Las Vegas Trip - Days 0 and 1
I'm trying my best to write about my trip *briefly*, and include just the pictures that are most interesting. So here's the first day's worth, feel free to skim. If you just want to browse through my pictures, the album is here, but I warn you, it's badly out of order (sigh).
Day 0: Thursday
Our flight to Vegas from Detroit was delayed two hours. But hey, that meant we only landed <1 hour before Abe. During the flight, I saw a beautiful thunderstorm somewhere over the plains, with a big bank of clouds lit by flashes of lightning. Just lovely.
We stayed at The Sahara, on the north end of the Strip. By the time we checked in, it was so late even room service was closing. And the guys had been up since early morning Eastern and Central times! But Abe hadn't had dinner. We figured, "it's Vegas, finding food at 2am shouldn't be that hard", and set out down the strip. Everything was a much longer walk past more construction than we'd bargained for, but we wound up finding food at the Peppermill Inn, an all-night restaurant that really felt like we were in Vegas now. Then I made the guys walk me back to the hotel so I could go to sleep. They were really excited to be in Vegas, though, so they went back out and wandered around the Stratosphere for a bit. Never mind they'd been awake something like 24 hours.
Day 1: Friday
Not being adjusted to Pacific time, none of us got much sleep, and we were up at 8am. I never do that on the east coast. We discovered we could buy breakfast to go from the coffee shop in the Sahara (which we then did almost every morning). Bagel and Orange Juice in hand, we drove to the south end of the stip, parked (a nice thing about casinos, free parking in the non-valet garages. A bit removed from the "action" but we're good at walking), and started exploring on foot. Gambling is available 24 hours, but things are pretty quiet in Vegas at 9am.
There was a construction site that looked like a pile of twisted metal, so of course Mike and Abe needed their picture taken in front of it.
Here's me in front of the Excalibur. We had lunch at the buffet there, because that's where we were when we got hungry.
Mid-afternoon we went to the Star Trek Experience. Thanks to my friend Josh's recomendation it was very high on my list. It was completely awesome. The effect of getting beamed up is really incredible.
Large model ships hang from the ceiling:
We enjoyed cool-looking (and very tasty) drinks at Quark's Bar:
Quark stopped by our table:
This guy is a statue:
This guy is *not* a statue, in spite of the effect of the flash:
After Star Trek we took a swim in the Sahara's pool, which was really a bit disappointing. I suppose it's only 4 feet deep because you can drink in it and they don't want drunk people drowning there. We went looking for dinner in the hotel, and I felt like I might fall asleep at the table. So bed time turned out to be 9pm that day.
Day 0: Thursday
Our flight to Vegas from Detroit was delayed two hours. But hey, that meant we only landed <1 hour before Abe. During the flight, I saw a beautiful thunderstorm somewhere over the plains, with a big bank of clouds lit by flashes of lightning. Just lovely.
We stayed at The Sahara, on the north end of the Strip. By the time we checked in, it was so late even room service was closing. And the guys had been up since early morning Eastern and Central times! But Abe hadn't had dinner. We figured, "it's Vegas, finding food at 2am shouldn't be that hard", and set out down the strip. Everything was a much longer walk past more construction than we'd bargained for, but we wound up finding food at the Peppermill Inn, an all-night restaurant that really felt like we were in Vegas now. Then I made the guys walk me back to the hotel so I could go to sleep. They were really excited to be in Vegas, though, so they went back out and wandered around the Stratosphere for a bit. Never mind they'd been awake something like 24 hours.
Day 1: Friday
Not being adjusted to Pacific time, none of us got much sleep, and we were up at 8am. I never do that on the east coast. We discovered we could buy breakfast to go from the coffee shop in the Sahara (which we then did almost every morning). Bagel and Orange Juice in hand, we drove to the south end of the stip, parked (a nice thing about casinos, free parking in the non-valet garages. A bit removed from the "action" but we're good at walking), and started exploring on foot. Gambling is available 24 hours, but things are pretty quiet in Vegas at 9am.
There was a construction site that looked like a pile of twisted metal, so of course Mike and Abe needed their picture taken in front of it.
Here's me in front of the Excalibur. We had lunch at the buffet there, because that's where we were when we got hungry.
Mid-afternoon we went to the Star Trek Experience. Thanks to my friend Josh's recomendation it was very high on my list. It was completely awesome. The effect of getting beamed up is really incredible.
Large model ships hang from the ceiling:
We enjoyed cool-looking (and very tasty) drinks at Quark's Bar:
Quark stopped by our table:
This guy is a statue:
This guy is *not* a statue, in spite of the effect of the flash:
After Star Trek we took a swim in the Sahara's pool, which was really a bit disappointing. I suppose it's only 4 feet deep because you can drink in it and they don't want drunk people drowning there. We went looking for dinner in the hotel, and I felt like I might fall asleep at the table. So bed time turned out to be 9pm that day.