Archive for January, 2010

Hi! I’m so excited about this blog posting and I’ll explain the title in a minute, but I wanted to tell you what we did last night first. Wow, was it busy on the Las Vegas Boulevard last night. We took the bus down to Treasure Island Casino (not far, two casinos south of us, but was still far enough to take the bus)…….

Inside Treasure Island Casino, they have always been motorcycle/chrome themed! Take a peek……

So if you want to win a bike, go to Treasure Island. Next door to Treasure Island is the Mirage Casino, home to the infamous erupting of the volcano right outside. Very neat. I didn’t see the volcano go while we were there…..I think it’s every hour or every half hour or so.

They are beautiful waterfalls outside the Mirage Casino too!

Okay, next up, the Wynn Casino. Steve Wynn built two towers, the first tower called Wynn opened in April 2005 and his Encore tower opened last winter (we went to the opening of Encore last winter). I’ve never seen this huge Tiger before……

Okay, this is where I’m going to get a little hyper on ya! I have a little dog. He’s a pure breed Maltese, he turned 8 years old on Jan 10th (he’s a Capricorn) and he weighs 8 pounds. I’ve had him since he was 12 weeks old. He’s my little buddy, so this is what he looks like……this is not a picture of last month or last week, I came home last night and took this picture before uploading the pictures on the laptop last night…….

Ha! You can tell I’m holding a treat above the camera by the look in his eyes!

Anyways, the reason why I’m showing you a picture of Jake is because when I was at the Wynn Casino (and I’ve never ever seen this slot machine in any other casino at all), this is what I stumbled upon………

I don’t care if they kicked me out of that casino, I was determined to get a picture of this slot machine. Isn’t that too cool!! Jake’s got his own slot machine. Well, as much money as I put into all the slot machines, he should have his own slot machine! Ha! You should of saw me when I found it, I was like a little kid all excited! No, the slot machine didn’t pay out a dime to me, but that’s okay, because I’ll be going back to that slot machine to dump some more money in it so see if I can hit the Jackpot. Oh, wait, I already hit the Jackpot……I’ve got my own Maltese Fortune right here sleeping right next to meeeeee!

Have a great day and I’m not sure what we are doing tonight, but since the Miss America pageant is over (congrats to Miss Virginia), everyone should be leave Las Vegas today.

Hi! What a great night we had on Fremont Street in Las Vegas. It was hopping and I didn’t win anything news breaking, but at the end of the night I profited $120, hey, I can’t complain, especially on a weekend. But, I got some cool pictures for you on Fremont Street! Take a peek…..

Just 5 nickels can win you this!! I almost won, but the reels were a little off and just weren’t lining up the symbols for me to win the Corvette. Darn! But, just let me believe I almost won!!!

The Fremont Street casinos shut down all their neon lights for an hourly show up on the Fremont Street electrical canvas above, called the “Fremont Street Experience”, so cool. A different theme show every hour. Here’s some pictures of it, this is on an electrical canvas right above your head!

This one is alien themed – that’s my favorite show! So very cool…..it’s like the aliens are looking down on us…..so, so cool!!!

Oh, want to see how I ended my night!! Yummy!!! I don’t drink much. A margarita a month, but I had to have my one Las Vegas mixed drink! This drink (keep the plastic container, I use it for my loose change now), anyways, this drink cost me $13 dollars and it was considered a “small”, I think the medium was $17 and the large was $21. This drink is a little on the weak side, they offered everyone that buys a drink more vodka for an additional $2 dollars! I declined, the $13 dollars was enough for me to spend on a drink that actually, I have to say, tasted pretty darn good as it is. And no, don’t tell me the calories, I don’t want to know – LOL!

Well, that’s our night! Oh, I bought some Keno tickets and won $21 dollars on Keno! And now it’s Saturday and let’s see how wild we can get tonight! Hey, it’s the thought that counts! I’ll stay with my Pepsi and Grenadine tonight. Yummy! Love Cherry Coke. Have a great weekend!

