead cruse people. He told me he was just the driver and didn't know anything about that. He rattled off a phone number for me to call and took off! Nice display of initiative there chief! You're gonna go far in the Showtimes Tour corporation. We waited another 5 minutes or so, and just as I was about to call another Showtimes shuttle came pulling up.

This one was driven by a guy who had female passenger. I later determined from their conversation that she was a trainee driver learning the routes and stuff. Anyway I asked him if he was there to pick us up. I explained the situation. He displayed a lot of professionalism and called into his company on his cell phone. Seems that even though the company knew we were supposed to be picked up, seems someone forgot to tell the bus driver, so he never came by. He told us to jump on and after he dropped off a couple of passengers at Harrah’s, he would take us to their yard to meet up with the tour bus.

We finally arrived and here is a big tour bus full of people waiting for us. And of course it looks to them like we are to blame for the delay since they don't know that Showtime Tours left hand doesn’t know what it's right hand is doing. But we get on the bus and get underway. I'm happy to report that after that little snafu, the rest of the trip was totally excellent.

On the way to the lake, the bus driver stopped at a park in Boulder City to see if any Long Horn sheep had come down from the mountains. As you can see, they come right down to the playground in the park to feed on the grass
	This is the boat ramp leading to the dock where you board the cruise ship.
There are actually 2 vessels. This is the Desert Princess Too, which is the smaller of the 2 vessels. Notice the paddel wheel is on the side.
	And this is the three decker Desert Princess. It is called a stern wheeler, because the paddle wheel is located on the stern, or rear of the vessel.
You board from the bow (front) of the boat
	The lake is surrounded by this white ring which runs from the water, approximately 100 high. It marks the high water mark of where the water level used to be. It looks a litte deceiving in this picture but it is actually very high. Our ship was actually a considerable distance from the shoreline.
Here are the 2 paddle wheels, churning up the water/
	Our view while eating dinner. The light on the mountain on the left is actally a reflection on the window glass on a light in the dining deck.
We got to enjoy a real life picture postcard view while savoring our dinner.

Our driver certainly knew his stuff and gave us a running commentary on the history of Las Vegas, the flora and fauna, real estate developments, and pretty much everything in between. I think we were in boulder City when he took us off the highway to see if any long horn sheep were out and about. We were on a side street by this park, and sure enough their was a herd of long horn sheep right there feeding off the grass in the park. They were pretty comfortable around people as long as you did not walk up towards them. We stayed for a few minutes when some morons in a car pulled up. They got out to video the sheep and apparently thought stationary sheep were not a good photo op....... So a woman in the group started to clap her hands and stamp her feet to get the sheep to move and it worked. They moved way off to the far side of the park, so our visit was pretty much over.

We got back on the bus and the driver impressed the heck out of me when he made a perfect 3 point u-turn in this tiny little street. In a BUS! Well we soon arrived at Lake Mead and I have to admit that is one huge puddle of water. The driver said it was 600 feet deep in places. We milled around while the bus driver got our boarding passes squared away. Then it was all aboard.....

Our boat was named the Desert Princess. It was a three deck paddle wheeler like the old Mississippi riverboats. The first deck was the enclosed a/c dining area. The second deck was an enclosed a/c observation deck with full bar. The 3rd deck was an open observation deck. The host asked each passenger for their name and took them to their reserved table. Our table was next to the windows so we had a really nice view of the lake while eating.

Dinner started off with a complimentary glass of champagne. That was followed by some type of chowder, I don't recall what the waitress called it. For my entree I had the prime rib and Marie had the brisket. I also had a couple of glasses of the house wine, a pretty nice zinfandel. It was very tasty with just the right amount of sweetness. Finally we opted for the cheese cake desert. We sailed along the shoreline and made our turn to come back by Hoover dam. It did not look all that impressive from the water side to me. We sat up on the open observation deck, taking in the sunset and finally arrived back at the dock. They took our picture before we boarded and they were ready when we came back. Cost was only twenty bucks. What's $20.00? A couple hands of blackjack, verse a lifetime memory.... So we brought the picture which also came with 2 smaller magnet versions.

