Las Vegas to El Paso

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March 18-26: Las Vegas, Phoenix & El Paso

Another blur of the trip was Las Vegas, the city of lights, the city of sin. I can say this much of our stay there: we didn’t lose any money although we spent almost all of our time gambling, we didn’t go clubbing or to any shows and we ate mostly at the food court within our hotel.

Glenn wasn’t prepared for the size of the casinos. He was embarrassed to admit that he got lost in our own hotel. The first day we were about to go out on the strip when we decided get a snack at the hotel first. Our side trip in the hotel took an hour—the hotel was that big.

The four days we had in Vegas, we woke up in the morning ready to go see a show that night. But, after walking miles up and down the strip and what seemed like miles within each casino, we couldn’t be bothered to go get tickets. We made it to almost every casino on the strip & Glenn collected chips from each as souvenirs.

Glenn and I enjoyed playing slots a bit, but we spent most of our time playing craps. Our last night in Las Vegas I had a few drinks and was peer pressured into rolling the dice at the table. The dice flew from my hand across the table and hit a gentleman’s glass…breaking it!! All of the dealers said that they had never seen anything like that in all their years on the floor. (Generally speaking, though, I was a pretty good shooter).

The most exciting—or significant—portion of our Las Vegas experience was our helicopter tour of Hoover Dam & the Grand Canyon. The tour included a picnic lunch within the basin of the canyon. It’s amazing when you’re reduced to feeling so small in comparison to your surroundings how you lose perspective of distances and heights. You can’t comprehend the reality of how big the canyon is!! As Glenn has said to his friends & family back home “yeah, it’s certainly a big hole.”

Unfortunately, either all the excitement of Vegas or the unhealthy food we ate led to Glenn becoming very sick. Our stay in Phoenix is most noticeably marked by Glenn spending all day Easter Sunday in bed—unable to move.

In spite of Glenn’s illness we were able to visit some of my very good friends.

Some family friends took us to a practice baseball game…Mariners vs. the White Sox. We were so much closer to the players and the action on the field than we ever would have been during a regular season game. Thank you Tom & Kris!! Glenn was impressed by the speed of the ball, but I think he’s going to stick with footy. Glenn has now seen hockey and baseball…

The next day we drove to El Paso, a border town of Texas that served as a good resting point on the long drive to San Antonio. The highlights of El Paso include walking over a bridge into Mexico—one more country Glenn can say he has been to—and eating some authentic Mexican food.

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Photos

Bellagio
Glenn & I in front of the Bellagio fountain show in Las Vegas.

MGM Lion Habitat
This was in our hotel!!