Hello! Today is a good day so far! I say so far, because it’s only 3:09pm and we’ve got so much to do and see this evening and tonight. I think we are heading down to Fremont Street tonight and on a Friday night it should be a rowdy night. Not rough or dangerous, but if you are a people watcher, it will be a hot spot.

SO! What did we do this morning? We went to visit Hoover Dam. Last winter when we were here they were starting to build a new bridge that would funnel the cars over Hoover Dam and not against it. I’ll show you a picture of a year ago and I’ll show you a picture of this year’s progression. It was so exciting to see Hoover Dam and the building of the new highway.

These are 3 pictures from last year’s (and I do mean, exactly one year ago) of the new bridge they are building….

Okay, and these following pictures are from today’s visit……

So those are the pictures of what we did today! We had a nice time there and we brought Jake along to enjoy the weather with us walking around. We didn’t walk across the dam, but we went to one of the many rest area around the dam and enjoyed the area walking around and visiting the gift shop.

I’ve got pictures of when we went out last night! Take a peek….

This is a picture of outside walking along the Las Vegas Boulevard……

Paris Casino and Hotel. I didn’t win much money in here…..think I lost about $40 bucks……

We visited the Excalibur Casino…..very neat inside, but not paying out….

New York New York Casino! Nice and simple inside with a decent food court. Great pizza here! But, didn’t payout for me last night!

The Luxor! Very nice inside. I got some pictures of inside as far as I could go with a camera!

I didn’t win any money here, but I almost won this (yeah, right!)……

So, that’s what we did last night! The only place where I made some money last night was at the MGM Grand! I won about $200 dollars. So tonight we are heading down to Fremont Street. I’m not bring a lot of money to spend, because remember Friday night thru the weekend, I really don’t think the casinos are going to pay out that much. I think I’ll be staying with the penny machines tonight. Have a good night. And I hope you enjoyed the pictures!

Hi! Wow, what a great night we had last night. We explored a few casinos on the Las Vegas Boulevard. We went to Paris Casino and Planet Hollywood Casino and a few other little ones in between. I must of been feeling lucky because I put a $5 dollar bill in a $5 dollar slot machine (yep, just one shot) and it came out Triple Symbol, Bar, Bar on the three reel display and printed out a ticket for an even $300 dollars! Just like that. Couldn’t believe it! I don’t know what I was thinking! Ohhhh, yes, I knew exactly what I was thinking and I’ll share my secret with you……In my opinion and experience at Las Vegas…..Las Vegas does not pay out much on weekends at all. I’ve never, ever won more than $100 dollars on the weekend here, not just this trip, but all of my trips here. BUT, Las Vegas pays out during the week, and boy, does it pay out…..take a look at what my Dad did last night at the Planet Hollywood Casino!

Yep, that says there is $66 dollars in the slot machine that was left when he hit $1015 dollars!!!

Yep, it’s the lower amount progressive jackpot! I sure would of like to see that purple symbol show up on the last reel for the bigger progressive jackpot, but hey, he was sure happy! I think he was a little unsure if he had won anything, until I glanced at it and say, “Yep, it looks like you are a winner!” You know, now that I think about it, that slot machine didn’t even make a sound, no ringing, no binging, no nothing. I just lite up and said, “Jackpot” on the screen above, but not one sound. The supervisor had to come by and verify the winning amount thru the slot machine and handed the cash to Dad. He gave Mom and I a little bit of it, woo-hoo, and we walked around the casino a little bit more looking for more slot machines that might be willing to pay out. My dad saw a $5 dollar slot machine that seemed to be calling his name and he put some money in it and hit the button to spin the wheel and a yellow 7 showed up on each of the three reels!!! A payout of $500 dollars.

So, your lesson for today is that Las Vegas may look fascinating and hopping on the weekends, but save your gambling dollar for Monday!

