Viva Las Vegas - long post

If you have read Sandy's blog, and I know you have, you already know more or less what we did. But here's my take: After a very nice time in Death Valley, we arrived at the Excalibur on Friday morning, our room was in the 13th floor! Lizzie said she thought hotels didn't have floor 13 anymore, and Sandy was surprised I stayed in the 13th floor. I guess I am not as superstitious as I used to be!

The room was OK, not too fancy but good enough, we all were in the same floor just 2 rooms away from each other. Lizzie was lucky to have a pillow top bed, the rest of us had the regular coiled ones. Like Sandy said, it was funny they got to Vegas from Salt Lake and San Diego almost at the same time, and also got back home within a few minutes of each other.

As it was already a little late, we all went to eat at the Excalibur buffet, after that we gambled a little and rested a while, then we went to have a drink, gambled a little, and to bed.

Saturday morning we had Krispy Kremes for breakfast, then we all went to City Center and looked around a bit, very high class stores, beautiful surroundings and a wonderful scent inside the covered mall. After that we walked to Planet Hollywood Casino, formerly The Aladdin, and had lunch at a Mexican Restaurant. The girls paid for the lunch for Marvin's birthday :)

After that we walked back to Excalibur. As usual the sidewalks were crowded and the people rude. They always seem to be in a hurry! When we got back to our room, I had a huge blister in my left foot and it was sore, Marvin also had a few blisters, I guess we are not used to looooong walks!

At night we all went to The Tournament of Kings. We were in the Spain side, of course, and it was quite entertaining. The entrance fee, thanks Sandy, included dinner which consisted of a very tasty tomato soup, a whole Cornish game hen with potatoes and broccoli, and pastries for dessert, it also included drinks. There was no silverware so we had to eat with our hands.

After the show was over, we all drove to Fremont Street in downtown Las Vegas to see the lights and sounds street show. It was nice because it featured the music of The Doors, we all sang to it.

When we got back to Excalibur, The Thompsons went to the Faire but it closed shortly after.

Marvin, Marty and I hung around for a while playing the slot machines, but lady luck was not on our side!

In the morning we all went to have breakfast, and right after that they all left. Marvin and I stayed for an extra day. He and I went to New York New York for lunch, and later we went to Mandalay Bay for an early dinner. I wanted to go to a famous chef restaurant, so I chose the Border Grill. The owners are Top Chefs and had a TV cooking show too. Well, neither Marvin nor I were impressed with the food, and the price was way too high! oh well it was fun anyway.

We left Las Vegas Monday morning, and on the way home, we stopped in my favorite M Resort, where I went directly to the Baby Cakes Bakery and bought enough pastries to last me for a couple of days. The highlight was a chocolate eclair. Just thinking of it makes my mouth water and my tummy rumbled with happiness. You all need to taste it if you want a taste of Nirvana :)

All in all we had a great vacation time, I enjoyed seeing everything and celebrating Marvin's birthday with our daughters and grandson, and Marty.

Happy 70th Birthday Marvin!

Spring Break 2010

We just got back from our trip to Death Valley and Las Vegas. We had a great time!

I will write a little about Death Valley now and more about the trip in the coming days.

I had never been in Death Valley and found it so very interesting and scenic. We spent the first night in a town called Tenopa, it was right in the middle of nowhere, not far from the old Spanish trail Our room was right next to the hot springs, and I bathed there at night, it was great! Next to our building, there was a Bistro with gourmet food which is very unusual to find in such a secluded area, the chef owner used to have a Zagat rated restaurant in Las Vegas and graduated first in the New York Culinary Institute, but I guess he decided to get away from it all and open a bistro right in the Hot Springs area.

After checking in, we drove around to an oasis in the middle of the desert called China Farm. Again,m it was totally unexpected, it was really way deep in a canyon, surrounded by mountains and desert. We took some pictures and looked around, after that we started on our Death Valley trek.

It's hard to describe all the sights, so I will just write about some of my favorite spots. The first one, was the beautiful valleys full of desert flowers, which is very rare for Death Valley, but they had lots of rain this year and flowers bloomed abundantly although they won't last very long. The lowest point in the US, 282 feet below sea level, was very interesting too, as far as the eyes can see is a dry lake with some moisture in some parts because of the rain, but in general it was an arid, dry, amazing landscape.

I was a little disappointed in the sunset, I was looking forward to a gorgeous desert sunset, but without a cloud in the sky, the sun settled behind the mountains without much fanfare!

On our way back to our Hot Springs "resort", we stopped for dinner at a cafe in Shoshone, they were about to close and we just had a sandwich.

One of the most beautiful sights, was the absolutely gorgeous, beautiful, amazing desert skies. I have never seen so many stars, so close up and bright, we sat outside our room just looking at the sky. As I looked up, I saw the most brilliant shooting star..I made a wish...

NaPoWriMo #1

Just thought I will post something for Poetry Month :)

When I look at myself

in a mirror

I don't see me

-as I am-

but as I was.

To iPad or not to iPad, that is the question!

This lovely morning, Marvin and I went to Lowe's to buy some lavender plants, after that we went to Michael's since I had to buy some frames. We were talking about iPad and I told Marv maybe I'd like one, he said Best Buy has Apple stuff so we went there to look at them. I thought there would be a lot of people wanting to buy it, but there were only a few trying it to see how it worked. So I played with it for a little while and decided to buy one. I asked if they had any left and they said they had lots of them available. After talking to the clerk for a while I found out you cannot connect it to the Internet yet, it will only work in places with wi-fi, he said it'll be a couple of months before it can have regular Internet connection, so I decided to wait a while.
Back home, somewhat later, we were getting ready to go have dinner at Acapulco. We had been reading some more about iPad, and I said I should have bought one this morning! so we decided to go back to Best Buy to get one, and of course, they were out of them!!!!
So I guess I'll wait and read some more about it, and then buy it...or not! LOL
Any thoughts?