Las Vegas
6/26/2019 to 7/06/2019
Hanging out in Fabulous Las Vegas over the 4th of July
Wednesday 6/26/2019 This morning was a fairly short drive of 94 miles from Bullhead City, AZ (or Laughlin, NV) to Las Vegas. We are staying in a very nice RV resort called The Oasis. We're staying for eleven days which is a lot longer than we usually stay anywhere but we've been traveling so much that we wanted a rest and needed someplace to stay over the 4th of July. We stayed in Vegas at the same time last year but at a different RV park. The Oasis is a much nicer park with two pools, one just for adults with a hot tub and the other for children. It has several nice small buildings with bathrooms and showers and each building has its own small laundry area. There's an exercise room, cafe, putt-putt and a small canopy outside for weddings. The park is well-maintained and they take great care with the landscaping. We're parked on a cement pull-through site with our own little patch of grass. That might not sound like much but compared the last year this is a100 % improvement. The park is situated about 4 miles to the beginning of the busy strip and the first strip casino, The Mandalay Bay. We aren't really planning to spend any time on the strip as we were just there a few weeks ago with Danny. There is an off-strip casino that I really like. It's called South Point. It's about two miles from the RV park so we can't walk but it has plenty of free parking, a movie complex with 16 screens, and a 64 lane bowling alley. The theater offers senior discounts on Monday, Wednesdays and Thursdays and we plan to take advantage of it. It's only $ 4.00 for a movie and the snacks are discounted also. South Point was the first place we visited after we set up. I remembered from last year that it has a Steak n Shake inside and I couldn't wait to enjoy my Steakburger. After eating, we walked around the casino, left a few dollars behind in the slots and then went for a drive around the area. We found a nice inside outlet mall and went in to look for a Las Vegas magnet and a new puzzle for Rose to work on. And that was our first day in Vegas.
Thursday, Friday, Saturday 6/27/2019, 6/28/2019, 6/29/2019 When I registered at the front desk of Oasis, they informed me that the water supply would be cut off from the entire RV park from 8 pm that evening until 4 am the next morning. I didn't think it would be a problem because we would have enough water for the bathroom and kitchen sink until then. But when we woke up the next morning, it still wasn't back on. We decided today would be a good day to take advantage of the senior price at the movie theater. We chose to watch Aladdin. It was a very enjoyable movie but very similar to the cartoon version. We enjoyed the large buttered popcorn even more. We returned to the trailer and were surprised to find out that the water was still not working. That meant it was time to enjoy the swimming pool and hot tub for an hour or so. The water was finally turned back on at 7 pm - 23 hours after being shut off.
We drove to another off-strip casino today called The Silverton. We started looking around and we saw a huge aquarium and children waiting to have their photo taken with a mermaid. Right after the aquarium was the largest Bass Pro Shop we'd ever been in, and it's inside the casino. We strolled around the store for a long time looking at all the stuffed wildlife and even a human mannequin rock climbing. (I assume he wasn't stuffed) We just walked around again lost a little cash and then drove to Raising Cane's for lunch. We knew this fast food chicken place had just recently opened in Boardman and we weren't home to try it so we decided to try it here. It wasn't bad but Chick-fil-A is still number one for us.
A few times during our travels, I've needed to order something from Amazon. I have no place to have it delivered so I take advantage of their Amazon lockers. I ordered a few items and had them shipped to lockers outside of a local 711 store and we drove to pick them up today. Afterward, we stopped at Smith's Grocery and picked up a few things to eat.
Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, 6/30/2019, 7/01/2019, 7/02/2109 On Sunday we took a short drive of about five or six miles to The M Resort and The Green Valley Ranch. These two casinos and hotels are located a good distance from the Las Vegas Strip but our RV park is much closer to them. We just walked around and of course, left a little bit of cash behind.
We again took advantage of the discounted movies at South Point Cinema and saw Toy Story 4. It was the usual cute, fun movie and we enjoyed it. Sorry, but we didn't take any photos today.
