Nate and Meg's New Ride

Here's Nate and Meg's new baby!
A very cute 2007 Scion!


Yes, we have grandpets and now a grandcar!

What's a blog without a Shuk?

Pancake's dad was playing with ZZAH at the market last night.

John Tesh came to see us!

Making new friends.....

and having lunch.

The following is for the nice lady, I think her name was Margaret, that I took pictures for. Since we weren't sure hers would turn out, I told her I would put these up for her to download. I hope I remembered your name correctly.

Look Sip, no orange...

It's a hot afternoon on June 27 and I'm looking for some cool refreshment. But wait there's no shaved ice to be found.

I ride my bicycle...

Welcome to summer.

Isn't she cute?

Concerts in the park in Kingsburg. This is the 120th year for these concerts.

Typical concert goers.

Isn't she cute?

Misc......

Wait a minute....where am I?

......and then Marlene awoke from the dream.

The Forum shops are just the most beautiful shopping area ever, you can't afford anything but it is beautiful. Per square foot it makes more money than any other shopping center in the world.

We like to go up to the mezzanine and pitch pennies into the huge pool below. No really, it's totally acceptable.

Marlene found some friends, they were stuffed shirts.



That watch....well need I say more?

Broadway shows are the thing at the big hotels on the strip. They get big stars to rotate through the shows. See the Producers if you can it is roll in the aisle funny.

The bad part about these shows and what they don't want you to know is, they have shortened them to 90 minutes with no intermission. They also charge Broadway prices or more. They shortened the shows because surveys showed that tourists didn't want to sit in a show for more than 90 minutes.



I finally get to Pure and Paris gets locked up and couldn't make it.




This is Bobby Flay's restaurant right inside the front of Ceasar's.

Sounds like fun.



Here is one our favorite places to eat. Normally I would give it an unconditional two thumbs up but we had a kinda flakey waitress and they blew it with our food. This still is the best complete steak dinner you can get for 5 dollars. It's not on the menu, just ask for the special. This place is behind Bally's on Flamingo and Koval.



It's the home of the three tyned forks. It really is a great place to eat.

Another of our favorites is Victorys in the Cannery. This place is out on Craig Rd. near the speedway about 5 miles north of downtown. Great food.



I want to say a few words about buffets. We like to go to buffets, not because we eat a lot and like to pack in those last few calories, but because they used to be cheap and we like the variety. We have eaten at about 23 different buffets in LV. Good food and low price is not always the case nowadays. Take this one located in the Gold Coast across from the Rio. It used to be one of our favorites and we would eat there many times during a trip. The food was always great and the price was right. We went there for our first breakfast and they had eliminated half of the selections and the rest wasn't that great. Took it off the list.



This buffet and the next one are definately the best two left that are resonably priced. This one is at Sunset Station in Henderson. We've eaten and stayed there many times. Still very good.

This one is at the Orleans on Tropicana. The food is still very good and we've eaten and stayed here also many times. The other buffet that I know is great is at the Golden Nugget downtown. Almost gormet food although it is slightly higher priced. There are so many more places to eat and try. Some that we used to drive way out of the way just for their breakfasts aren't worth going to anymore.

Thirtyonederful

The Tues. we were in Vegas was our 31st Anniv. Where have all the years gone? So in our neverending quest to take you to places most people don't go to in Las Vegas we headed east. Had breakfast at Sunset Station, more on that later, and kept going east to Lake Las Vegas. Marlene didn't know where we were going. LLV is a very ritzy development that many of the entertainers that play LV live. On one side of the lake is a development called Monte Lago Village. It's built like an Italian lakeside town. It's very pretty but the average person cannot afford anything is the shops. Anyway my hope was that maybe we would run into someone like Celine Dion to sing to us on our anniversary. You never know. It didn't happen but it was fun anyway.

The Ritz Carlton is out of the picture to the left and there are other appartments and hotels that are built over the bridge in the background. The barge floating to the left of me is actually a floating stage where you may have seen Andrea Boccelli perform on TV. It's a cool setup and the VIPs get to sit right on the stage.

Part of the street scenes.

We left LLV and headed back into Henderson to the Ethel M chocolate factory. It's always nice and cool inside on a hot day and they have a great retail store where they give you samples.

You do a self guided tour and watch the various candies being made.


They also have the most amazing catus gardens you can imagine. Everything is represented.

We watched these little Mocking Birds and then saw the mother watching us from up above.

Unusual colored cactus.



We'll wrap this trip up in the next blog or two, hope this is of some interest.

Out and Down in Las Vegas

Let's get back on track so to speak. On Monday we hopped on the monorail. To encourage rideship they cut the fare in half. For eight dollars you get a 24 hour unlimited pass. It was really cool. Parked at MGM and rode around seeing the sights and you really do get a totally different view of things from up there. We got off at the Imperial Palace (IP) where they have what they call "Dealertainers". They are dealers that are dressed up like celebs and every so often they go up on stage and perform. Most are pretty good. I would have pictures but the battery went dead and we didn't have the extra one. There was one guy that was supposed to be Alice Cooper. He looked really good but his act left alot to be desired.

The stations are really nice but you do have to walk a ways to get to them.

The Wynn from the monorail.

Stopped off at Paris to take some pictures.

This place is just very beautiful. Everywhere you look there is some detail you see for the first time.

No prostate problem for this guy.




The outside is as detailed as the inside.

There are some really cool statues. They used to have more but have taken them out or moved them.

One of the scenes along a street in Paris. The French chick wanted her picture taken.





Well there she is again.

Heading home very late Mon. night on the monorail. We got our moneys worth and it was something we hadn't done before. We would ride up and down the strip just to see the sights. I'd like to do that again.