Beer and clothing in Las Vegas: a brief photo diary

[The_nun]

We used to do the occasional walk to Ellis island,  as you say nowt fancy but truly enjoyable steaks.

[Simon Galloway]

The good news is someone gave you a decent tip, (apart from where to find it!) and that is still seen as one of the best value deals in town.  It used to be "off menu" and you had to ask for it, not sure if that's still the case, haven't been in a long time. A pretty good choice imo for your group.

Other good news is that if Ellis Island served you a sublime steak, you are going to have to think up some new superlatives if you get the opportunity to try a high end steakhouse on the strip.  It isn't cheap, and I can totally understand why people would rather spend the money exploring instead, nothing wrong with that.  But perhaps next time a kindly roulette dealer hands you $100 "for nothing" you could treat yourself.  Vic & Anthony's in the Nugget would be a pretty good choice, and not as spendy as strip alternatives.

As Su and Bella now know, a regular order is far too much.  For 2 of you, 1 appetizer, 1 main, 1 pud is plenty in most places.  Lots of ladies even have an appetizer to share to start with, and then another appetizer to themselves as their main course.  Wait staff are completely used to it. The first time I sat in a LV restaurant, the table next to me ordered like that (I wasn't being nosey, they were wedged in right next to me) and I thought "why bother eating if you aren't even hungry?"  Halfway through failing on my own main course, I realised they'd ordered perfectly and I'd got it wrong.

Always nice to hear TR's from others, especially those that haven't been too many times before.  Sounds to me like you did Vegas pretty well anyway, glad you had fun.

[Kev B]

Loving following your trip diary Redsgirl. Are you planning any shows? I saw this one last time I was there, I think it will be right up the girls street.

http://www.humannaturelive.com/las-vegas/

[Redsgirl]

Been too busy today to reply to anything, I'll try and post a bit more tomorrow x

[The_nun]

Pffff....

[Karabiner]

Shoe pic as promised.
Where else in the world are you going to see someone wearing these bad boys like it ain't even a thang?

Purchased from Jones(bootmakers Ltd) I assume.

[Tal]

Those are from the Jeremy Scott line. You have to be fairly balla to carry those off.

[Redsgirl]

The good news is someone gave you a decent tip, (apart from where to find it!) and that is still seen as one of the best value deals in town.  It used to be "off menu" and you had to ask for it, not sure if that's still the case, haven't been in a long time. A pretty good choice imo for your group.

Other good news is that if Ellis Island served you a sublime steak, you are going to have to think up some new superlatives if you get the opportunity to try a high end steakhouse on the strip.  It isn't cheap, and I can totally understand why people would rather spend the money exploring instead, nothing wrong with that.  But perhaps next time a kindly roulette dealer hands you $100 "for nothing" you could treat yourself.  Vic & Anthony's in the Nugget would be a pretty good choice, and not as spendy as strip alternatives.

As Su and Bella now know, a regular order is far too much.  For 2 of you, 1 appetizer, 1 main, 1 pud is plenty in most places.  Lots of ladies even have an appetizer to share to start with, and then another appetizer to themselves as their main course.  Wait staff are completely used to it. The first time I sat in a LV restaurant, the table next to me ordered like that (I wasn't being nosey, they were wedged in right next to me) and I thought "why bother eating if you aren't even hungry?"  Halfway through failing on my own main course, I realised they'd ordered perfectly and I'd got it wrong.

Always nice to hear TR's from others, especially those that haven't been too many times before.  Sounds to me like you did Vegas pretty well anyway, glad you had fun.

Thanks Simon, we had an incredible time but as Elvis said, how I wished there were more than twenty four hours in the day 
If I do ever get the chance to go back I will take the time to have a fabulous steak somewhere, in fact I'm a little bit miffed with myself because I noticed Vic and Anthony's on the way in on the first day because you had recommended it to me on the trip thread, but it somehow slipped my mind when we were discussing where to eat.
B.T.W. Just to clarify, when I said Ellis Island seemed a bit of a dive I just meant compared to all the glitz and lights on the Strip it wasn't the kind of place you'd seek out unless someone told you to, I didn't mean it to sound as snobby as it did in my previous post. Truth be told it was like The Ivy compared to what I'm used to!

