Vegas - take 2

I'm just home from our Vegas trip - we were there for five days, which was at least two day (possibly four) too many!  I went with Jeff and Ryan - the same guys from last year.  I think that I was tired when we left, as things had not really slowed down since Easter, and I had company the weekend before we left on last Sunday.  I had also been doing some birthday celebrating with friends in Victoria who wouldnt' be in Vegas (I didn't want to leave them out!  I know how they love to celebrate me!).  As it turns out, and I think I should have known this, Vegas isn't a really restful spot.  Fun, yes.  Exotic, usually.  But not restful.  All I wanted to do every day was laze around, but it's sort of hard to do that there.  I did spend quite a bit of time at the pool, but there was always loud music playing, which makes it hard to properly relax.  And Jeff and Ryan are great, but sharing a hotel room for five days was also tough.

There were lots of good highlights though!  We had a better idea what we were doing, so were more efficient in our fun finding.  Ryan works for Fairmont (at the Empress) so we left Victoria on Sunday afternoon, and stayed in a really nice room at the Airport Fairmont in Vancouver before our Monday flight.  Since he's an employee, he (and those he's with) gets 50% discount on the room and food and drink. It was really nice to sit in the lounge there, and know that I could actually afford it.

In Vegas, our room was not as nice as last year, though in a preferential location on the strip (further along).  However, Jeff and Ryan really wanted to go to this bar we were at last year, in which it turned out the bartender remembered us (with a little prompting).  So we were walking back to our old hotel all week anyway.  We stayed in Treasure Island, which is known for their nightly "Sirens of TI" show, which is sort of a really cheesy pirate show on boats and with pyrotechnics.  We watched this one night from our window, which was really cool.

We also found (well off the strip) a really neat bar.  They make all sorts of cocktails, mostly whiskey and gin based.  It was super classy, and used to be mob owned.  In fact, it used to be the Venetian, until the Venetian on the strip bought the name.  It had a secret door that looked like a bookshelf, and the whole feel of the place was very 1920's speakeasy.  Because Jeff and Ryan are super friendly, they made instant friends with the bartenders, with very nice results on the bill.  The drinks were really incredible- quite a few were invented in Harry's Bar in Paris, which I'm pretty sure is where Hemmingway used to hang out.

We also discovered that there is (again, off the strip) dollar bowling in Vegas after midnight.  Ryan used to be a bowling team, and Jeff and I were game, so we actually spent quite a bit of time bowling in Vegas.  Sounds a bit weird written down, but we were so tired of the crowds on the strip that it was a nice change!

I'm very glad to be back.  Flying in to Vancouver means waiting for and taking the ferry, which is really time consuming.  I think Patches is glad to see me back as well.  Oh, and I totally did tell my congregation that I was going on a desert retreat.  Most of them knew where I was going, and got the joke.  I hope.