Here’s some pictures of the Las Vegas Boulevard and of Paris Casino and Bellagio Casino……

They aren’t the best pictures, I think my camera is acting up again. This camera is one year old, but it has taken alot of pictures in one year. Actually I can check how many total pictures I’ve take with this camera….hang on….I’ve taken a total of 9573 pictures in one year. I’m one of those people who take two or three pictures of the same object and then download them sifting thru which picture is better than the others.

So between my Blackberry and my camera, I’m really not sure which one will outlast the other. Ha!

I would like to take pictures around the inside of the casinos, but I don’t want to get kicked out…….The pictures I do take inside of the casinos, I try to sneak it in quickly…..I’ll see what I can do….

Well, that’s it for today. I’ll bring my camera with me tonight in case we win a million! Have a good night. I’ll be back tomorrow.

Hello! It’s a damp, rainy day. A cold, damp, rainy day. We didn’t go anywhere today and watched TV and ate lunch at home. I can see the clouds are still grey with  no blue sky in sight.

So, I’ve taken some time today to do some catch up research on horse racing. I don’t bet on a lot of horse races, just mainly stake races and of course, the Triple Crown. When I do bet leisurely on a horse race I bet on Charles Town race track in West Virginia. So I browsed around the internet to see what the races looked like tonight there. Doesn’t look too good. I like race 6 and 7, so maybe if we go out tonight, I’ll place a $2 dollar bet on those two races.

So as you can see, today was pretty uneventful and I can’t believe it’s so cold out. I’m sure we will go out wandering around tonight, but mainly stay inside. No roaming around Fremont Street tonight. Circus Circus over here where we are staying is only a short walk away, maybe we will just hang out there tonight. Last night we stopped by there and I came out with $40 dollars ahead.

All there is on TV during the day is court TV shows and game shows. Hey, nothing wrong with that. I like “Let’s Make A Deal”, pointless but entertaining. And the court TV is pretty interesting too. I’ll just park my butt on the couch and relax till it’s time to mosey out tonight, if we are all up for it. Have a good evening. I’ll be back….

Hi! Today was a simple day. It’s always a good great day when you leave the home with a fixed amount of money and after gambling and eating and tipping the waitresses for the free drinks, you come home with twenty dollars more than you left with. That’s a great day.

That’s what happened today. Did I win a lot? Not a lot, but I stayed within a small profit all day today. I won some money in Keno and I won some money on those Red 7 slot machines! Gotta love those 7’s!

I was talking to someone the other day, a friend of mine back home (he doesn’t read my blog so I can tell ya this story without making him feel bad), anyways, he was asking me if it was really as dangerous out here as he has heard. I would love to know where he “heard” this from. He said, “It must be dangerous there, a lot of robberies, shootings?” I looked around and I admit, I would think twice about walking down a dark back alley here, but  overall it’s pretty safe. I’ve been here, gosh, at least 10 times in the last 15 years and I don’t think I’ve really ever feel unsafe in a heavy tourist area of Las Vegas. Yeah, I said, “heavy tourist” where cops already roam around. I’ve never seen a casino get robbed, I’ve never even seen a gun pulled in Las Vegas, and I’ve never felt my life was at risk here. So don’t be afraid to come to Las Vegas.

Other than that, everything is quiet. Jake is doing great. He’s eating a lot lately and going for plenty of walks around the RV park. I don’t have pictures today, but I’ll get some tomorrow if we do something interesting! Have a great night and thanks for checking on me.

Hello! Today was a pretty mellow day. After sleeping late, we did our shopping errands at Walmart down the street here. You know I’m starting to see a trend here…..alot of people walk, shop, gamble, read (yes, read too) while listening to some kind of mp3 player pumping music into their ears by ear buds. Everywhere I go, I see it (and hear it). I don’t see that back home too often at all. Maybe it’s me. Oh, speaking of music, we went to the Fashion Show Mall next door (walking distance) and I hopped in the Apple store to check out there iPod Touch!!!

