Thanksgiving day

Happy Thanksgiving to our American friends!! This morning we woke up and refused breakfast! Lol Shiela said we were wrecking her "B&B" status. We didn't want anything to spoil our Thanksgiving dinner, so we were going to wait to eat.

Barry had to check his lemon tree first thing, their was frost warning last night, yep I said frost. Dang cold weather, this is Vegas!

another thing on our list of "must do's" was the Las Vegas sign, It's almost impossible to miss, but we did last time??? Are you asking yourself, "what the heck DID they do last time"? lots of stuff, we just happened to miss huge landmarks!

there was a mob at the sign and you had to wait to take your picture, but their were some official sign people there to help you out, it almost looks like we're the only ones there in our photo! and that's without photoshop.

when we were in Rachel we bought a book about area 51. In the book it said that there were 8 airplanes designated to flying employees to and from the "area" they were white, with red stripes.... so? are these the area 51 planes?? there is a big warning sign on the fence?

After we went to the Outlet mall, we heard some stores were open today? We got a sneak peak on some sale stuff, and some things were on sale already at an even better deal than tomorrow! Me and Maddie found one store, EVERYthing was 50% off. I asked what the exclusions were.... NONE, I got a cute jacket for 15 bucks, and Dean got Levi jeans for 25.00 each. The one store that we actually went to the mall for... Hot Topic, wasn't open until 10PM. So we'll just have to go back :-)

Thanksgiving dinner! There are 10 of us.... you can't see Gram behind Brian. It was a feast fit for a king and the Macy's day parade on pause to watch in between football in the background. A wonderful day to be thankful for.

Checkin out...

Today we checked out of the Luxor... and checked into Chateau Bloomfield! On our way out of the lobby, the shoe shine girl was just finishing up a customer, so I hopped up and got my Fluevogs shined :-)

now they are all shiny again :-) yay Happy shoes!

still on our game chip mission I wanted to get a chip from the Tropicana. After we walked thru 2 years ago, we figured it was close to coming down... but when we walked in today! WOW they have done a complete overhaul on the hotel! It was pretty and bright! Last time it even smelt musty! But apparently they are undergoing a whole new face lift. They actually did implode one of their hotel wings 2 weeks ago! Darn we missed it by days! But good for them if they can bring some life back to an old hotel. ....If these walls could talk!

then onto lunch at Carnegie's. We loved this restaurant in New York when we were there, and this one is exactly the same... Massive sandwiches and so yummmmmy!

we headed to Barry and Sheila's for supper later, "checked in" to the chateau and then had to Head right back out. We almost forgot about taking Maddie to Freemont str. so that was our main mission, and then Dean "just for fun" checked if we could get tickets to KA. And we could so we went to the early show of that. We had seen this last time, but Maddie hadn't, and it is Dean's fave, but you can't get too much Cirque!

and then to the old city lights of downtown. In 1987 when I turned the corner onto this street it took my breath away. The lights were so kewl.. it still has a wow effect, but not the same as before the roof went on. For Maddie tho' this was the first time she had seen it.... so it did take her breath away! I LOVE this street... the locals warn you of this area.... but how can you can you not go to the old Neon!

beyond the canopy, is where the neon musuem is putting their refurbished signs, and lighting them up to join the old strip once again.

here is the original lamp from the Aladdin. I love this lamp. We hunted for it last time, only to find out we just didn't walk far enuff down the street!!!

and of course, last but not least the show on the canopy. We saw the Queen show, and afterwards there was a magic act on the stage. He was pretty awesome, did some kewl tricks! And that ends another busy night.... we headed "home" and hit the pillows!