After we got back on the bus, the driver told us he would take us to see the other side of the dam, and into Arizona. While it was not all that impressive to me from the water side, I have to change that opinion when viewed from land. Even in the dark, through the tinted windows of a tour bus, Hoover dam is a site to behold. When you look at it and consider what you are seeing was accomplished using 1930's technology, you can't help but shake your head in wonderment. I am definitely going to put a day trip to Hoover dam on my next list of places to go when I come back.

On the way back, the bus driver told us in what order he was going to make his stops and advised Freemont St was going to be his last stop. Since we planed to go downtown anyway, we decided to just stay on the bus and get off downtown. We were able to catch the last 2 light shows. For those wondering, I found the slots at Mermaids casino still take and payout in coins. So if you long for a taste of the pre-TITO days there is still at least one casino you can visit.

We found an oriental guy that made clay sculptures of people that were amazingly life like. It takes about 30 minutes for him to do it and the price was about fifty bucks, and he than mounts them on a wood plaque. I guess the clay must harden when it dries.

Now, we made a major mistake. we planned to grab the Duce bus back to the strip. However by waiting till the light show ended, almost everyone else planned to head back to the strip. That bus line was unbelievable. I mean incredible long. I'm talking about a 2 hour wait. I told Marie we would be crazy to wait on that line so we walked back to where we could catch a cab. There were some cab drivers who were stopping right there on the street to pick up fares, but it was a mess to battle past everyone else to try and take a cab, so we walked to a less competitive area. The driver, who did not "speak" much English took the freeway back. Fare was $22.00 w/out tip. That was alittle excessive in my opinion but I could be wrong. Finally rolled into bed around 2:00am.

Wed, Aug 20th.

As usual, we started the day with me making the trip to Seattle's Best coffee shop for our morning caffeine fix. We ordered a one day monorail pass on line, so today was the day we decided to use it. we took the monorail to MGM where we decided to have breakfast at the Studio Cafe. I still say the MGM serves some of the best coffee I have found in Vegas. As usual for all of our visits, Marie had to check in at the Lion Habitat to make sure they were treating the lions alright. We got there a little too early and the lions were not out yet. The night before, our bus driver had mentioned there was a 911 memorial set up in front of NY/NY casino, so we walked over to check that out. It was pretty touching. Especially when we read about all the tourists who spontaneously placed tokens of grief at the base of the pond area where Lady Liberty stands. My understanding is that NY/NY still has those items in storage. Finally we checked back with the lions and found them to be in good health and spirits.

The following are images of the 9-11 tribute in front of NY/NY. I won't add any commentary since none is necessary

We wanted to check out the newest addition to the strip, the Palazzo casino, so we hopped on the monorail and headed back up north. We passed through the V along the way and checked out the living statues. Those people freak me out. Then we stopped at one of the gelato stands and got a couple of double scoop cones. We sat along the canal, people watched and enjoyed our treats and then moved on to the Palazzo.

These living statue people are really trippy. Especially when they open their eyes and look at you! Weird.
	I always give these folks a good tip. It takes some serious dedicatiuon to get into their line of work.
The canals of Venice are a good place to sit and people watch. You can even enjoy a little treat at the same time. A gelato cone goes down easy after a hard day of pounding the shops.
	One of the facades inside the V. One thing I noticed was how easy it seemed to find someplace to just sit down and rest. In days past you almost never found an empty seat anywhere.
Another facade. I noticed when I turned the flash on my camera off, it took better pics inside than with the flash working. Weird huh?

Now I don't want to bad mouth the Palazzo or anything, but I have to say I was underwhelmed. I'm sure they got their moneys worth but I was just not too overly impressed with the place.

This is the escalator that goes from the casino/lobby level to the first floor shopping level.
	This is an "observation" deck above the waterfalls at the Palazo. They have an aboundence of fountains at this place.
This is the lower portion of the same falls. My little digital camera could not capture the whole thing. The plants in this picture are fake. But I can understand that, when you consider how much time it would take to trim all those things.
	This is the Palazzo as seen from the V.
This is the shopping area as seen when exiting into it from the V.
V.	Here are the waterfalls inside the Palazzo. If I'm not mistaken, that first floor passagway on the left of the falls leads back ito the V
This is the grand fountain in the main lobby as seen from the 2nd floor shopping area.
	This is the fountain as seen in the main lobby. Check-in is in the background.
Another view. I don't know what the people on the right were waiting for, but the check in line did not extend that far back when I tooks the pic. The area roped off to the left and right of the fountain was due to a leak which let water floor onto the marble floor.

