Sunday, April 3, Vegas Day 2

6:30am rolls around, and despite the late bedtime, I sprang up from the bed wide-awake. I thought I was quietly getting ready to go downstairs so I wouldn't wake Janet up, but as I was putting on my shoes, she says hold on, I am coming down with you. Usually she likes to sleep, so I will get up and head down to the casino for awhile, but today, she was ready to go too!! So we headed downstairs to the casino for an hour (Yeah, Right ;)) and started the day off right with a coffee/Bailey's. We are on vacations, besides, it is 5 o'clock somewhere. We played around on the penny slots awhile, then I decided to try my hand at video poker. I found a dollar machine in a good spot, plunked in a 20, and decided to see if I could make back any of the money I had left in the casino last night. Well, max bet on a dollar machine is 5.00, but I don't have that kind of bankroll, so I was betting 1-2 per hand. After about 20 minutes, I hit 4-4's with a 2 kicker for 160.00. (if I had been betting max, it would have been 800.00) I chatted it up a bit with the slot host, hoping to score a breakfast comp, but he wasn't in a generous mood. I decided to cash out while I was ahead, and head off to get ready to go hiking. I found Janet and we headed to the room. Well, almost. We passed a bank of American Idol slots, which were full every time we went by them last night, and there were 2 empty seats, so we sat down to see what they were all about. It is a cool game, that had several bonus rounds that are randomly triggered, and everyone playing gets in on the bonus. We must have sat there for an hour or so, and I cashed out a little over 70.00 from a 20. buy in. Yay, I made back what I lost last night with this mornings gambling.



So finally we make it back to the room, get our hiking gear ready, change clothes, fill up on water and snacks and head out to a trail. We had our hearts set on a trail called the Las Vegas Overlook, which had a really big climb, but the reward was a view of the entire Las Vegas valley.



We found the trailhead pretty easy, and headed up the gravel road to the trail. I stopped a hiker that was coming towards the parking lot, showed him the hiking book with the trail description, and he says cool, I just finished that hike, you will love it. He gave us directions, made sure we had enough water, then we headed up the trail. Cool thing number one for the trip, we came around a bend in the trail, and we saw a wild burro. We have been out in this area several times, but had never seen one before. He was eating away, totally oblivious to the humans that were trespassing on his turf. We watched him for a little bit, took a few pics, then headed on.







Hiking in the desert is so much different than the mountains in North Georgia that we are accustomed to. This trail took us through a wash for about half a mile, and we had several instances where we were doing some serious bouldering. We were about a mile and a half into the trail when we came to a dead end. There was about a 20 foot rock climb that we would have to make, and I just wasn't interested in that. I have quite a bit of confidence in hiking, but rock climbing just terrifies me. A couple came along, so we convinced the guy to go up and tell us if he could find the trail, but he couldn't. At this point we figured either the hiker we met earlier was severely directionally challenged, or he just punked us. There was no way he and his dog could have made that climb. We did find a cave which would have been neat, except for the beer cans, charcoal lighter fluid, and graffiti. I guess the local kids hang out here to escape their parents or something.

So we head back to the car all confused, and feeling defeated. We found a different trail leading out to a totally different part of the mountains, and we followed it for a good mile or so. Nice easy, well graded trail. We neared the mountain we were looking for and decided that was the trail we should have been on all along. We decided that we had a good day despite the hike, and we were hungry, so we abandoned our hike today and headed back to the car. We will just have to make another Vegas trip so we can do this trail another time.

We were both really hungry, so we used our GPS to find us a Sweet Tomatoes restaurant. Normally on vacation, I don't like eating at chain restaurants, but we were both craving salad, and we knew we would make better food choices if we went there, so that is what we did. Let's just say I made the biggest salad I have ever seen, and almost finished it off!!! It was good. We headed back to the Rio, showered and got ready for a night out on the town.

The CMA awards were being held at the MGM Grand, so we decided to head down there for the night to see if we could see any celebrities. We caught the free shuttle over to the strip, and headed down to the MGM, stopping at a new casino, the Cosmopolitan, on the way. We signed up for a free slot card, and they gave us 10.00 free play to get us started. Let's just say that the 2 Free Pina Coladas I had there ended up costing me 80.00. In about 15 minutes. We loved the look of the place, but the slots were the tightest I had ever seen in Vegas. It was ridiculous. We left there and headed to New York, New York for awhile, Mandalay Bay for a bit, and then headed across the street to MGM. We played some machines, again not winning a thing, then headed down towards the arena so we could catch the show letting out. We stopped at the food court and had a piece of buffalo chicken pizza, which was great, but 2 pieces of pizza and a diet Pepsi cost us 21.00. The days of cheap Vegas food is way gone. While were were sitting there a man came by pushing Dick Clark in a wheel chair. He looked so frail. I just hate seeing icons such as him look like that. So sad. Very soon the crowds started passing by, so we moved closer to the arena to stalk the celebrities... we saw Trace Adkins go by quickly, but that was it. They must have moved the stars to the after party in a more private area, not accessible to stalkers like us...and the other hundred or so fellow stalkers. Deciding we were nearing exhaustion, we walked back up the strip, stopping at Planet Hollywood because they have always had this cute little gelato stand that I like, and I have been dreaming about gelato since we booked the trip. Well, the cute little stand is gone, replaced by some sweet shop that one of the Kardashian girls is opening. We ordered our ONE scoop apiece Gelato, pistachio for me and some type of mocha caramel for Janet and the bill was just over 11.00. I mean get real, this is crazy. No toppings, nothing, just a little cup of ice cream. It was good though, but I don't think it was worth that. We caught the shuttle back to the Rio and hung out at the casino for a couple of hours , then called it a night. A great day, but a losing day. I wonder what tomorrow will bring?

You have to have confidence in your ability, and then be tough enough to follow through- Rosalyn Carter.