When I was, 19 or 20 I went to Las Vegas with a couple of friends on our way to Zion National Park. From what I remember about the trip I was unimpressed with Las Vegas Nevada. Everything was really expensive and dirty, and there was porn everywhere. We went on a coaster and walked up and down the strip and that was it. Pretty dang exciting.

So when Nitsy invited us to stop for a few days and hang out on our way home to California, I was apprehensive at first. Yet, there is little inducement needed for me, or Karl for that matter to hang out with Betsy and Nick. We always have a great time and there are always lots of laughs to go around.

We arrived on Friday afternoon, checked into this condo that Betsy found for all of us, and settled in. We headed out for dinner. Vegas on a Thursday night was scary. We walked down to Circus Circus, and the streets were full of middle aged Mexican moms slapping cards trying to induce tourists to buy a night with a lady of the night…you can imagine, it wasn’t our scene. The buffet was good, but not great and certainly not worth the 6 mile round trip walk. There was one unsavory character after another. At one point this guy ran out of a store at us and tried to get us to buy a time share. It was the most pathetic sales pitch I had ever heard he said,

” You and I both know you ain’t going to buy a g-d timeshare. But you go to the meeting, listen to their b-s for and hour and then you and I both get paid.” (I defiantly edited that)

It was only the first night, and I already wanted to go home.

When Nitsy arrived after midnight, and we stayed up and talked until after 3am. Like I said, we just love them.

The next morning we slept in and got a late start. There was initially some talk about going to the Hoover Damn with Nick’s brother Boopy and his girlfriend The Professor (Jon and Rachel), but we got up too late and they left with out us. So we decided to go ahead and eat some brunch instead.

Every thing looked brighter in the morning.

We ended up at the:
Apparently it is a Vegas Hot spot of source, or at least a Denny’s alternative. It was better than that.
When I saw this sign I thought, “What else would you do here?” (think about it)

By this point it was after noon and we had taken forever to pick a place to eat so Nick and Betsy were understandably happy.
Breakfast was good. Nick was the only one who ordered breakfast, the rest of us got burgers. They were delicious.
I saw my first cocktail waitress and the place was great. Expensive but worth the experience.

Here’s Nick leaving his mark. We later found out from an employee that people hit the wall with their shoes for good luck in the casino.

We got inside and the place was really cool. Rococo with a Victorian twist. Greek too I guess…I don’t know, Mom you were a humanities major, what do you think?

As we walked out to the street, look whose Mormon faces greeted us on the side of the Flamingo:

Yikes.

Not all the ski lines were bad:

We waited on the porch of Cesar’s for almost an hour before Boopy showed up.

Cool people watching though.

This was one of the funnier things we saw.

Huge stretched hummer with a gang of little girls inside. The worst part was the limo had a stripper add on the back of it.

We finally sat down in the out door seating of Serendipity 3, which was closed.

Karl…

Boopy and The Professor, and their entourage finally arrived:

What a pair.

Talking about a pair of crazy kids:

We set off looking for anything fun.

Here’s Karl in front of the millionth spinning door we walked through. This one yelled at him for trying to help.

Street performer who only moved if you paid him money.

We made it to this place, where we metthese people, who we asked to take a picture with. They said, “Tips are appreciated, something we could split…” Basically, buz off if you’re not going to pay me.

We did so gladly, in not only to get to the only thing that I really wanted to do in Vegas:

The Coca Cola Factory.
Krysta had told me about this place. It was rumored that Fanta Exotic would be there. It was a much prized drink we had often had in Albania, and that is not made in the states.
Alas, they did not sell it there but they did have something that was pretty awesome too:
7 bucks got you 4 ounces of 16 different kinds of soda’s from around the world. It was really fun and I would recommend it to anyone who visits Vegas.

We got a list of what was what, and started going. We had read a review about one flavor on-line that we were really excited to try called…the Beverly:

Our last big stop was the M&M factory. By then we were wiped out.

We called it done on the strip and after much maneuvering around Mexican ladies offering prostitutes we made it back to the hotel. We hung out a bit, met up for dinner at this little Mexican place off the strip, the went swimming at the hotel later that night. Zach and Daniel showed up late and ended up staying over too.

Over all the second day in Las Vegas was much better than the first. It will be a cold day in…I mean I don’t imagine a time soon that I will need to go back, still, maybe some day. I found that my first judgment of Vegas wasn’t too off.