Las Vegas Part 2

Thursday morning we used our free meal for a breakfast buffet. We realized that if you hit the buffet at about 9:30, by the time you're done eating breakfast, they've started bringing the lunch buffet out. Too bad we were already too full of breakfast foods to enjoy it.

We had tried to figure out how to get the money out of our gambling cards without actually gambling, but they had thought of everything, so finally we made a deal with each other that we would only gamble with the money on the cards. So, Thursday morning, while the casino was pretty slow, we went down to use our cards. At one point, I didn't keep track and used 2 cents that I had won in addition to what was on the card, but other than that, we did good. We must have looked like idiots trying to figure out how the slot machines worked. At one point, someone who worked in the casino came up and asked us if we needed any help. We didn't win any huge jackpots, but did come away with some money. I realized that it's not as fun as I thought it would be. Probably if I had won a million dollars, I would feel differently, but I'm content to not gamble.

After our gambling experience, we decided to use our free tickets to the observation deck. You'd have thought that we were flying or something. They made us go through a security checkpoint and a metal detector. It was pretty funny. They were very careful not to touch us or anything that was ours. We finally made it to the elevator. It went 23 mph and dropped us off on the 108th floor. Wow!! That was high. It was an indoor observation deck with glass all of the way around.

Um . . . yeah, you couldn't pay me to get close enough to lean on the glass.

The Strip from inside the observation deck.

Downtown Las Vegas from inside the observation deck.

After seeing stuff inside, we decided to go up a story to the outside observation deck. It was pretty breezy up there, but the view was awesome. There were also some rides up there. Yes, there were rides 109 stories above the strip. Even just watching them made my stomach get queasy.

The Strip from the outside observation deck.

Nathan and I outside.
This ride went straight up from the top of the tower. I probably could have handled this one. It was the tamest of the three. At least you still had building underneath you.

This one seriously looked like it was going to shoot you straight off the building onto the Strip.

And this one just dangled you over the Strip and then tilted you so you were looking right down at it and spun you around.

After the observation deck, we just hung out around the hotel. On the second level, they had a mall. We shopped and people watched. It was funny how stuff that you were used to seeing everywhere was different. Even their McDonald's was Las Vegas-ized.

That night we went to American Superstars. It was in the Stratosphere, so no 3 1/2 mile walk this time. They did an excellent job of "paying tribute" to Elvis, Tim McGraw, Christina Aguilera, Rod Stewart, and Michael Jackson. Lately I'm not a huge fan of Michael Jackson, but that guy did such an awesome job. He had all the moves down. The guy that portrayed Elvis won an Elvis competition in Memphis last year. He really did look a lot like him. All in all a great show.

The next morning, we got to sleep in (no Jo waking us up at 6:00 in the morning - sorry if she woke you Jolee). We spent our time packing while listening to conference and checked out just in time. We picked up our souvenirs we'd been eyeing all week and hung out in the mall a little more. (Hey! The closest mall is 25 miles away. We had to get all of our mall walking in while we were there.) Also, when we first got to Vegas, I'd seen an ad for Roxy's Diner in the Stratosphere and I'd wanted to go all week. We'd never had time, so just before we left for the airport, we finally made it to Roxy's Diner. I'm so glad we went. It was a 50's diner and in the middle of our lunch, these two started singing. It was so fun!!
After lunch, we were a little nervous about making sure we got the rental car back and got to the airport on time, so we took off. We actually ended up making it in plenty of time. Nathan got to watch the airplanes for over an hour. I was kind of worried about the type of people that I would see in Las Vegas, but I didn't really see any weirdos (unless you count the Elvises and the people getting married) until we got off the plane in Salt Lake. We took a shuttle out to our car and it was packed. We were standing clear up in the front of the shuttle. I ended up getting stuck between two guys that weren't Nathan. Behind me there was a dad looking after his daughter and I was trying to make sure they had enough room. All of a sudden, the guy in front of me asks me if I'm with "that cowboy" and points to the dad behind me. I looked at him and said, "Nope, I'm with THAT cowboy" and pointed to Nathan who was in front of him. He then told me that he hadn't gotten a lot of sleep the night before and he wanted to know who he needed to watch out for in case he fell on me. HUH? Then he said a bunch of other stuff that made it obvious that he was inhibition-less (is that a word?).

We stayed in Ogden that night and came home on Sunday. We picked up our kids along the way. The kids still keep talking about the places that they stayed. Zoey keeps saying, "I go Jolee's house. Jolee's house SOOO fun!!" Thanks again for those of you who made it possible for us to take a vacation. Let us know when we can return the favor. It was nice to just be Mikelle and Nathan for a few days. I even felt like I could think like an adult and actually have good conversation and good ideas that didn't have anything to do with potty training, learning ABC's, etc.