I left at 2:45 to pick up Bob at 3:30 - plenty of time to get to the airport in time for our 5:30 flight. Uh huh. On the way to the airport Bob got a phone call saying the flight had been delayed until 6:40. Ugh. Well that presents a problem catching our 8:00 flight out to Vegas. So we ended up getting re routed through Philadelphia. It was 4:10 and the flight boards at 4:25. Nice. The connecting flight left Philadelphia at 8:30. Still gave us plenty of time to grab some dinner, right?
We boarded the plane. And sat on the Tarmac. And sat. And sat. There were strong storms going through Philly so we couldn't take off. We ended up coming back to the gate about 5:35. Around 6:15 we were given the okay to board and try it again. It was around 6:45 by the time we took off. We still have hope we'll make our connection at this point.
We landed in Philly about 7:25. Taxi to the gate. 40-50' from our gate we stop only to be informed that the "ramp" (Tarmac) has been shut down. Apparently there was lightening. If there is lightening within 5 miles of the airport, the ramp is shut down for 15 min for safety reasons. If there is another strike the 15 minutes starts over. Not looking good for our connection. The captain comes on at some point and says it's going to be at least 30 minutes before they reopen the ramp. Sigh. Really? It was 8:15 by the time we made it to the gate and could get off the plane.
Our current gate was at the "F" terminal. Our connection was at the "C" terminal. This required a shuttle ride. Running through the airport, knowing we had missed this flight, we finally got to our gate only to see long lines of passengers waiting to board. I asked someone in line what flight this was and was shocked when she said it was for Vegas. We made it!! Hope our bags did too!!
So we board, and we're in the back of the bus. No really. The very last row, which doesn't recline or anything. For a 5 hour flight. Oh well. Better to be in the last row than not on the plane. It's all that was left on the plane for us to sit together. So we make our way to the back and settle in. They closed the cabin doors somewhere around 9:10. And we sat and waited some more. It was 9:50 by the time we actually took off. Keep in mind that neither one of us had eaten since noon and we both had relatively light lunches. Needless to say, we were starving. Guess it's one way to get on west coast time.
We got a cheese tray and a couple of southwest salads - at 10:30. Oh and a couple of 1/2 bottles of Meiomi. So Bob is now jamming out to his jazz and in la la land. It's nearly 12:30am our time. I think we're sleeping late in the morning. This was the temp at 12:30am in Vegas. How crazy is that?
Wednesday
We did sleep late but with the 3 hours difference we ended up on west coast time pretty quickly. Mr. Lucky's was a restaurant in the hotel that got good reviews so we went there for breakfast. Bob got a quesadilla and I ordered an omelet. We could've split either one and been fine. But since we didn't, we stuffed our faces to the gills and waddled back to our room ... to put our bathing suits on - oh fun!
The only pool that was open before 11am was the Nirvana pool. It was made to look like a beach on one side. They brought sand in and had chairs set in the sand which extended into the pool. It really did look like a beach. So we picked out chairs and settled in for however long we could stand the 100+ plus degree sun. Needless to say it didn't take long for us to feel parched so we had to order a drink.
I wasn't feeling the beer so ordered a Mojito. It hit the spot. Shortly thereafter we waded in the water. Wow. It was like bath water. Seriously. No shock factor here. So we hung out in the water in the shade under an umbrella for a while and just soaked in the moment.
Eventually we moved to chairs in the shade and ordered a light lunch - a fruit plate and a protein power plate. Both were pretty good. The fruit plate had grapes, cantaloupe, honey dew, a couple of strawberries and pineapple with a honey yogurt dressing. The protein power plate had a boiled egg, grilled chicken strips, cheese, carrots and celery. Of course we ordered another round of drinks as well. And water? Yes, we're in the desert so water is at a prime. $4.75 for a liter of smart water. Dumb people paying that much money for water - shake my head. But since we couldn't take any outside food or drink into the pool area there wasn't any other choice.
