Advertisement
And so the morning of my 50th Birthday dawned although, arguably, I had already been 50 for 17 hours because I was born in Australia!!?? My birthday greetings have certainly been spread out, with the first ones arriving earlier in the week and continuing throughout today.
I indulged myself this morning at the MGM Grand Spa with a pedicure, waxing and a facial. I am not even going to record how much that cost - only that it was lovely being pampered on my birthday. I had thought about leaving all of these personal services until I was back home, but my beauty therapist is on maternity leave so I decided, what the heck, pay twice the price and spoil myself on my birthday!
While I was as the spa, Bernie played blackjack. He managed to play for three hours and leave the table with what he started with. He met me at the Spa entrance at noon and we went to the Rainforest Café for lunch. As we wandered back to our room I had a flutter on the roulette wheel. A colleague had suggested to me that I should play No. 28 on the roulette wheel on
the 28th. Rather than put all my eggs in one basket, I put $25 on No. 28 and $25 on No. 6 and ... No. 17 came up. With no birthday luck coming my way, I walked away from the roulette table after just the one spin!
Despite it being roasting hot we ventured down to the pool for a while. From our room it looked like there were plenty of sun lounges and umbrellas but, down at poolside, we discovered that nearly everything was reserved. It turns out that for a fee you can reserve sun lounges, umbrellas and gazebos. So, even though there was hardly anyone at the pool, there was nowhere to sit comfortably because people had reserved spots that they weren't actually using. We had a quick swim, perched in a small piece of shade for a little while and then returned to our suite.
After freshening up we caught the monorail to the Bally's/Paris monorail station where we disembarked and commenced the long walk in to the Eiffel Tower Restaurant because the monorail station is behind Bally's and the Eiffel Tower is at the front of Paris on The Las Vegas Strip. As
we walked through Bally's we encountered hundreds of women in red hats. Not sure what that's about?
When we found the restaurant, we were ushered to a table overlooking Bellagio. As we sipped champagne, we watched the amazing dancing fountains at Bellagio as the sun set over the mountains between Bellagio and Caesar's Palace. Even after the sun had set we were treated to ongoing fountain dances every 15 minutes for the duration of our delicious meal. A very memorable 50th Birthday celebration! A big thank you to Bernie for organising it all.
Although we could easily have watched the fountains from the Eiffel Tower Restaurant until they finish at midnight, we decided to venture out onto the strip to take some photos. As we left Paris we encountered still more ladies in red hats (headbands, fascinators, etc). We had to satisfy our curiosity so asked these ladies the significance of the red hats. Apparently, it is a world wide club for women who are over 50 and they are all in Las Vegas for a convention - no men allowed. Although younger women can join in, they have to wear pink hats until they graduate to red
when they turn 50. Should I sign up ... now that I am 50??
The temperature was barely cooler than it was during the day, but at least with the sun set it was tolerable rather than unbearable. With all the reports of it being cold and wet in Melbourne I think we are going to have some trouble adjusting. The only rain we have had in the last month was the downpour at Osage Beach and then it was only wet, not at all cold.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.044s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 7; qc: 23; dbt: 0.0194s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1mb
Janet
non-member comment
half a century with many more to come!
Sounds like you had a perfect birthday apart from the lack of sun lounges. I wonder if you would have been able to bribe one to be released to you while the tenant was absent! Money seems to talk in Vegas when it comes to privileges. I am surprised you haven't heard of the Red Hat Society as the emails have done the rounds over the years. It was inspired by a poem about doing whatever we want without concern for what others think of our image once we get older and wiser. Personally I don't think you need to join a club to have fun once you are over 50 as long as you have a good social circle. I don't want to join any more clubs that involve taking an organising position or minutes, especially not to simply socialise, it is far too easy to do that without the need for a formal arrangement. But I can appreciate that some people feel more comfortable joining a group where they have ready acceptance. We enjoyed watching Billy's 2nd episode of his Route 66 journey last night. Once again there were some familiar sights. I know his show was recorded some time back but it's like he is following in your footsteps given we heard it all first from you! Ha ha! We also watched a show on Channel 31 about a 2011 Autumn Route 66 convoy of travelers. I am not sure how many weeks it will be showing here but it was yet another view of this iconic journey. I imagine Route 66 will be inundated with aussie pilgrims down the track after so much promotion. You will be home now but I am imagine we will still see some further update.