Las Vegas Feb 15 - 16

Ray and I extended our stay in Vegas for another week as the AWD joint had play in it and it cracked the read fdrive shaft and it was vibrating. We noticed that when we drove the girls to the airport last Sunday, it sounded like the transmission was "growling".  Ray called the Ford dealer in Henderson first thing Monday morning and was not able to get an appoinment until 8 am Tuesday morning. We did not "move the car" anywhere on Monday as we were concerned we might get stranded. Once at the dealership it was a pretty sure thing that the noise was probably a serious problem.  Ray rented a car, a Kia Soul, on Tuesday morning and was back home by 9 am. It was with this car that we were able to go into Vegas and see the Bellagio and Venetian Hotel that day. Turned out that the transmission guy would not be able to get to our car until Wednesday morning ... then we got the news that was not good, the drive shaft is cracked and needs replacing. $3100 estimated cost. Yikes. Now that is an emergency repair! Of course our warranty expired just before we left for the States last fall. After ordering the parts, we will not get our car back until probably next Tuesday afternoon.

I guess we will make lemonade from lemons! With this extra week we can see other things at Ray's pace.

Wednesday, another sunny day.  Apparently it is supposed to shower on Friday and rain on Saturday. Ray and I decided to do a shopping run to Costco and Walmart after Ray took Freya to the dog park to chase her ball. Back home by 12:30. I made chinese barbecued pork with chow mein for dinner. This was Ray's rest day to prepare for our tour of more of the strip tomorrow.

Thursday, another sunny morning. After I did the dishes and Ray took Freya to the dog park, we were out the door at 9:15 am heading to the strip. We decided to have brunch at Ping Pang Pong at the Gold Coast Casino once again. They open at 10 am and since we had 1/2 an hour to wait, we decided to pre-drive the area of the strip that we were going to walk today. We found where we would park so back to the Gold Coast for brunch. Yummm.

We chose some different items than last time... all was delicious.

It did not take too long to fill our bellies with the amazing food and we were off to park near the Excalibur Hotel.

First up was New York, New York with the New York skyline, Statue of Liberty, Brooklyn Bridge and the huge roller coaster (Kats favourite ride!).  Inside they have the Hershey Chocolate Store with a Statue of Liberty made out of twizzlers and downstairs a Hershey Chocolate Statue of Liberty.

           See the Eiffel in the corner of the pic above?

Next we walked to the Excalilbur with the facade of the castle. A lot of the escalators to street level and up to catwalks between Casinos were not working so usually we went inside the hotel to take the escalator up or down to save us from stairs.

Above, the free tram that goes between Mandalay Bay, Luxor and the Excalibur Hotels.

Here is a picture of the lion at the MGM Grand Hotel, across the street from New York, New York.

We also noticed from their sign that Morimoto, the original Iron Chef from food network, opened a lounge and restaurant at the MGM Grand.

Next we hopped on the free tram to Mandalay Bay Casino to view the Shark Reef exhibit that is pretty cool. On the way to the Shark Reef Exhibit we noticed this restaurant with the wine cellar that we have seen on TV where girls go up and down on ropes to collect your wine order.

Even though we took the tram from the Excalibur to Mandalay Bay it was a lot of walking to get to the Shark Reef Exhibit which is at the other end of the resort from the tram station. We were pooped. There is parking close to the shark exhibit so in hindsight we should have just moved the car closer. Ray took a bunch of short video clips which I stitched together and added music. Hopefully it works!

Some other fish exhibits:

Jelly Fish

Pirahna

Lion Fish

After viewing the exhibit, Ray and I walked all the way back through the resort to the tram station and jumped back on to go to the Luxor Hotel for a photo op with the pyramid and sphinx and then walked the half block back to our car. It was over 4 hours before we got back home. Ray went straight to bed for an hour and I walked the dog. Later he got up and went into the hot tub here at Arizona Charlies. After today's adventure which we loved, Ray will need a recovery day tomorrow so we can explore again on Saturday.

Krisit mentioned the whole strip is quite a length.  At this pace it will take us four days to see what her and Kat did in one day.