Honeymoon in Vegas

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Turns out that there's no discount flights to Vegas near New Year's Eve. It was going to cost nearly a grand just to get there. Screw that -- we drove 1700 or so miles to the family friendly sin city.

We stayed in the Luxor which was... okay. It's nice to stay in a top flight hotel once, but I don't think I'll do it again.

Vegas itself was really pretty cool, as long as you avoid that gambling nonsense. We saw Pen and Teller -- excellent, Stand up Comedy -- good, Zumanity -- Laura hated it, Free Circus shows -- short and fun, and we ate our weights in red meat. Pretty much every place in town serves either a good or an excellent steak. And ya gotta love that.

Only later did we find out about the national mad-cow scare going on at the time. I'm sure we'll be fine.

So here's some pictures from the trip. The green comments are Jake's and the purple are Laura's.

Get out of my dreams and into my car, baby!

AAAAAHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Driving thru the mountains in winter.

Hugging babies!

We got a pyramid room!

Spotlight---you can see it ANYWHERE from where we were in Veags!!!

Jake is wearing the dragon shirt I gave him!

Blurry Laura

It looks like the mummy is about to hug the mom and kid!

Excaliburrrrr---

Fancy plate at the Stratosphere

Should've brought the tripod, but the view from the Stratosphere is very nice.

And it rotates!

To the stars

A shuttle--whoooooo!!

Fire! Scourge of Prometheus, toaster of marshmallows, eliminator of dead wood.

YUM!

Fake Paris--why do they do it? We didn't go up in the tower.

Laura screaming

The Venetian is way overdone.

Look, it's the sky painted on the roof.

Some more faux old artwork anyone?

Peeking at the canal

THIS was funny---I didn't want to go on it and Jake was glad!

Little cards with naked ladies (call girls?) on them are being handed out everywhere in Vegas. The guys who hand them get bored and stick them in chain link fences. They make fun shapes!

Christmas in Vegas.

Stardust -- we're going there soon.

TERRIBLE'S?! We HAD to GO!

it wasn't that terrible

Chihuly---at the Bellagio--Laura's nemesis--she kept knocking things over there---

Chase me!

Spectacular water show EVERY night!

We paid a guy to pull us behind him on a bike.

Here's the guy.

The guy was pretty interesting. He travels around the country going to concerts and picks up odd jobs when he needs to.

There's a big motorcycle coming out of that Building!

Hard to believe that Buffet would sell out.

CIRCUS CIRCUS---a circus EVERY HALF HOUR or so!

There's a man balancing on Laura's head!

This was the best of, like, 20 circus pictures. Talented I'm not.

Combination Arby's and Guinness Book of World Records' Museum--we HAD to GO! LaurA! as the tattooed lady---

It was bad. We though it was the "romantic" Circ de Soile, but it turned out to be more "naught" than romantic.

Laura's reaction to ZUMANITY---I didn't like it

They close down a the main drag for New Year's Eve and it was a PARTY.

Happy New Year!

Fireworks erupt from every rooftop.

The fine folks at Zumanity did give us some nice hats

Here we are a the Freemont Street experience. A decidedly lower-rent part of Vegas -- but very fun. A roof above the street puts on light shows.

OOOOHHHHH!!!!!

Psychedelic

More wasting of electricity. Whoo!

Laura likes to strike this pose in a lot of pictures.

Jumping water!

Laura won the contest =))) ha HA!

Frozen mountains on the way back.

Laura hugs the local wildlife.

So we're going back next week for 4th of July. Staying at the Stardust this time. But, sadly, no cross country trek. Mostly we're going back to give Laura some Cirque du Soleil closure. After 15 years of wanting to see one of their shows she finally got to during our honeymoon. And she hated it. We will be seeing both of the other shows ("O" and "Mystere") while there. And there'll probably be some more red meat.