I really enjoyed the “northern route” to Las Vegas. I’d never been in Nebraska, Colorado, or Utah and I got to add all three to my list.
The loess hills were interesting to see. John joked that they were made of Nebraska dust and that made me think about what would happen if I never swept the floor!
I thought eastern Colorado had gentle hills somewhat like Kansas’ flint hills. Then, suddenly, there are the Rockies, as though someone had turned the page in a children’s pop up book. There was no gradual increase in the amount of hills or low mountains. I worried about our loaded car, but the little Chevy Malibu was a wonderful car throughout the trip!
I’m glad I wasn’t driving as the light faded and the rain came down west of Denver. We had planned to find a place to spend the night just west of town but there really wasn’t anyplace! The little towns are fitted into the mountain sides and sometimes have just a gas station and a shop or two or maybe a Starbucks. Everyone is traveling at what seems to me to be excessive speeds for the conditions of dark and rain. But, I guess since it’s not snow they’re happy! Finally, we came to Silverthorne, which is a good sized town, and gratefully stopped for the night. It was quite a nice motel (we had no skis to put in the ski closet), with a really good breakfast. There were three waffle irons and syrup on every table so I guess that must be the breakfast of choice before heading for the slopes! The clerk told me they’d had a warm winter last year, a late spring, and that their growing season was late (which might have explained the awful allergy attack I had—but what could they grow there?). He said that this winter would be very important economically. In the morning sunlight the mountains were so beautiful with their many trees and it was awesome to be driving by Vail and near Aspen! Again, the scenery changed rapidly as we approached Utah. We went from tree covered mountains to high desert to the beautifully colored mountains and valleys near Zion. It seemed as thought the Arizona line brought us immediately to barren mountains with no vegetation. Something unexpected in the NW corner of Arizona was driving into a narrow canyon. The roads were layered to share the small space with a river and a railway. A bit overwhelming! It was the Virgin River Canyon, I believe.
Driving through Nevada with very little traffic—very little life to be seen—turns surprisingly into the city of Las Vegas with traffic jams and masses of people. It seemed to take longer to get from the edge of Vegas to our motel than it did to drive that stretch from the edge of Nevada to Vegas.
The convention was held at Bally’s again. Knowing our way around made it easier to find our way through the casino towards the correct elevators for out 17th floor room. You can’t get to the shops at Bally’s or the Paris or the Excalibur without going through the casinos. This is probably true for some of the other hotel/casinos, but the excessively fabulous Caesar’s mall can be accessed directly.
I saw signs of the economic downturn at Vegas. I found the service at Bally’s to be less impressive than last year. They were pretty stingy about towels, toiletries, and toilet paper… There were more sales in the stores. Well, the fact that there were sales at all was something different! John felt that the food was more expensive. I know I insisted on getting my lunch at McDonald’s one day as I got tired of paying nearly $20 for each meal, just for me…I did enjoy the buffet at the Flamingo.
I would advise anyone going out to Vegas for a few days to take advantage of the meal plan that a couple of the motel/casinos have. The Flamingo and the Excalibur (I think that’s right) will give you a price for all three meals in their dining rooms. You can have all three meals at the Flamingo for about $25 and the Excalibur for about $33 (I may have that backwards). That’s about half what you’d pay for even a hamburger meal at any other restaurant besides the national chains. Of course, it’s fun to try different restaurants but the Flamingo’s buffet was excellent. There was a sushi bar (not for me!), salad bar, a server to cut the roasted meats, many entrees and sides, and breakfast at any time of the day which included biscuits and gravy. Tempting but I had turkey, potatoes au gratin, lots of salad…..The dessert bar was heavenly!!!! Chocolate galore!
I would also advise trying to bring in a small suitcase with bottles of water, pop, or tea. A bottle of soda or tea in most places is $3 or just under. There are no fridges, microwaves, or coffee makers in the rooms. They want you out in the casinos or purchasing things! The BEST place to buy snacks, juices, milk, pop, water, tea, souvenirs is the ABC store. There are two of them in the Miracle Mile mall. You can get pop for $1.65 instead of $3!
I did most of my shopping at 20wenty. You can get beautiful necklaces of semi-precious stones for $20, or 2 for $20, or in the case of some bracelets, 3 for $20. Really I do almost NO shopping in Vegas! But, I did get out to a lot of the malls just to window shop. And I did see the lions at the MGM this year. Somehow I missed that last year.
There was still construction on the Strip of a new Hotel/Casino and one of the stores coming in is Tiffany’s. It already glitters with lots of glass windows.
On 9-9-09 there were hundreds of weddings so you could about trip over brides that day. When we were out for a walk one afternoon John heard his name being called. It was a man he worked with when at Millard’s. The fellow was really surprised to see John in Vegas! He and his wife were there for his daughter’s wedding. Their motel took care of the minister, the photographer, the drinks and appetizers…..but I’m not anxious to ever be a parent in that situation!!!!
On our way out of Nevada we made a pit stop at a place called Rosie’s Den. Several locals were having breakfast there and I was pretty envious of the largest pancakes I’ve ever seen, but we had eaten already. Later, in Arizona, we stopped at the Cowboy Café in Wickenburg. Lots of cars were parked there and that’s always a good sign. The sweet potato fries were awesome. We shared some really tasty chili and the burgers were just right! We continued down AZ seeing the Joshua trees, and then the Saguaro. I took some photos of the Phoenix skyline in hopes Elizabeth could point to a building and say “I worked near that.”
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