Friday, January 14, 2004 - Vegas, Part Deux

For any of you that care, it took me about 2 hours to do that report last night (plus an hour that I was looking for the materials that I needed - I must resolve to become more organized...nah, what's the fun in that?). I emailed it off, thought everything was goodness and light, but then found this evening that it bounced back at me because I got the church email address wrong. Grrr... Oh, the church secretary is going to be thrilled with me - now she won't get it until Monday morning...

Enough of that. Now, where was I on the Vegas trip? Ah, yes!

Once we finished up on the Star Trek Experience we realized it was a bit later than we expected, so we headed to Excalibur to check in. If you haven't figured it out yet, Excalibur is done up like a medieval castle. That is, it's done up as a late 1970's/early 1980's concept of a medieval castle. I don't remember it being any different today from what it was 9 years ago. Compared to many of the newer places, it's kind of sad. That says a lot coming from me, who still plays Dungeons & Dragons at 32 years of age and who will happily dress up in costume to attend the Renaissance Faires.

We got into our room, and found that it had the same view of the NYNY roller coaster, except from the other side of the street! Sheesh. We prettied ourselves up for the evening and headed out.

Now, a few weeks ago in our local paper there was an article about buffets in Vegas, basically a review of several of the buffet restaurants on the strip. This article convinced me that we needed to go to the only hotel on the Strip without a casino in it, the Four Seasons. Thankfully we were on that end of the Strip already, so we took a tram over to Mandalay Bay and found a walkway to Four Seasons. BTW, if you are in Mandalay Bay, do not miss the Orchid Lounge! Best smelling place in Vegas!

As soon as we stepped in the Four Seasons, we got this overwhelming impression that this place was too rich for our blood. But undeterred we hunted down the restaurants - and found there to be no buffet. Apparently their "buffet" was only a Sunday brunch. Pity. I tried to convince my mil to still eat there, but I could see her unease at the dollar signs floating before her eyes. Well, I can't blame her, and I know she didn't bring a ton of money to spend, so we regretfully turned to the Luxor and the buffet there, which was ok.

We finished up dinner and it was time for us to head to our show by the Blue Man Group! I am totally enamoured with these guys, and I swore that if I ever went to one of the cities where they have a peramanent show that I would go. I love their music, their personae, their philosophy (yeah, they kind of have one)...

Anyway, the show was awesome! I wish I could describe it to you in detail, but anything that I put down here will be inadequate. I was very happy to see that it was an entirely original production, that is, there was nothing in the Vegas show that was on _The Complex_ concert DVD, and there was nothing in common with the touring group with whatever the hell that festival was that I went to in Toronto a couple summers ago. If you go to Vegas, go to this show! (But if you can, see if you can get one of the package deals from Luxor rather than buying tickets directly - I paid more for the individual tickets than it would have cost me for the dinner\show package).

And best of all...



(ShadowAngel squeals with delight)

After the show my mil was quite content to head to bed, but not me. So I headed off to Stratosphere to finally get to ride my roller coasters! But what happened there is...the rest of the story...(sorry Paul Harvey)

Tune in soon for _Vegas, Part Trois!_