Viva Las Vegas

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We left Vegas Monday morning. We were home by 5pm.

Just a few things of note....

We are still technically in a pandemic. You would never really know this in Vegas. No one was ever-ever-ever following the 6-foot rule. Masks were being worn by basically everyone everywhere but many people weren't covering their noses with their masks (even waitresses). Saturday, when the full-on young crowd was here, masks were optional outside everywhere it seemed. They didn't care. There were some crowded places at times during this trip so we were shocked. Thankfully, there were free mask dispensers and hand sanitizer dispensers at every entrance to our hotel and there were a lot of ways in and out of our hotel. We took advantage of the free masks and the sanitizers on a regular basis. I changed my mask sometimes twice a day. We washed our hands every time we got to our hotel room. We sanitized our hands continually. All of the hotels and stores had hand sanitizers setup everywhere. The Bellagio even had installed a hand-washing station which we also used. We took every precaution to stay safe including not touching the hand rails on the escalators so that took some effort at times. We tried to follow the 6 foot rule in the airport but even the TSA was cramming people through the lines. Trust me when I say that airport was not nearly "dead" or even slow for that matter. It was kinda shocking to see everything seem almost normal. We both feel great right now. We hope we stay healthy. We both stated if we had to do this trip over, we would not. We hope we don't get sick. We probably made a bad judgment call traveling so early this year. We don't know.

Our hotel - Planet Hollywood - was fabulous. If it were not for a pandemic, we would probably not pay to stay here because it's expensive but of course I got a last-minute deal. The hotel is beautiful with lots of Oscar-type accents... glittery gold champagne-looking accents by the doors, chandeliers, and just elegance everywhere. Planet Hollywood normally attracts the rich, 30-some crowd with the motto of "To See and To Be Scene" (it's actually painted on the ceilings in the elevator lobby) but this is a pandemic so anyone can afford to book a room right now. Saturday night, I saw a little of that but overall, it was every age group imaginable while we were there. The hotel has photographs of celebrities along all of its walls - Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Sylvester Stallone, Demi Moore, Bruce Willis, you name it, there was a picture of him or her either in the hallways, in your room, or in the Cafe Hollywood. Our room had Megan Fox, Lindsay Lohan, and Katherine Zeta-Jones shots. It's a "Wannabe Celebrity" hotel but for us, it was simply a great view, a good bed, perfectly located in the middle of everything on the strip, and a nice price. Of course, I enjoyed that it had two Starbucks. We loved watching the Bellagio fountains from our room day and night - the music, the water dancing, the lights - it was all soothing to the soul.

There are dogs everywhere. Dogs in the casino. Dogs in the hotel rooms. Dogs in the airport. Dogs on the plane. We could have taken Arthur on the plane for $50 and he would have had to stay in a hard or soft crate/cage while traveling. The Springfield airport won't let you enter the main airport until your dog is in the carrier. The Las Vegas airport lets your dog be free until it's time to board the plane. The dog has to stay inside it's carrier the entire plane trip. I think Arthur is so good he could probably do this. The strip was full of dogs walking around. On that same subject, when we got home on Monday, Arthur was crying and happy to see us... and then he was just freaked-out... as we unloaded the suitcases and cleaned-out Kamie's car, he got inside the car and refused to get out even after we were inside the house and unpacking. We begged him to get out of the car. He was so sad. Kamie had the idea to take Arthur for a ride so we drove around for a bit and then came home and he finally got out of the car. I feel so bad that we left him. He was well taken care of while we were gone but he was so sad that we left him that I feel terrible about it. We are taking him with us to Branson in May.

Back to Vegas.... Vegas is interesting. I would compare it to New Orleans. Lots of drinking, food advertisements, gambling, weed, and hookers everywhere. My friend who lives here says it's "dead" right now compared to how it usually is but she also said it had really picked-up on weekends. She said normally it is body to body packed-in at all the casinos and on the strip wayyyy more than it is now. We would hate that! Maybe, since we always wanted to see Vegas, we came at the perfect time for us. Overall, we had fun. Is Vegas our type of town? Nah. Not really for us. We aren't big gamblers, we don't smoke weed, and Kamie wasn't allowed to get a hooker (ha). You can get overpriced food at any vacation destination and drinks are in every city in every town so why pay $20 for a small drink here? We are so glad we finally saw Vegas and enjoyed ourselves but this is not the vacation destination for us. Vegas isn't our Vice.

**I will post pictures Wednesday**

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