Hmmmm, now I knew I didn’t know much about it in the first place, but after checking it out……Apple can keep it. Is it junk? No Way! It’s wicked nice and the “touch” part of it is so sleek and neat, but basically from the salesperson pitch on it, all it does is play music, play games, and you can surf the internet and send email only if you are in an internet “hotspot”. Wait for a hotspot? My life can’t wait. So maybe for additional features you have to pay for it?? I asked, “Hmmm, is there a data plan I can pay for to use the internet and send email on the whim??” He says, “No, you have to buy a iPhone with a cell phone minute plan.” So I was curious and stepped it up with my question, “Hmmm, okay, so I want a plan that gives me unlimited everything, minutes, text, internet, everything.” He says, “Okay, it’s $99.99 a month, plus and additional $20 dollars a month for unlimited text messages.” I say, “$20 dollars a month JUST for unlimited text messaging??” He says, “Yep.”

Now, let me explain to you that I like text messaging and I do my share of sending out some each day, like, 40 to 60 text messages a day depending on if I have to actually say something important. I have my Blackberry with Nextel and I pay $99 dollars a month for everything included. For $99 dollars I can send out as many texts I want, yap as much as I want, and also send email and go to any website I want anytime I want. Oh, and I got Direct Connect on my Blackberry too! So, my days of the iPod Touch is history. I was planning on replacing my iPod Nano, but I’ll hang on to my iPod Nano for my music. I’ll now start searching for a neat E-book reader.

Okay, I’ll admit that Nextel doesn’t have the best coverage for service and congratulations Apple for turning quite a profit this last quarter. Apple sold 3.36 million Macintosh computers during this past quarter, representing a 33 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter. The Company sold 8.7 million iPhones in the quarter, representing 100 percent unit growth over the year-ago quarter. Apple sold 21 million iPods during the quarter, representing an eight percent unit decline from the year-ago quarter. (Source: HERE)

As for tonight, we visited Fremont Street. I like Fremont Street, just wander around outside visiting casinos. Fremont Street is a pedestrian street with no cars allowed. It’s not even a street set up for cars. It’s like a huge sidewalk that is laced with casinos on both sides. Over this street is a large roof made of lights and they performs shows on this canvas made of light bulbs. Let’s take a look…..

This is the Mermaid Casino on Fremont Street……

A light show up above on the roof canvas made of all light bulbs…..

So, that’s what it pretty much looks like……..next time I go there (if it’s during the day) I’ll get some daytime picture. It can be pretty crowded at night and it’s a Monday, imagine a Saturday night when the portable bars come outside to serve some delicious drinks!

Have a great night and I’ll be back tomorrow!

Hello! I don’t have much to say today. Today was a nice and relaxing day. We didn’t do too much today, just visited local casinos. OH, and this morning we walked to Denny’s for breakfast. There are alot of Denny’s on the Las Vegas Boulevard (like 7 of them). It was predictably crowded at Denny’s, but the wait of 10 minutes for a table wasn’t too bad.

The football games on TV this afternoon drew quite a crowd at the casinos. Cheering and chanting everywhere that there was a TV on! I kinda knew who won by the crowd’s reaction. I was having pizza and the crowd went wild and I said, “Ahhh, yep, Saints just won”. It wasn’t as strong a reaction as when Brett gave away the game. Now that was a crowd pleaser!

And we have the Superbowl coming up in two weeks so your homework for me is to tell me who to bet on. Yeah, to bet on! I AM in Las Vegas, got to make the most of my pennies! Come on leave me a comment and help me out, tell me who’s gonna win the Superbowl: The Saints who had a strong first half of the season and have never been to a Superbowl or the Colts who, in my opinion, have the ego to already decide that they have won.

Jake is doing great! He wasn’t eating the last few days and looked like he was “bummed out” mopping around, but yesterday and today he ate alot and acting like his hyper self again. We went for two walks around the RV park today and he had a big supper tonight. Well, take it day by day for now.