BIG DAY in Vegas

This was my favorite day. This was the day we got to do a few new things, and a few things we were sad we missed last time. First up was going to the Titanic exhibition. They were in the process of moving this from the Tropicana to the Luxor when we were here last, and we were so disappointed... what I didn't know about this particular exhibition that made it different from the one we went to in Florida was... these were REAL artifacts, FROM the Titanic!!! In Florida it's a great staged walk thru with only a deck chair from the great ship, which we thot was so kewl.... at the time.... I was blown away by this turn of events, in fact it caught me off guard. We walked in and the first sign told where on the Ship this piece came from.... I whispered " are they serious??" and then it happened.... a lump caught in my throat, and I was unable to finish my sentence... needless to say the rest of the walk thru was a little harder to read, thru glassy eyes....

this of course isn't real, but somehow my eyes welled up again..sheesh, if you look close my eyes are very glassy lol, silly girl!!


when we turned the corner into this chilled room I actually gasped, (until that also caught in my throat)... this IS the Titanic! It's called "the Big Piece" and when they show you on a picture of the ship where this BIG piece came from you see how truly MASSIVE the Titanic was. They got this piece up after 2 tries, the first try failed and it sunk back to the bottom, but here after 2 years of conditioning it to the air, and unsalting it, it sits for all to see! OMG, talk about a moving moment!

that dark bottle in the center is a Champagne bottle, the cork is badly eaten away... but it is still 3/4 full of champagne!

when you enter you get a ticket with a name on it, and at the end you check if you survived. Maddie and I did.... Dean didn't.... just like on the ship... Women and Children first....

then onto another "graveyard" but a happy one... no people were harmed in this grave! And it is much more colorful! We were denied this exhibit last time too, we didn't hear about it until too late and you have to book in advance, so all we got to do was climb on the wall like a cat... ok, I was the only one to climb, to see what I could over the fence.... so this year, I got to walk amongst all the glorious glass of yesteryear's! The Neon Museum just put up their new sign weeks ago.

my favorite "sign" the Silver Slipper.... In 87 when I was here, we saw a show at that Hotel, now it's just a leveled area awaiting new life. Glad the shoe survived!

and the coolest piece of history here, the Moulin Rouge. It was the only Hotel back in the 50's that was integrated. Sammy Davis jr. would play in Vegas at the Sands or various hotels, but after his show he was whisked out, he wasn't aloud to stay at the hotels he played at. So him and the rest of his Rat Pack would head over to the Moulin Rouge. The Hotel did great business, and had a huge following... but it only lasted 6 months.... something tells me the mob at the time wasn't happy about all the business leaving the strip. So the Hotel sat... for many many years, the hotel had 2 new owners, but the hotel never opened, it also suffered 3 fires... then this year, it had it's final day and burned to the ground. Ending the saga of Moulin Rouge. This sign was removed by the Neon Museum one week before this tragedy. Thankfully the sign will live on.

another cool "sign" the 2nd lamp from the Aladdin Hotel. The first lamp is lit on Freemont street.

Maddie, Dean, me, Shiela and Barry. 2 years later, we got our tour :-)

then over to more Vegas history. The Nevada test site museum. Funny how naive we are at times. Here the gvt. is testing bombs and what do the people of the town do? Why they have a picnic of course and watch the blast! Vegas was filled with bomb paraphernalia at the time, drinks, food, comics, even postcards had atomic names or pictures.

there was even a "Miss Atomic" complete with cloud burst bathing suit!! The museum was pretty interesting.

and another favorite... told you this was my favorite day, the CSI experience. There were 3 different cases you could choose to solve, so we all chose different ones. Maddie's was cool, a car crashed thru a house....

mine had a dead waitress outside a casino....

and Dean's had an uncovered skeleton in the desert....

all very kewl cases, we had to compare finger prints, DNA, test bullets... CSI-ey stuff, it was fun! Then afterwards to top it off, we got to pose in Grissom's office. In the show Grissom has the same camera as us, so we used it as a prop!

and the day isn't over yet. We went to the Coke store, and the M&M store. Pick a color any color of M&M's!

thru more casino's and shopping malls. This was the Aladdin at one time, now Planet Hollywood. When it was the Aladdin this shopping area was called.... yep you guessed it, the Desert passage. This ship still bears the name. Now it is Miracle Mile. This was a great shopping area!!

And that was our day :-)

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!