Posts
3/23/16
Well, we want to try a buffet tonight in Vegas, so we don’t
want to eat too much. Plus, we know we have to get back to our hotel in time for
our Blue Man Group show. We elect the hotel café for a quick breakfast. But oooh, they have hash! And they have sourdough toast. We cannot pass
these up. This is probably going to be a fulfilling day for food.
We decide to walk the Strip, our side, the one Luxor is on, so
we can stay in the sun. It’s rather cold out and very windy. It’s nice not
being in a hurry as we explore the huge hotels and the shops in them. Doug is
good with checking out all the art gallery stores with me. The salespeople
pounce on you when you enter and they follow you like you’re going to steal
something. If only they knew that I don’t buy art for value or as an
investment, I buy art when I like it---and that’s very few of the galleries I
find. One that I really liked and so did Doug was a photographer named Rodney
Lough Jr.; he’s got photos in the Smithsonian so you know we’re not the only
ones who like him. The salesman actually talked to us like people rather than
potential art thieves too. You should check out his website if you get a
chance, his books and photographs were just stunning. I’d love some of them in my house. The prices
range from reasonable to never-gonna-happen.
Maybe one day I’ll get one. We
checked out Aria and The Cosmopolitan hotels, both new since either of us have
been there, then we walked into the Bellagio because I’ve never seen the
garden. The garden is filled with Japanese tourists using big tablets as
cameras. By this time, we’re looking for restrooms, so why not hit the Bellagio
restrooms. They’re nice. They have heavy
wooden doors on the stalls and real marble floors. This design makes for nice acoustics
for the guy in the stall next to Doug’s who’s singing “Easy Lover.”
Further down the strip, the street performers appear. There’s
a guy in Chuckie costume. The costume
has a fan in the head. There’s fat Elvis on a scooter. There’s multiple Elvises (Elvi?) swapping
money and one of them looks at the other and says in a heavy New York accent “I
have a fucking headache today, Dude.” Darth Vader is short even with his huge
platform shoes and his huge oversized head….seriously, the shoes add about 6
inches to him and he’s still shorter than Doug and I.
Finally, we reach the Fashion Show Mall. All this time we’ve been dating and we’ve
never been in a mall together (the Sandusky Mall apparently doesn’t count as a
mall). We roam through the stores and wander into the “As Seen on TV”
store. While Doug looks, the clerk
starts to talk. She tells me about living in Las Vegas and how the clubs are
lame because she’s from New York and here in Las Vegas people just want to get
drunk. Her allergies are bad today and all her friends in the mall tell her she
sounds like Rosie Perez. When GaGa and Pitbull were in town at the same time,
it was madness in Vegas. Even the shitty hotels way off the Strip were charping
$500/night and the place was so full that police were trying to turn people
away from the city at the airport. As we leave, Doug looks at me and says “What
is it about you that people tell you everything?” It’s a gift. We hit the Nike Store so I can
buy a thin jacket because I’m cold.
After the weaving in and out of stores I am completely lost
as far as direction. Usually I’m very good at it, but I think I’ve come to rely
on Doug who is excellent at it. He has the sense of direction of a bloodhound.
He leads us out of the Fashion Show Mall at the back and down a street. And Wah
La…we are across the street from the Erotic Heritage Museum.
We cross the road and walk through the completely empty
parking lot. There’s an open sign in the door though and we walk in. A tall
girl with tats, dyed black hair, and horn-rimmed glasses greets us. I make sure
Doug gets his military discount…haha! This discount thing is great. We explore dildoes and peep shoes and the dark
circular room where about 8 screens are showing 8 different pornos at once.
There’s Bill Clinton and Monica and the Star Wars porn parody. There’s art and
historic erotic equipment that looks quite frightening. Doug is checking out the peep show rooms and
gives out a cry of surprise…he thought the dummy in one of the booths was a
real person who was in there pleasuring himself. We giggle and laugh. Too bad we won’t be around for the show “Puppetry
of the Penis”….actually I don’t think Doug was upset about missing that show.
Back across the street to the mall again. By this time, my feet are starting to hurt
and I have a blister developing. We left the hotel at about 9 am…it’s now 2 pm,
we haven’t stopped walking. And I’m kinda hungry. I only had toast
afterall. We see Grimaldi’s pizza inside
the mall. It was suggested. So we stop. We decide to get two personal pizzas
and share. Doug gets a white pizza with
artichoke hearts, garlic, and ham. I get
a regular red pizza with pepperoni, black olives, and garlic. The pizzas are
huge…too big for us to eat. They’re coal fired brick oven and they’re awesome,
but there’s so much left over. We decide to take some back to the room. We’re too full for a buffet now.
We walk back the same side, on the outside of the hotels
this time. Doug gets stopped by a guy on the street who says “You guys smoke
weed? I got some really good bud.” I’m
jealous, no one has ever offered me weed on the street. We take the shuttle
from Excalibur to Mandalay Bay to Luxor.
A guy with two girls gets on. The
blonde girl is wearing 5 inch heels. The guy is telling her to sit down. He
looks at us and says “Tell her to sit down.” I’m like “I’m not telling anyone
to do anything.” Then I look at the girl and make a fist. “Girl power.” The
blonde grins and nods in agreement. “Yeah,”
she says, “We have the strongest ankles of all the sexes.” Me: “Yes, all five
of them.” We all laugh…good times. On the walk from the shuttle to our room, a
fat 10-year-old points at Doug’s Star Wars shirt and says “cool shirt, Dude.”
We drop off the pizza, relax a little, and then head to Blue
Man Group. As we’re going down in the elevator, a man in there with us tells us
(well me) that his wife is claustrophobic and he’s going to the airport to pick
her up right now. She’s not going to ride the elevator without him, he says.
The elevators are too small. As we get off the elevator, Doug just looks at me
and shakes his head. We stop at the sundry store and buy chapstick. The dry
weather is bugging me. The clerk tells me about how awesome the show it and how
we’ll enjoy it. She tells us that we can’t get discounts unless we gamble a
lot, but it’s good that we don’t. Doug just
shakes his head at me.
We get in line and watch people try to cut in line. We have
good seats. I bought them months ago for Doug’s birthday. When we get in there,
we find out just how good they are…we have a real danger of being picked to go
on stage. We can practically reach out and touch the stage. We don’t get picked,
thank goodness. Neither of us really want that. The show is awesome. As it
ends, we all stand up. Some woman from
the middle of the show, pushes past all of us, shoving us back as she gets out
first; she leaves her husband behind as she tramples toes and knocks over old
ladies.
After the show, we decide that we could eat a bite. We buy some souvenirs, then we head to the all night deli. There a man tells Doug that his shirt is awesome and starts to talk
about the movie. The people in front of us can’t decide what they want and it
takes them 15 minutes to order. Doug orders a four foot high pastrami and
corned beef sandwich. I get onion rings and a hot dog. A guy is taste testing
all the pop at the place where you fill your own cups. We get our food and head
back up to the room. We want to sit in the big tub and much on dinner. Doug leaves the room to get pop at the pop
machine. When he returns, he knocks on the wrong door. The woman inside doesn’t open the door for
him.
We finish the day with dinner in the big soaking tub. It’s been a
good second day.
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