It seems like we haven’t been to Walmart in months, but we went last weekend and we are going tomorrow. So that is on our list for tomorrow: Walmart and whatever else comes along. I’ll have my camera ready!

I wish I could write more, but “more” didn’t happen today. I hope you have a good night and I’ll be back tomorrow!

Hi! Had some internet issues last night and I’m not sure why, but it would connect and then disconnect within a minute. I hope I straightened it out. Weird! So anyways….I’m back to bug ya once again!

Last night we went to the Rio Casino which is 2 miles from where we are staying, but you can’t walk or take a bus (well, you can take a bus, but you would have to take the bus to the Flamingo and then catch the transfer bus) so, anyways, we took the Dodge.

It’s so cool at the Rio, a really hopping place, especially on Friday and Saturday night. They have the “party in the sky” show! I tried to get good pictures, alot of neon and lights can interfere with a camera shot, but I tired. Oh, I did win some money here, like 200 dollars.

Here’s some pictures of inside the Rio…..(I’m starting to be bold and taking pictures inside of some casinos – hope I don’t get kicked out) …….

People ride these themed “cars” that ride a track on the ceiling. They have loud music playing and people inside this “car” dropped bead necklaces down to us while we played the slot machines….

Today, we walked the northern part of the Las Vegas strip and visited the Stratosphere and Sahara casinos….they are basically one block from each other……

This pictures is of where I’m staying to wait for the bus. See the Stratosphere way on the right hand side of the picture in the background. Yep, that’s where we are going…..

We made it. Don’t walk. Never walk to a casino that is “right over there”. You made see it, it may seem close, but trust me, it’s miles away! We definitely use and abuse our bus pass!

Oh, this is the Sahara Casino that we went to also……

Ohhh, $1 dollar blackjack!!!

I snapped this picture of this on the ground on our way over to the Sahara Casino. Caught it last minute while walking……I see my foot got in the way

Okay, inside the Sahara Casino! I took a picture inside of a casino – big taboo! But, I had to show you the car I’m going to win!!! *someday*

Oh, wait, how about this one……

So, this is what we did today……

It was fun and I’m glad I got some pictures for ya! Not sure what we are doing tomorrow, but I’ll bring my camera with me! Have a good night!

Hi! Well, the rain is still here and hasn’t let up at all. Flooded areas all over the place. Flooded parking lots and water running in streams down the road. But everything is under control. I haven’t seen any accidents due to the weather which is good.

What did we do last night? We took the pick up truck and visited Palace Station Casino. You can see the Palace Station Casino from where we are staying, but it is across the highway, so you have to take a vehicle out of this parking lot on the main road, over the bridge which goes over the highway and then take a left like you are entering the highway, but instead of bearing left to merge on the highway, just stay on the access road and the casino is right there. The diesel didn’t even have time to warm up!

I like the Station Casinos! There’s are alot of them off the strip. You won’t find a Station Casino on the Las Vegas strip. There’s the Palace Station, Santa Fe Station, Sunset Station, Texas Station, Boulder Station, and many more. They are spread out all around the outside area of the Las Vegas strip. You can’t walk to any of them, you have to drive. So last night at the Palace Casino, I bought my live Keno tickets. OH, the best thing about the Palace Casino is that they have 10 cent Keno!!!!! So I bought 50 games for 5 bucks! To go through 50 games, it takes 5 hours and we didn’t stay there for 5 hours, so next week I’ll have to go back to find out if I won, or maybe I’ll call and find out. The top prize is $10,000. I could be a winner!

So we stuck around the Palace Casino for about 3 hours and I play the Quick Pics slot machines. I should sneak a picture of the Quick Pics slot machines for you because I must say that it is my favorite slot machine. So, anyways, I hit the bonus feature of the Quick Pic slot machine and I won 20 free spins! I love free spins!

So the reels took off by themselves and start spinning. The first seven or eight spins turned out about 5 dollars each and then by the 15th spin it started cranking out the cash and by the time the bonus feature was done, the slot machine payout display showed $559.00. Whoa! Not bad! Not enough to buy an exotic car, but I’m just warming up. I see a big jackpot in my future!

