Our Vegas Trip!!!
Thursday, March 10th. 8:00am
We (Brandon, Becky, Travis and Tammy) left for our Vegas trip around 10:00am on Wednesday March 9th. We drove from Grand Forks to Minneapolis and flew out from there. Tammy was pretty excited about the trip, so we had to stop in Brandon, Minnesota to have a quick drink before we got to the cities. We stopped in Monticello where a friend of mine (Gary Hangsleben) gave us a ride to the airport. It is nice not having to worry about our vehicle parked there all week. Thanks Gary. Our flight left Minneapolis at around 7:00 Central time and we arrived at the Las Vegas airport around 8:00pm their time. We got our bags and rental car and were on the road by 9:00. We found a little breakfast at Dennys before heading to Tammy's Aunt and Uncle's place. Carl and Judy live just a few miles North of the Las Vegas strip and are very gracious hosts. They have given us some invaluable tips (and warnings) for our time out in the casinos. They seemed to be a little reluctant on giving us advice on where the hot slots are though, I think they are keeping them for themselves. The following pictures were taken from their back yard.
After we all get ready and showered up, we are going to be heading for the strip to see what we can find. We will most likely spend most of our day there, and come back to Carl and Judy's tonight. That is all for now, I think it is time for me to hit the shower.
Thursday, March 10th, 9:00pm
We left to the Las Vegas strip about 9:00 this morning, and WOW is it impressive. We all had a good laugh each time Becky saw something new and exclaimed "Oh, for cool!" It really is impressive to see all of the architecture. We parked at Caesar's Palace, and only covered half of the strip. The weather so far has been excellent, Low 80's, sunny and calm, and the forecast looks to be more of the same. Hooray for us. I heard reports of 2 to 4 inches of snow for GF, and it made me miss home and the snow, so I had to improvise a bit with some Grass Angels (click the link for the video). We left the strip about 6:00pm and went out to eat at an Outback steakhouse, then just went back to Carl and Judys. We are currently sitting around shooting the bull, and thinking of our day at the race track tomorrow. We will be heading over to the track at 10:00am for practice and qualifying, so I am sure that there will be more later... See you then...Brandon
Friday, March 11th
We made it to the track around 10 this morning and watched some cars go in circles. It might sound boring, but being there and experiencing everything is...let me steal a line from Becky..."Oh for cool!" There were just a couple of practices today and qualifying for the Cup series. As usual, Ryan Newman got the pole for the race. The temps were the typical low 80's, and we all walked out of there with a little extra redness. We are back at Carl and Judy's now to wash off some sunscreen, then we are going to be heading downtown to check out a few things. That is all for now, so check back later for more...Brandon
Saturday, March 12th. 7:00am
Another beautiful morning here out West. I am starting to wonder why everyone doesn't live out here. Other than the traffic jams, expensive gas (2.28/gal) and fast pace it is a pretty nice place. We were downtown last night to some of the original casinos. That is where they have that 4 block long big screen over the street. Every little bit, they play some video on there.(Sorry, no pictures from downtown) It is pretty neat, because the casinos shut off their outside lights during the movie, and when the whole screen lights up, it is almost like daylight. Since they are remodeling my office, I though something like that would be pretty cool on my ceiling. I can only dream. Anyway, I am sure that everyone is wondering how the gambling is going, but don't worry, so far the way my luck is going I'll be back to work later this week. Actually, Becky and I have pumped quite a bit of money in the machines the past few days, and are only down about $50.00, but I am sure that we'll hit it big later in the week. We are getting ready to head back to the track for the Busch race today, and I think I'll use some spf 30 this time around. Did I mention that it is really warm and sunny? The forecast for today is 86 and sunny, and we will be cooking like fried eggs in the grandstands. That is all for now, so tune in later...Brandon
Sunday, March 13th, 6:30pm
We just got back from the race, and it was exciting. I had $5.00 down on a rookie driver that had 70:1 odds. I thought he would do pretty good, and would also be a good payoff. As my luck would have it, he finished 2nd, so I just missed out on a $350.00 payoff. I have to admin it made it interesting. The Speed Channel has a couple of live shows from the track, and we were in the crowd, so we should be celebrities by now...No autographs please. Judy had made a turkey dinner, and we all agreed that a home cooked meal hit the spot. We are all a little wiped out, and just relaxing. Becky is upstairs taking a little cat nap, so I am sure she will be ready for another night on the town. I think we are going to head up to the Venetian tonight and see where the night takes us. Our vacation sure seems to be going pretty fast, which is too bad, because we are having alot of fun. It won't be too long before we are back in cold ND, so we'll make the best of it. More tomorrow.
Tuesday, March 15th. 1:00am
Sorry for no updates yesterday, but we had a pretty full day. On Monday, we drove out to Hoover dam. They were doing some construction, and the traffic was pretty heavy. Normally it would be about a 30 minute drive, but it took us almost 2 hours. On the way, we were stopped in traffic and the guys from American Choppers drove by, we recognized Mikey and Paul Sr. Unfortunately, we didn't have our camera close at hand. Once we got to Hoover dam, the jokes started flowing..."There sure are a lot of dam tourists here"...This dam sidewalk is pretty long...Anyway you get the drift of all the dam jokes (Hey, there's another one). We went into the little gift shop they had there and I ordered two dam cones and some dam water. When we got out, there was a tour guide talking about the dam and Travis with the straightest face, asked him "Other than tourist, how many dam employees are there?" I couldn't take it and almost spit out my dam ice cream. Enough dam jokes. When we got back to town, we headed back to the strip. We started at New York, New York, and met up with an Australian couple in town for a concrete expo. I'm not sure how it happened, but we were best friends, and wandered about the town until 3:00am laughing and having a good time. We finally got brave enough to ride in a taxi, they drive so crazy, that they almost scare me.
Today, we slept in pretty late. There weren't any signs of life until about noon. We took a pretty scenic drive up to Mt. Charleston. The elevation got up to almost 8500 ft. There was still snow up that high. The view from that high is really amazing, hopefully the pictures turn out. I was amazed at how much harder the car had to work just to pull us around in the thin air. After we got home, we went to the World's Largest Gift Shop to find some souvenirs. They have so much worthless junk at those stores, but people just keep buying it up. We ate at the Nascar Cafe, and wandered around a bit. We all agreed that the casino's were pretty much the same thing, and we were getting a little bored with them. I am almost glad that we come home tomorrow. Anyway, that is about it for our trip and the updates to this page. We will be leaving at 6:00pm on Wednesday and arriving at Minneapolis at 11:15pm. We plan on staying there for the night and coming home on Thursday morning. When I get home, I will put all of our photos on this page, so check back later in the week to see them all.
Brandon.