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Monday, November 18, 2013
I didn’t get much sleep last night. I kicked and twitched
until about 3am before I finally knocked out. We were up around 7:30am so I had
a short night. Clay went downstairs to get me a yogurt and a Coke or a coffee,
some caffeine. He came back with a yogurt, a paper and a bottle of cranberry
juice. It seems that all our hotels so far have been MGM or MLife affiliated and they
are Pepsi loyalists. So, no Cokes allowed. That meant in addition to only 4.5
hours sleep I was now caffeine deprived.
We checked out and dropped the keys
and left for our drive to the desert. It was an interesting drive. The Corn Creek area is seriously under construction including the 4 mile gravel road to
where the new Visitor’s Center is being built and including the trails. There
were construction workers and heavy equipment and trucks everywhere. Two of the
trails were closed or inaccessible. So, we only got to walk 3 of them. We saw
birds, snails and Pahrump poolfish. I guess the construction noise was too much for any
other wildlife. Oh, well it was a nice day. Sunny with a cool breeze.
Clay had
a lunch place picked out for the drive back. It was TC’s Rib Crib in a strip
shopping center on the way back. It was good. Clay had beef ribs and I had a
$4.99 lunch special. It was a chopped brisket sammie with a side of mac and
cheese. It was good. It was kind of like a sloppy joe on a toasted potato bun,
with a sweet/spicy hot sauce. Clay said his ribs were good too. After the
waitress offered us $1 desserts of peach cobbler, banana pudding or glazed
doughnut bread pudding. Clay got peach cobbler and I went for glazed doughnut
bread pudding. She heated little servings in tiny Styrofoam cups. I was surprised
to find apples, peaches and raisins in mine, though the primary flavor was
Krispy Kreme doughnuts. It was good. She thought my serving looked skimpy so
she brought over another cup with peach cobbler and Clay ate it. We left full
and happy. It was good tasting food at reasonable prices. We made our way on to
The Venetian our home for the next 2 nights. I fell asleep in the car. I
couldn’t stay awake. I was just crashing.
We got to The Venetian and it is a huge property and we had to keep
asking for directions. Even with a map and directions we are still getting lost
here. We are in room 14130, a king resort view room. That means we overlook the
pool. At least the Venetian’s pool is open unlike the pools at Mandalay Bay.
What is up with the building across from us? The top of the building is just a picture printed on fabric! This room is our most expensive I think, at about $250 per night. It is also our
biggest and most impressive. It has a big poorly lit bathroom just off the hall
from the entry door. It has a tub, TV, shower, toilet room, 2 sinks and a
make-up vanity with lighted magnifying mirror. Even the lighting on the mirror
is poor though and the unlighted magnifying mirror at Mandalay Bay was better. The toilet is the only one of the trip that wasn't jet powered. I guess that must be an MGM chain thing, since The Venetian is the only non-M hotel of our trip. Also, they must have had some kind of fluorescent bulb in the little toilet room, because it took a long time to light up and it was really dark in there! Next is the
bedroom and past that and down 2 steps is the living room. There is a 2-leg
sectional sofa, coffee table, TV in a cabinet, a table and 3 chairs and a desk
with a printer. The drapes and sheers are operated with a remote control. There
is the same minibar and snacks with the same warning that if you touch or move
them, you’re buying them so don’t try to use the fridge. This is the most
comfortable bed of the trip!
I was so fried that I washed my face, put on my pajamas, put
in eye drops and went to bed. I tried to sleep for a couple of hours before we
needed to have an early dinner here at the Venetian. I must have been having
one of those painless migraines because I was seeing flashing pictures with my
eyes closed. I have only had that a couple of times before with bad headaches
and I was told it was a migraine symptom with or without pain. I guess the good
news was that it was painless. The bad news was that I still didn’t get any
rest. I got up after about an hour and half and called it quits. I got dressed for
the evening and we headed out.
We had an early dinner at Trattoria Reggiano. I
had chicken francese and Clay had an Italian sausage pizza. It was all good.
They served very greasy and strong garlic rolls up front. That was a mistake.
Clay burped in my face later and I almost vomited. It was repulsive. I was too
full for dessert, but I was really craving coffee by now. We decided to go on
and drive to Aria where we have tickets for Cirque du Soleil’s Zarkana and get
coffee and dessert somewhere there where we could sit and kill time.
We parked at Aria’s self-park and scouted out the theater
and found the sugar and chocolate sculpture for Zarkana at Jean Philippe Patisserie. It was impressive. Clay got gelato there and I had another Mocha
Latte. It was all as good as the first ones we had at the Bellagio. I wanted to
go check out Zarkana’s gift shop as well as the fountains out front. So, we
went and sat on a bench in front of the water wall and watched the small
fountains shows. Then we moved over to a pair of dove chairs! Very comfortable
and finally we went back inside and used the restrooms and went to the gift
shop. They had just marked down a bunch of shirts and Clay got a t-shirt for
$4.99! We went back outside and sat for a while longer. Then back to the
bathrooms and right into the theater. It was a big, beautiful red steeply raked
theater with a traditional stage. They started right on time after characters
spent some time out in the audience. It was brilliant. We loved it. We had
front row seats just to the right of the stage and they were perfect. They did
not have speakers in the seats so the sound was never overwhelming. It was in
Italian and it was amusing and spectacular. We really enjoyed it. It is amazing
that they can come up with all these very different shows and do it so well.
Except Criss Angel’s Believe. I still don’t know why Cirque partnered with him.
Our tickets tonight were $88 total per person.
We got back to the Venetian before 9pm and Clay wanted to go
to the Walgreen’s that is supposed to be attached to the complex to get a big
bottle of Diet Coke for his last 2 nights. We wandered for about an hour with a
map before finding it. The casino here on Monday night is the most crowded
place we have been the whole trip. It was crazy. We got outside on the Strip
side and it was still crowded. The Venetian had 3 Celtic Women out there on a stage on the
bridge before the white Christmas tree playing Christmas carols on violins.
There were masked Venetian characters milling through the crowd for photos and
entertainment. The gondolas were giving rides and there was an ice skating rink
set up. It was like a warm winter wonderland out there! We got distracted but
eventually walked into the busiest Walgreen’s in America! Clay finally got his
Diet Coke though. We wandered around the indoor canal of recreated Venice
scouting gelato and restaurants for tomorrow. We have a coupon book they gave
us on arrival about Winter in Venice that has a 2 for one gondola ride. We have
to choose inside or outside. I was thinking outside but it is a ridiculously
short little loop. The indoor one looks like a longer ride and at least one of
the inside gondoliers was singing! I think Clay also picked a restaurant for
our last early pre-show dinner tomorrow night, but I don’t remember the name
now. More tomorrow. Good night, fingers crossed for a restful night's sleep.
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