So that was my night. We came back to the RV and watched TV for the rest of the night. I know if it wasn’t raining out, we would of walked around at night and enjoyed the Las Vegas neon lights, but the weather discouraged that idea.

But that’s what you do in Las Vegas, you stay up late and sleep all morning because, basically, nothing really happens in the morning, unless you live in THIS RV. This morning around 8:30am someone knocked on our camper door and Jake woke up and took off like a missile off my bed and started barking at the door. What a super dog!! To tell us someone is at the door. Good dog! It’s some guy that tells us that he owns a Montana “over there” and his TV isn’t working and he was wondering how to get his TV to work. NO, we did not open the door, Dad spoke to him through the screen next to the door telling him to buy a “box” and try scanning the channels again. I guess the guy was okay with that answer because he said “ok, thank you” and walked across the parking lot. Strange huh? Maybe he was an honest guy, maybe he wasn’t, but don’t be knocking on doors at 8 in the morning in Las Vegas, I guarantee you no one is up. Weird situation huh? What do you think about that one?

Anyways, we were awoken at 8:30am, so we stayed up, and this morning it was still raining and we headed down to the Caesars Palace Casino down on the Las Vegas strip with the help of our bus pass. I got half way there and realized, dummy me, I forget my camera. Grrrrr…. So I managed to get a few snap shots with my Blackberry. YEAH, exactly – forgot the camera, but can’t walk or breath without the Blackberry!

Sorry

So, I know it’s not the best picture quality but it’s something……

We walked through Margaritaville to the Flamingo Casino (love Margaritaville) and just did some casino hopping…….

This is a picture of a statue inside Caesar’s Palace…..ugh, poor pic quality. I’m sure we will go back there and I’ll bring my camera next time….promise!

Inside Caesar’s Palace. It’s huge inside……there’s many shops and a huge casino inside. I didn’t win any money in this place today…….

We ate at Planet Hollywood inside Caesar’s Palace……

Hello Rocky!

And the Terminator has it’s own drink! In case you can’t read this, it’s a strange concoction, it says: A cyborg’s mixture of Rain vodka, Don Q Cristal, gin, triple sec, Kahlua, and sweet & sour splashed with cranberry juice then topped off withHmmmmm….thanks, but I’ll pass……. draught beer. This one will leave you saying “I’ll be back!”. I’m not too sure about this drink. I’m sure it’s good, but all that alcohol, juice, and beer mixed together.

So, that’s what we did today! Super fun day despite the weather. This afternoon (it’s 4pm now) we are relaxing in the RV. Jake is doing good, just fed him and I can see that he’s sleeping right now. The weather channel is on TV with predictable news about the wet weather.

I wanted to mention to you that when I started this blog, my purpose behind this blog is to tell you an entertaining story, well, half way entertaining story for you to follow me around this great big country, but the opposite has happened. Recent comments that have come in to this blog has entertained me. When someone leaves a comment to my blog, it pings my email account on my Blackberry instantly and I read it and approve it or deny it. A few times recently, I’d be plopping my money into a slot machine and dying laughing at your comments. You guys crack me up! And I just wanted to mention that to you!

A comment came in yesterday wanting to know about my current situation about my bicycle accident injuries, how it was healing up and all. After 10 days, my face has healed up nicely, you can’t see any marks at all. My left knee still has a bruise about the size of a half dollar coin still healing. Yeah, a bruise still healing after 10 days, wow. The black and blue has turned to a dark red. And both the palms on my hands have a long way to go to heal completely. There are still several skin layers missing that still needs to naturally repair themselves. But! But, nothing hurts anymore, so I’m a happy girl! Thanks for asking!

I’m not sure what we are doing tonight but I’m sure we are going to venture out somewhere. I’ll bring my camera, because when we leave the RV, there’s no telling where we might end up and what we might see! Have a great night and I’ll be back tomorrow!