We took the free shuttle from Bills to the Orleans. We knew this was going to be a nice restaurant, so we dressed accordingly. After wandering around the Orleans, we finally came to a sign that read Prime Rib Loft. We walked up to the hostess and asked for a table for 2. I have to admit I was not impressed with the decor..... We read the online menu and had our dinner all planned out so we knew exactly what we wanted. When we were given menus, we were not able to find any of the meal items we had planned for. I wondered aloud if they had mistakenly given us the lunch menus.

Finally I looked closer at the menu. Imagine my surprise when I read "Courtyard Cafe" on the cover. I asked the hostess if this was the Prime Rib Loft and she said no, that was upstairs right next to the entrance to the cafe...... Duh! You would have thought the use of the word "Loft" would hinted to me that it was not a main floor establishment. We thanked her and told her we were not staying.

Upon going upstairs, we thought "Ahhh, this is the place." The decor was very up scale. We did not have reservations, but because it was only around 6:00pm, we did not have a problem with seating. I started with a shrimp cocktail and Marie had the fried mushrooms stuffed with crab meat, followed by a salad. For my entree I ordered the 14 oz cut prime rib, medium well with garlic mashed potato’s and garden veggies. Marie had the Bourbon Street chicken in a honey BBQ glaze and garlic mashed potato’s. For desert I had the Bananas Foster, sautéed bananas in a caramel butter sauce served over vanilla ice cream. Marie had some kind of apple desert that she said was delicious. Cost including tip was $107.00. Two things I noticed that set this place a little higher then most.....

We ordered iced tea with our meal. When it was brought to the table I noticed they had left about 1 1/2 inches of the straw wrapper on the straw. This was to show that the end you were going to put in your mouth had not been touched.

When my shrimp cocktail came, it included a thick slice of lemon. This was enclosed in a mesh netting. I asked Marie what the heck that was as I was trying to take it off. She "suggested" perhaps it was intended that I squeeze the lemon while it was wrapped in the mesh, to keep the lemon pulp and seeds from falling into my shrimp. Of course that was exactly why it was served like that.Two small things, but they showed we had stepped up a few notches from Applebee’s.

I did notice something disappointing. We were dressed nicely. Not suit/tie and gown, but nice slacks, dress shirt, shoes, etc..... But there were some people there that looked like they just stepped off the farm. I noticed a group of people at one table. One of the men sitting with his back to me was wearing tennis shoes, denim coveralls and a BASEBALL CAP! A baseball cap, at the table, while eating! I mean come on. People just don't seem to care anymore or have any kind of self esteem. This guy was dressed to eat at McDonalds. Oh well.....

When we went to take the shuttle back it was full so we waited on line for the next one. The driver told us it would be by in about 10 minutes. We were number 11-12 in line. When the shuttle arrived we got on and soon there were no more seats. There was still other passengers waiting so the driver did a room key show and tell. We showed our keys as did a few others on board. A couple of people did not have a key and were asked to leave to free up seats for guest, which they did. Except for one gentleman. He got his nose seriously out of joint over being asked to give up his free shuttle seat to a paying guest. There was some strong language used by him and I thought for a minute he was going to take a swing at the female driver.

Judging from the expression on the faces of a couple of the other male passengers on the bus, I concluded that would be the biggest mistake he would have made all day, but he finally got off the bus. As the driver was closing the doors, he must have said something else to her. She opened the doors and told him because of that comment he was not going to be allowed to ride the shuttle period. During the drive back, she called the other driver on her cell phone to give him a heads up. I would have loved to be there when the next bus arrived. I bet that was a good show.

We got back to Bills and pretty much hung out close to home base since it was getting late and we were leaving in the morning.

Thurs, Aug 21st.

