As you may have heard, the tsunami turned out to be rather small and caused no damage. In my 17 months here I have avoided a direct-hit from a hurricane and large-scale tsunami. I'd chalk it up to good luck, but realistically the Pacific Ocean is a big, big place, and my house is a small, small, percentage of that space. Also, if I had good luck I would have won some money in Las Vegas, which I didn't. I guess my lack of natural disasters experience is due to statistics than luck.
Finishing up the tale of our trip to Las Vegas, Mom, Megan and I spent Saturday walking around the other half of the strip. One thing about walking all day is that you become acutely aware of the surface that you're walking on. Walking on concrete for a few hours is tough work. When we'd cross something like the floor of a casino with it's cushioned, carpeted goodness or the wooden planks outside Treasure Island, the relief on our backs was readily discernible. Even walking across some of the granite floors (or whatever else the entries to casinos are floored with) was easier on my legs and back than the concrete. I don't know how people could stand to run on concrete for any length of time. Then again, I don't know how people run for any length of time.
That afternoon found us at Caesar's Palace where we had lunch at Mesa Grill. This was my idea. Mesa Grill is one of Bobby Flay's restaurants. Bobby Flay is one of Zac's favorite chefs from Food Network. I thought it would be neat to have lunch there and see if they had a t-shirt that I could get for Zac. The meal was very tasty, albeit with a very strange bread basket containing an assortment of breads ranging from blueberry coffee cake to mini jalapeno biscuits. I bought Zac a t-shirt and we headed back to our hotel ready to rest our feet for awhile.
The plan for the night was "Jersey Boys" at the Palazzo. We ended up getting tickets for the 9:30 showing but Mom, Megan and I weren't sure we'd be able to stay up that late. Luckily the show was terrific and there wasn't a moment to feel drowsy. (This also might have something to do with the fact that I we stopped for coffee about 30 minutes before the show. I have been strictly decaf for months now and I inadvertently ordered a regular. I could have run the strip by the time the caffeine kicked in. My mom and sister were lucky I was only swaying in my seat along with the songs, and not standing up belting out the songs with the cast.)
If you get the chance to see "Jersey Boys" you should. It's excellent. If you think you don't know who Frankie Valli or the Four Seasons are - you're wrong. You know their songs. You will bob your head along to the beat. And the story? Who doesn't love a rags to riches to taking on a million dollar debt narrative? Just go to the show. You'll enjoy yourself. Note that there is quite of bit of cursing. This may offend some people. Me? I'm married to a sailor. The only drawback that I could find from the show is that I had a medley of Four Seasons songs running through my head for days afterward. A small price to pay for an evening of entertainment. (Actually the price of the ticket was nowhere near "small price" now that I think about it. That's Vegas for you, I guess.)
We hopped a taxi back to the hotel and crashed. Well, I tried to sleep but I was equal parts exhausted and caffeine-driven so while my eyelids were heavy my mind was still racing a mile a minute. Finally I fell asleep. Sunday morning we got up and had breakfast one last time at the hotel. We checked out at 11am, but had a few hours til it was time to leave for the airport. We ended up giving the tables one last chance, but it was to no avail. Las Vegas felt we needed to donate more to its coffers. I think I ended up $250 down for the trip when it came to gambling. Not my best showing, by far. But I did put $20 down on the Twins to win the World Series. (The odds makers have us at 8-1.) So I still have a chance of making some of that money back but I won't know until November.
Finally we headed over to the airport, said our goodbyes and headed our separate ways. It was a great weekend. I miss spending time with my family, especially my immediate nuclear family. One thing I miss is when my Dad would go out of town on business my Mom, sister and I would always go out to supper at Perkins. So in some ways, Las Vegas was a long trip to Perkins. A really, really expensive trip Perkins. Laughter is the best medicine they say, and there was plenty of that on our trip so while I was tired from the weekend I felt happy and rejuvenated when I got home. Who knew that a weekend in Sin City would be good so for the soul?
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