Ivan's Visit to Las Vegas

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Ivan flew in from OKC to enjoy 4 nights in Las Vegas with Kim and I. We had a blast.....and missed WAY TOO MUCH sleep. That is what a Vegas vacation is all about....staying up too late, gambling a little, eating too much, drinking a little and just having fun. The vacation was a blur....but I'll do my best to remember LOL.

OCT 2 Sunday
Ivan arrived around 3:30pm and we headed to our first hotel.....The Luxor. Kim and I had checked in early and had a bottle of Asti Spumanti waiting on ice....so we could toast our vacation. Kim and Ivan just LOVE the Egyptian theme at the Luxor so the setting couldn't be more perfect. We were on the 28th floor which had a nice view of the mountains. The first night we had dinner at the Orleans dinner buffet ( 2 thumbs up)....then spent the rest of the night playing penny slots. (Big spenders huh?) We wandered from Luxor to Mandalay Bay and then back to Luxor again. We ended up winning little amounts on about every machine we played....so by the end of the night we were about even. We had some drinks at the Luxor and WOWZA were they strong. We stayed up until about 3:00am.


OCT 3 Monday
We slept in this morning. :) Then we headed out for some more penny slots. We stopped at the Orleans and Sunset Station. We were all generally lucky....we kept winning just enough to keep us going. Ivan on the other hand had great luck at the 3 Card Poker table game. Everytime he sat down he seemed to win. What a thrill to go from casino to casino and be 'in the money' even after paying for breakfast, lunch, dinners and the bazillion bottles of water. That night we went back and forth between Excalibur and Luxor....gambling and taking pictures. We also drove to the Bellagio and saw their water fountain show, conservatory and 27 foot high chocolate fountain. We needed to call it an early night because the next day we are driving to Hoover Dam.


OCT 4 Tuesday
Today we checked out of the Luxor because we are moving from the Strip to Downtown. There is a different vibe downtown so we wanted Ivan to experience both sides of Las Vegas. For the next 2 nights we are staying at Fitzgeralds. After we checked out of our hotel....we drove to Hoover Dam. It was a beautiful day....mid 80's with sunny skies. We parked at Hoover Dam and walked around and enjoyed the view. It is hard to comprehend the engineering skills and construction skills necessary to complete the dam. What a feat.

After enjoying the Dam....we stopped at Fiesta Henderson casino for a bit....then back to our new hotel downtown. We walked up and down Fremont Street and saw the light show. We also stopped in at Binion's Poker Room and watched the final table of a Texas Hold Em tournament. It was interesting to see a whole table full of poker players in person. There was a lot of table talk and smack talking going on and then at the end the final 3 players negotiated the end of the tournament so they didn't have to play out all the way.

OCT 5 Wednesday
This was our final full day in Las Vegas together. We were totally wiped out from staying out so late, walking around all day/night and having so much fun. We decided to take it easy and just stick downtown and gamble, sight see and take pictures. We slept in again....those late nights/early mornings made it difficult to wake up early in the morning. We had lunch at Main Street Station buffet...(another 2 thumbs up). We wandered from casino to casino downtown. We had enough luck to keep us going....we generally seemed to win and were only down a tiny amount for the entire trip. We had good luck all during our trip.

One of the events happening in Las Vegas Oct 7-10 at Mandalay Bay are the Grand Sumo Championships. These championships have only been held outside of Japan 12 times in 1500 years....so it's a pretty monumental event. When we were walking around later that night downtown...we saw some of the Japanese Sumo wrestlers. They had on traditional Japanese clothes which were a contrast to all the bright lights and neon that surrounded them.

OCT 6 Thursday
We drove Ivan back to the airport so he could fly home to OKC. It was a great vacation and we wouldn't trade the memories for anything. It is always nice to spend time with family....and even more so to enjoy a vacation with family.

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