Sunday, October 23, 2011

The Beast in Las Vegas and Beyond....

So we have had a hard time connecting out here in Zion National Park...trying to catch up from Las Vegas!  So now we have connection and are catching up on the last few days!

Coming out of Wickenburg, we arrive at the Oasis Las Vegas RV Resort for a four-day stay.  We're lucky, as we were able to get in here with only one month advance reservation.  It's about 5 miles from Caesar's, where the ACEC (national engineering association) meetings are being held.  We're pretty impressed with the sandy beach pool with spa, adult pool, restaurant with casino (5 slots!!), 18-hole putting course, boccie court and karaoke area!!  Whahoo!!


We're here for 4 nights and are excited to show our friends from the east coast (also attending the ACEC conference) our moho and how we live on the road.  Taking the strip into town is an adventure, as we find out after the breakfast sessions and are heading back to Caesar's and a short respite at the Beast. This makes us think it will be too hard to bring friends out, as it will be an hour and 20 minute round trip!!     We're heading back to attend Opening Reception, and this is what we see:


Note the red convertible and the over-the-top, typical-of-Las Vegas sensory overload!  Jeff is cool under pressure, though, driving like the Dalai Lama:


We had a great conference: visiting with friends and gambling a bit; talked a bit, laughed a lot!  Here are some of them with me during the closing reception:


It's a bit out of focus on Gerry Ann, probably because we couldn't get her to stop laughing!!

It's so interesting to go to Las Vegas, as most of you know.  There are a tremendous amount of concerts, shows and edgy entertainment, and of course, gambling.  I normally gravitate toward the blackjack tables, but since we had a minimum amount of time for gambling given friend-time, conference, etc.  I just gambled an hour or so/day, no blackjack, just slots.  I'm not very familiar with the new slots---do you know what I mean?  You go to the slot area, you look around, and you think "Am I just stupid or are these slots ridiculously complicated??  Don't people come here to relax?   I played the Alice in Wonderland slot the most, only because I thought the slot had a soothing voice and I felt comfortable with a fairy tale theme!!!

It was SOO nice to see so many folks we haven't seen in some time and catch up on grandchildren, travels, other friends and what's coming next! 

The last night we were there we attended the Closing Reception and really enjoyed ourselves, but it was bittersweet.  We won't see Jane and Bob and GA and Eric and Karen and Mac and everyone else for some time.  We hope to entice them to our neck of the woods!!!

After we got back to the moho, we thought it would be fun to catch the tailend of the karaoke night at the RV Park!!  We thought it would be a hoot and we would be there 10 minutes.  As we get there, a Jimmy Buffett song is being sung by someone who sounds EXACTLY like Buffett!  We sit down and are treated to another great song and performer and then the next table sees we are enjoying it and their harmonica player comes over and accompanies the singer just for us!!! OMG!  He was fabulous!

We were treated to another woman singing very well, and then back to the previous table next to us, where the harmonica player is now the karaoke singer and doing SUCH a good job!  We talk to them further and find they are from Canada (BC) and Issaquah, near us.  It was such an unexpected treat and really, really good music.  They would have won on America's Got Talent!!
We're constantly amazed at the talent that we come across in unlikely places:  for instance, on Lopez Island, where we have a small, home-made cabin, we review the grocery store bulletin board and find lessons available in steel guitar, harp, ballet, Russian, hot yoga and pastels!  This is on an island of 1800 permanent residents!

Here's the moho at the Park ready to head out:






We'll catch up with Zion for readers tomorrow, now that we have connections back in place. 

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