Day 3 the North end

Considering Vegas is a pretty small space, tourist wise, there's the strip, downtown, and the canyons.... so Maddie thot we had already done everything.... not so. This town knows how to pack it in, every hotel has something to see! So today we were heading to the other side, we barley even touched this end last time!

Starting the day with a HUGE breaky, the Luxor has awesome food, the buffet was huge!!! It made it so hard to choose!

haha it looks like Cirque practices in our Hotel parking garage! All the beams had footprints, and the walls, and handprints on the overhead beams. Me and Maddie added our footprints to the mix, not very high tho!

we went to an Antique mall... but it was closed :-( we were hoping to find some kind of hotel long gone paraphernalia.. we did pass this store called the Attic, they had some pretty interesting clothes, Maddie tried on a sequin bikini of the American flag, I said not too practical, unless you're on stage. I'm sure al lot of the clothes here were old stage wear.

we completely missed the stratoshpere last time we were here! So today we went up to the top. No, we didn't do any rides... they looked a tad scary!! lol

like this thing just dangling off the roof!!

we did end up finding an antique store, Maddie saw this funky toaster, she didn't buy it, but we did find Hotel cards from the Dunes! Yay!!

back to the strip, we went into the shops at the Venetian, and continued on our way...

while killing time for the Siren's show at TI we went thru Madam Tussad's wax museum, we are suckers for these museums.... some of the people I swear were going to move any minute, they looked so REAL!!

Maddie put on the gown to Marry Clooney...

and I met Elvis :-)

over to the TI to see Siren's.... but it was cancelled... I thot I heard because of the weather... cause it was freakin cold here!! But later when we passed by again the second show was just finishing :-( we were denied! :-( so we'll add that to the list for next time.

Fashion Mall, Maddie's fave store Hot Topic, she bought one of these hats, and got compliments on it every day, every where we went!

The Mirage lobby, all these Hotels are so different and so pretty! We weren't out quite as late tonight... we got into the buffet just before it closed at 10pm

2 pix that made me think of...

While on our travels we passed by two stores that I had to take pictures of......


this one is for Carolyn.... for the Friends episode

and this one is for Nishiki :-) the Crave Cupcake baker

Close up of "THE SIGN"

this was at the end of our trail... where the GPS fell off the map.... see the truck on the hill? and this is what the close up reads.... hence our quick retreat :-)

Warning sign near secret Area 51 base in Nevada. The text on the smaller sign reads:
WARNING
Restricted Area
It is unlawful to enter this area without
permission of the Installation Commander.
Sec. 21, Internal Security Act of 1950; 50 U.S.C.797
While on this Installation all personnel and
the property under their control are subject
to search.
Use of deadly force authorized.
Prescribed by AFI 31-101
Supersedes AFVA 207-1, 10 October 1986
Distribution: F
AFVA 31-101
14 July 1995
U.S.Government Printing Office

Area 51

and you aren't surprised at all are you? Of course we would head out to the most secretive piece of land!

and you know you're out far when cows rule the road!

we went to the town of Rachel, the town " in the know" they back right onto the restricted zone. We stopped in to the Little A'Le'Inn and met the locals :-)

they were happy to take our picture with their friends....

Maddie couldn't cross the red line.... that was the bar area!

self parking.... haha I love this town!

the famous mailbox.... more UFO sightings have been seen at this spot, plus this is the secret marker to know where to turn, locally known as Mailbox road.

when we got to the border of the restricted zone the road on the GPS just ended! They don't even want your GPS to know what's beyond that gate. As soon as we pulled up we could see the guards just watching us on the hill..... we were told that in here where the speed limit is 35... make sure you DO NOT speed! So we saw what we came to see, turned around and headed back out the mystery zone!

the sky was as ominous as the day!! Here a giant Alien watches the roads ahead......

crazy sky!

back to the strip, in front of the Bellagio we saw some fun characters... no time to waste tho' we had to get to T.I. before the start of Mystere...!

This was Maddie's first Cirque show..... she loved it! I can't explain what exactly Mystere is about... but it's amazing!

Vegas arrival

So we arrived in Vegas at night, found a Diet Coke, cause West jet doesn't serve Coke, got our Hotel room and then promptly hit the streets!

we stayed at the Luxor.

we walked thru the Excaliber, and over to New York New York. Here we saw a statue of Liberty made out of Jelly Beans! Maddie tried to eat it! Bad Maddie!!

over the walkway to the MGM,

and found some drinks. The energy drink is the closest Maddie can come to alcohol, lol We were making a list of Vegas Rules for Maddie and one of them was "watch your drink prices" we paid 9 bucks for a beer only to find ABC stores down the street sell beer for 2.75. But... they can't open it for you, so rule number 2 was "always carry a bottle opener"

we were telling Maddie all the Vegas history as we passed each Hotel, this of course has a shady background being started by Bugsy himself... so we went inside the casino, and I started my new collection... $1 chips from the casinos! I figured that would be a neat keepsake, and cheap! I did buy a 5$ chip from the Flamingo tho' because it had a picture of the Hotel in 1960.... Kewl one of the last standing casinos!

next on the journey was the Bellagio, they have an incredible display that changes every season. These pumpkins were massive, one was 1100 lbs!!!

the new City Center Hotel, the tram goes from the Monte Carlo to the Aria. I love these crooked buildings!

in the Lobby of City Center, I was waiting for this stuff to turn into the liquid terminator!