Today was laundry day. The washers and dryers here are clean and well-maintained. Being I worked so hard helping with the laundry, I treated us to Olive Garden. Just a short walk away from the restaurant was a Skechers Factory Outlet store which they advertised as the largest outlet store. I decided not to buy any shoes but Rose found a couple on clearance. We also took a drive up the strip for a short distance. We had to save up our energy because we were planning on driving downtown to Fremont Street again later. We arrived there at 7 pm and spent about three hours walking in and out of casinos and up and down Fremont Street. It was a much better experience than when we were here with Danny a few weeks ago. It wasn't nearly as crowded and we didn't have to shove our way through the crowd. There was a cover band playing and we watched several of the usual street performers. You'll notice the last photo is of the huge Free Parking sign at the Main Street casino parking lot. Except we learned last year that it's not free. You have to spend money either at the casino or their buffet and earn enough points to make it free. We never make it to that spending level. So free to us and I'm sure many others was $ 8.00 and even higher on weekends.
Wednesday, Thursday, Friday 7/03/2019 7/04/2019, 7/05/2019. We just can't get enough of these cheap movies, so we returned to South Point and watched Men in Black: International on Wednesday. Another big reason we enjoy the movies is that it gets us out of the 100 + degree temperatures and into an air-conditioned theater. We skipped the popcorn this time around and instead we returned to my favorite hamburger joint - Steak n Shake. We played nickel video poker machines for a little while. They're called nickel machines but you have to put five nickels in to win the full amounts. After leaving behind our usual $ 5.00 or so we left, and Rose got a quick haircut at Great Clips. Then we returned to the RV park and went swimming and enjoyed the hot tub.
Thursday was the Fourth of July but we didn't have any plans. There were no cheap movies on the holiday so that was out. (besides we saw all the movies we were interested in) We were just hibernating in the trailer in the air-conditioning when at about 10:30 am the trailer started moving back and forth. We both said "what is that ?" because it was a strange movement. It only lasted less than a minute so I wrote it off as just a very strong wind. Later on that morning, we read that Southern California had an earthquake which could be felt as far away as Las Vegas. We had experienced our first Las Vegas "earthquake". After our near death experience with the earthquake :), we went for a ride and did a little shopping in several of the big box stores and then returned to the trailer for dinner.
In case you haven't noticed, I have a little bit of OCD when it comes to taking our photo with the national parks or city signs. We've been to Las Vegas several times and I've never made it to the part of the strip with the famous "Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas" sign and I really wanted to make it this trip, but every time we drove by there was a long line. It was too hot and sunny to spend hours waiting in line for a picture so I decided we were going to get there at 6 am this Friday morning. There couldn't be too many people willing to get up at that hour, could there? Well, there actually wasn't a huge line but there were probably a dozen people ahead of us. Usually, the person waiting in line behind takes the photos for the people in line ahead of them. It didn't take us long and we were finished around 6:30 am. I had my photos! Since it was still very early, we decided to take a drive up the busy section of the Las Vegas strip which is about five miles long. We've walked this strip many times in the past and didn't feel like walking it again, so we took a drive while the traffic was still less congested. All the photos of the buildings on the strip were taken from the truck's window. (Yes, Wendy - Circus Circus is still open.) We stopped for breakfast at an IHOP that was close to our RV park. Later we ran to the grocery store and that was it for today or at least that's what we thought. We were watching a little TV later that evening when the trailer started shaking back and forth again. We checked the news and Southern California just had another earthquake, even larger this time. Two earthquakes felt in Vegas in two days. I guess it's time to leave.
Saturday 7/06/2019 Today is our last day in Las Vegas and we didn't want to spend all day in the RV park so we decided to check out another off-strip casino called The Orleans. It's about five miles away from the park and is located on a side street behind the section of the strip where the New York New York Casino and Hotel complex is. We like these off-strip casinos that are located away from the busy section of the Las Vegas strip. The food is usually less expensive, parking is usually plentiful and free, and we can find nickel video poker machines which seem to pay out more often. The Orleans also had a multiplex theater and a 52 lane bowling alley. We spent several hours here walking around, gambling a little and ate at a Fuddruckers in their food court. After we had done enough video poker machine gambling - we left, filled the truck up with fuel and returned to the trailer to prepare to leave in the morning. The last photo shown here is a Las Vegas puzzle that Rose completed today. The puzzle really makes the strip look exciting and colorful. I think the artist really over exaggerated it. There may be a lot of neon lights during the night but don't come here expecting dozens of hot air balloons and colorful fireworks.
Sunday 7/07/2019 Well, 11 days in Vegas is enough. It's hard to find anything to do without spending a lot of money. So goodbye Las Vegas, today we are headed to Page, Arizona, and Lake Powell.
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