By the time we were taking our last dip in the pool, the water was no longer like bath water. It was now like a hot tub. Seriously, it was hot. It was only 4.5' at the deepest part and most of the water was only 3.5' deep. Combine that with the sun baking down at triple digits, well it just stayed hot.
Around 3:00 we closed out our tab and were hit with my little 12 oz Mojitos being $15. I had two. The large 32 oz souvenir cup was $28. And those cups were in lots of people's hands. Crazy. Just crazy! A nap sounded good so we went back to the room and rented up from our busy day. We still weren't really hungry for dinner so we ended up a Mr. Lucky's again and split a flat bread pizza. Catching a cab to the Mirage for Jeff Dunham was a piece of cake and it didn't take long to get there. I was really excited about seeing him again. And was excited for Bob to see him. He's never really been a fan, but he's never really sat and watched him either. I knew he'd enjoy it more than he thought he would. I was right. Of course.
It was a great show!! Jeff started out with some background history which was thoroughly entertaining. Then Walter came out of the box. Ya gotta love Walter. And yes, Bob was laughing too. He's just so grumpy!! Walter, not Bob.
Bubba J was the next, then Peanut, Jose and Little Jeff. Achmed closed the show as only Achmed can. Jeff shot baby Peanut dolls out of his big gun and I GOT ONE!!!! How cool!! Bob walked away with a new respect for Jeff and really enjoyed the show. My face hurt. He truly is an artist. We'd both go back to see him anytime. Of course we had to visit the merchandise store. I picked up a really cool shirt with all the gang on it. Thanks, honey!
Back at Hard Rock we looked for some ice cream. You wouldn't believe how difficult it was to find ice cream at this place. Bob thought he had seen gelato somewhere. We couldn't find it. We asked a couple of people. All they could come up with was the little cafe had pints of Ben and Jerry's we could buy. Not what we had in mind. So we found ourselves at Mr. Lucky's once again! We ordered simple bowls of ice cream and it hit the spot. Afterward we played our free $5 worth of slots (voucher when we checked in). Won $5 and lost it again. We were done. Went back up to our room.
Thursday
More pool time today after breakfast at Mr. Lucky's again - we split an omelet and it was plenty. We chose chairs in the shade right off the bat this morning. It didn't take long before we were looking at the menu to see what else I could get besides the crazy, ridiculously priced Mojitos. Guess what we discovered? We could get draft beer for $5! Well hell! That's a no brainer. And they even had Shock Top which I like!
It went down so easy - no shock there! More floating and drinking, and a replay of lunch from yesterday. We were starting to get into the chill groove today. That really surprised me that we could hang out poolside that long in that kind of heat. But honestly, it really wasn't that bad! Even though the water was warm/hot, I guess being wet made a difference. And even though the temps were 100+, it was doable in the shade. Sounds crazy but there ya go.
A buffet dinner was included with our tickets for the Beatles Love Cirque du Soleil. So we had to get out of there a little earlier than last night. Plus we had to pick up the tickets at Will Call. Wouldn't you think they'd have a different line for Will Call other than the normal line for purchasing tickets? Nope. So that took a little while. The place was packed! It made us appreciate being at the Hard Rock, which is kind of on the outside of the strip and much quieter. Tickets in hand, we headed to the Cravings Buffet. Another line. Again, wouldn't you think they'd have a separate line for those who already had tickets? Again, nope they did not. Thank goodness we got there when we did. This was a great buffet. There was something for everyone. Beer and wine was included as well - like we really needed that after our lazy day at the pool, but hey! It was free, right?
Time for the show. Our seats were perfect. But really, any seat in the venue was perfect. The stage was in the center so there isn't a bad seat in the place. Bob had seen the show back in January and had been wanting to take me to it since he walked out. It. Was. Amazing. I've never seen anything like it before. I had expected acrobats. But this was far more than that. It was like a Broadway show telling the Beatles' life story with their music. There were so many things going on at once it was impossible to know what to watch! You could see this show five times and still miss action. The short 90 minutes flew by.