We got up early and packed. We checked our bags with the Bell Desk and had breakfast in the Victorian Room. Marie just had fruit and a Danish, while I opted for a cheese/mushroom omelet. It was good and afterwards I felt ready to take on the day. I decided to use of those internet kiosks to check in for our flight. The coast was $5.00 minimum and $1.00 per page to print. It worked out very well. I was able to log in, and print our 4 boarding passes for less than the $5.00 minimum, but the machine does not give change so beware.

We had about 2 hours left to kill so we walked over to the Flamingo, where we hit my favorite 25 cent Blazing 7's slots. As luck would have it, now they decided to start paying off, and after running about $60.00 through the machines we took out $184.00. Unfortunately it was time to head off to the airport. We got our bags, went outside and there was one cab in the cab line. I have the driver the high sign and who should step out of the drivers side? Yup, Kenny the Maniac. As soon as he stepped out he yelled "Hey, you guys ready to go to the Voodoo Lounge". I used a word that starts with F and rhymes with duck and we laughed.

He said he waited for us outside the Hofbrauhaus the other night. I told him we knew, cause we peeked out the door and saw him sitting there, so we snuck out through the kitchen and hid out at the Hard Rock till he left. He asked if we talked about him during dinner and I assured him he was the main topic of conversation more than once during the course of dinner. He told me he knew that because his ears started burning. I told him based on what we were saying about him he should be a crispy critter by now. I told him we were going to Delta airlines and he asked me if we wanted the $14.00 or $28.00 fare and I told him to surprise me. I got the $14.00 fare and we had an fun ride.

Of course we show up with plenty of time and there was no one at curb side check in and we breezed through that. It took us longer to walk to security than it took to get through security, so we had a bit of a wait at the gate. After push back from the gate, they found a problem that took an hour to fix. So we took off from Vegas when he should have been landing in Salt Lake. Needless to say, but the time we got to Salt Lake, our connecting flight had already left. I went up to one of the Delta reps and she looked us up. She said we had been re-booked on a flight leaving at 4:30 arriving in Spokane at 5:30 pm. She issued us each a meal voucher for $7.00. We had about 1 1/2 hours to wait so we grabbed a sandwich each and a coke. We finally left on a little puddle hopper and finally got home around 7:00pm.

I told Marie we were really worldly travelers, because we had breakfast in Nevada, lunch in Utah and dinner in Washington.

And now for some observations.

The recession must be hitting Vegas pretty hard. I have to say those slot machines were tweaked tighter than a clams ass, and that’s water tight.

They seemed to have worked the bugs out of the ticket redemption machines, because compared to years past, I did not find a single one that was out of order.

I saw a lot of $5.00 table games on the strip, so the casinos must be hurting for players.

Palazzo was nice, but for a less than 1 year old, multi billion dollar casino, I would not expect to find escalators that didn't work or fountains that didn't leak.

There was some little noise at a few craps and bj tables that indicated fun was taking place, but not all that much action from the slots. I was used to hearing a lot of bells and stuff that indicates winners, but that was not happening as much as I remember.

Crowds were pretty slim. There just did not seem to be that many people walking the strip like I remember from bygone days.

It seemed like it was pretty easy to find places to sit down all over the casinos, other that at un-used slot machines.

Other than in a few casinos, I did not find any out of order escalators anywhere during my forays into the wilds of "The Vegas Strip".

It may have been my imagination, but pron slappers did not appear as prevelent as in yeats past.

I noticed a new enterprise cropped up since my last visit. Folks selling ice cold bottled water on the ped walkways for a buck a bottle. The same bottle size you would pay $2.00 for in the machine.

And speaking of water....... Why don't the casinos all have water fountains? I found one in Caesars Palace but I could not find any in the other casinos I passed. How the heck am I going to refill my water bottle? I did use the faucet from the sink in the mens room one or twice, when I was lucky enough to find one that was running cool instead of warm.

The potato soup with sliced sausage at the Hofbrauhaus is to die for. My new favorite dessert is Banana Forster

If you take the Lake Mead dinner cruise and ask one of the crew members what time they have life boat drill's, you will get a strange look.

Well there you go. I put a lot of work into this report, so I hope you enjoyed read it and looking at my pictures. I'm not the world best photographer, but I try hard.

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