We headed back to the Hotel after this. Funny we were telling Maddie how there are no clocks or windows in the casino so you have no track of time... and when we got back to our Hotel it was 4AM!! We had NO idea it was that late!!!! I did try to upload pictures when we got to the room, and we did have Internet but I had Computer issues.... so.... no blogging til now! :-( I'll try and catch up!

The Ghost Carts Of the Mall

I have some clients in the mall. In one particular mall, whenever I enter it I always see a group of shopping carts just out in the middle of nowhere. If you stop and look at the carts as I did here, it looks as if their owners where whisked away by some strange force. Why were they shopping in formation? Were they waging a Shopping Cart Offensive on Shopper's Drug Mart and died trying?

The story of the carts are a little less dramatic than that. I had some computer equipment one day out in the parking lot. I thought how perfect it would be if I could use this shopping cart to carry my stuff. Well, Walmart DOES NOT want their shopping carts venturing into the mall. So, instead of posting a sign politely asking their customers not to bring their carts into the mall, they came up with quite an ingenious (and obviously very effective) way to stop the problem of wandering shopping carts.

Aaaaanyway, as I got the computer equipment to approximately where you see the carts here in the photo and one wheel locked solid. It became extremely hard to manoever. I looked and looked for the rock that was stuck in the wheel. I think some people sit around and watch this for sport. Someone came up to me and explained I had to go to Walmart and get the cart unlocked. When you get outside the "Walmart Perimeter", a wheel lock trips and then you eventually get a collection of Ghost Carts Of The Mall. I picture a Walmart security officer on a console somewhere, hitting the red "CART LOCK" button and then watching the monitor laughing at the puzzled reaction of the unsuspecting cart stealer. Before I became a Ghost Cart Victim, I never questioned why these collections of carts always seemed to be there. Now I am tempted to give tours every 15 minutes and explain to people The Legend of the Ghost Carts of the Mall.

I Had Permission To Blog This...

Laughter can often be heard around here. Funny stuff happens all the time. Sometimes unexpectedly. I was outside jump starting the Bug and moving it in the driveway. I was all done my task and I walked into the ScrapRoom and I saw a curious sight.

This is what I saw:

While I was outside, my wife had a disagreement with the table and table had won!

Please note: This is not a re-enactment. She is still pinned. When I came across her predicament, I asked if she was alright and in any pain. After ascertaining she was fine and amused I asked permission to blog this. She granted it. Before freeing my bride, I HAD to take pictures. Your life does indeed change when you have a blog.

What else could I do?

The official investigation report into the incident states: "Subject became incapacitated by a table after inserting the leaf in the table. Subject tried to secure the leaf by pushing the end of the table. The pendant on the subject's necklace became lodged in the opening created by the leaf insertion process. This incapacitated the subject and she could only rest on the table until subject's rescuer, who we shall call The Hero, photographed and then freed the subject. Conclusion: HILARIOUS."

Milanoo

BUYER BEWARE!!!!! The outcome of our Picka"hoo" costume is a bust, we are out the money
:-( It costs more to ship it back to China than it is worth, and we are stuck with a hideous costume! They were only going to pay back 80% of our cost anyway, but that's on their word, which at this point means nothing, so I'm sure even if we did ship it, they would find another bogus excuse not to pay... I so hope that this blog finds someone who is planning to buy from them and we save them the headache that we suffered form this AWFUL company. Once again this is the awful version of the costume we received and their VERY misleading website.


horrid stitching! scratchy fabric, not soft fleece!

zipper is supposed to be buttons, and it won't unzip, it catches already!

5 foot long tail??

ugly face

This is the picture that Milanoo posted. It is stolen from a reputable company, and Milanoo is CLEARLY NOT reputable at all!! Milanoo is a fraud!

... and now Halloween night

Halloween night.... since the garage was already set up as a lab, I just took down the curtains, and let the kids peek in at the lab on their way to the door, the little kids I let ring the doorbell, then answered thru the garage but the big kids I answered with the sound of the chainsaw :-) got a few screams moi hahaha


looking out from the garage window....

daylight really wrecks an image lol this is the macabre dinner gathering.....

the graveyard gets finishing touches

inside the coffin a soundtrack repeats... "Help me".... the second coffin has a really fat rat sitting in it, all the remains of a skeleton with just a foot left, the rat was too full to eat any more

the pumpkins move outside...

that's better lighting :-)

pass the rotten food please....

Sam waits and watches....

looking into the lab.....

the witch that I made now has a nice new BIG cauldren thanks to Dianne :-)

362 days til Halloween....

p.s. 170 kids this year!! Need to plan bigger next year!