Then we got to stand in line to catch a taxi back to Hard Rock. That actually didn't take too long even though the line seemed like it would. What took so long was sitting in traffic trying to get out of the area. As soon as you get in the cab the meter starts at $3.45. It was over $12 before we even started to move. The traffic was horrible. And the people! Holy cow! I thought July was the middle of summer, dead time in Vegas. Not so much. The triple digit heat didn't stop the people! They were like ants at a picnic. No lie! It was fascinating, but Vegas is a people watching place anyway. And as one traveler pointed out, night is when the freaks come out. LOLOL Truth.
Back in our room it was lights out. I mean, we'd had a long, hard day, right? We had to regroup for our last long, hard day by the pool. But wait, before I go any further I have to talk about the framed photographs in our room. It's a series of four images all framed together but the only common denominator we can assume is that they're all musicians that have stayed at the hotel. Still, I just couldn't understand why anyone would take these images, much less think they were worthy of framing in a public place!! What? See for yourself.
Friday
Breakfast at Mr. Lucky's again. Bob had oatmeal and I got the yogurt parfait. Both were good and lasted us longer than we thought it would. Our chairs in the shade were empty so we planted. Keeping well hydrated (before we ordered our first adult beverage of the day) we killed a $5 bottle of water. I wasn't feeling the beer today so actually caved and ordered one of the 32 oz Mojitos. It was good, but I'm not sure it was that good. Anyway. When in Rome, right?
I will have to say I thought three days was plenty to chill by the pool. I told Bob yesterday that three days was perfect, that I couldn't do more than that. Half-way though the day I knew I had been wrong. We were so much more relaxed today. Surprisingly, the day flew by. Part of me was excited about that because we were going to see Kenny at the end of the day, but the other part of me was a bit sad because it was coming to a close. It reaffirmed what we've said in the past about vacations. It takes a good three days to get in the mode and start letting things go to truly relax.
But there was something we had to do before leaving. We had to go check out the other pools. In order to do that we had to get wristbands. Those pools don't open until 11:00 so that's why we hadn't gone there before. Getting wristbands ended up being a total PITA (pain in the ass). But we did it. And finally made it to the big party pool. Oh my. It was huge. And loud. And they weren't playing country. Or rock. Or pop. Or anything worth listening to. And the people. OMG. Definitely the party pool. It was like a flippin' frat party. Reminded us of Pittsburgh all over again. Needless to say, we didn't stay too long. It's just not our scene.
We found ourselves at Culinary Dropout for dinner. The hummus was recommended and it was really good. Since I make my own hummus, I'm pretty hard on finding it elsewhere. This was good. We both got salads that were also very good. Should we find ourselves back at the Hard Rock in the future, we'll definitely eat here again.
Finally, it was time to make our way to The Joint for Kenny!!! For a Kenny show, it's a small place. We were kind of in the back of the bus as Bob likes to say and we still had good seats (although Bob says we'll get sandbar next time - hehehe). I've journaled about Kenny so many times. He's always awesome and tonight was no exception. The boy was on point and seemed to be having a ball. He rolled! There was more jamming this show than we've seen in the past and Kenny was more into the fans tonight than we've seen in a while. I guess the smaller venue allowed more of that, although he has a sandbar wherever he goes. The surprise tonight was Uncle Kracker showing up! They did "When The Sun Goes Down" together and a couple of Kracker's songs. Of course it was over way too fast. We were hoping for a longer show but sadly 1 hour 40 minutes was it. I was hoping he'd have some shirts with Vegas on them but there weren't, so we left without buying anything.
It was time to pack our stuff up and crawl into bed. We had to catch the 7:10am shuttle to the airport.
Saturday
Crossing our fingers the trip home is much less eventful than the trip out. I'm grateful to say it was. There were no hiccups whatsoever. We were home around 8:30. It's so excited to go on vacation, but it also so nice to come home.