[Redsgirl]

Loving following your trip diary Redsgirl. Are you planning any shows? I saw this one last time I was there, I think it will be right up the girls street.

http://www.humannaturelive.com/las-vegas/

Much as I wish I was still there Kev, I'm afraid this is a retrospective diary, so we've done all were going to do, which is a shame because this show does look really good.
I'd rather have seen that one instead of throwing away 75 minutes of our lives watching Steve Connolly's spirit of the king show next door at the Four Queens.
It seemed like a good idea at the time, we had an early start the next day so didn't really want to go to far and we thought we gotta see a bit of Elvis while we're in Vegas surely?
Big mistake.
He was dire, he looked more like Brian Connolly and he sounded like Vic Reeves doing his lounge singer impression, we were seated in a dark and dingy little room and his staging consisted of a chair and two dodgy paintings of Elvis he'd done himself and would be happy to sell to anyone who was interested after the show 
All of us being Elvis fans we were surprised to find he sang only three songs in his whole set that anyone in the room actually knew, and when he finally (thankfully) finished it was with one of his own songs (He won the John Lennon song writer of the year award with it don't cha know) which was quite good tbf, but he accompanied it with a weird video of soldiers saluting and cops holding rifles and iddy bitty chillun waving American flags.
Whatever floats your boat Steve.
To be honest we wanted to bail after the first fifteen minutes but we'd paid a little extra for, lolz, V.I.P. tickets which meant we were right at the front and there was no way of sneaking out unnoticed.
Damn you Steve spiritofthesoddingking, I could have been eating a nice steak or winning more roulette.

We did see Gordy Brown one night at the Nugget and he was excellent, much better than expected and we only booked because he was in our hotel and came with the buffet and a free drink! Top class act though, very talented impressionist and musician plus he seemed to enjoy himself as much as the audience did which is always fun.
We saw Diva's on the last night too but more of that later, back to the road trip....

[Redsgirl]

So,  back in the van and off we go, destination Seligman Arizona on Route 66, about 140 miles away passing through the Mojave desert. The hot dry desert. The desert with Rattlesnakes and Black widows and Tarantulas as our guide gleefully informs us, and a place so lacking in vegetation that a dozen stunted little trees have there own sign, Willow creek, and people slow down to look at them. 'They're there like that all year round!'
There was I, just gazing through the window at this amazing landscape that looked like the surface of another planet when our driver suddenly veered off the road and rumbled to a stop on the verge.
'Erm, sorry guy's, the van just lost all power. I don't know what has happened, but try not to worry, I'm just gonna step out and see can I get a signal to phone the office'
Try not to worry! WTF! Within 3 minutes of the air con going off, the temperature inside the van had started to climb to match the outside temp of 45 degrees.
After 6 minutes I was imagining who would play us on our episode of 'I shouldn't be a alive', Angelina Jolie for me obvs, someone like Kristen Stewart for Bridie and maybe Jackie Stallone could be persuaded to play mother, if she didn't have much on. 
Minute ten had me eyeing up Roger's Big Gulp and wondering if a Vulcan death grip would work on someone with a neck that resembled a sliced loaf. Thankfully, just then Trayce managed to get the van started again, and my near death experience was over. I made it. Well done me.

Unfortunately the van's problems meant that at first we tried to make the next service station to meet a replacement, but we cut out again, so after getting restarted once more they decided it was safer and quicker to head back to the last one and wait, which meant we had to do one 50 mile leg of the journey 3 times 
But we got there eventually..

[atdc21]

Haha great stuff Redsgirl, sounds like you had a great time.
When you said 'back in the van, and off we go' i had a vision of a Scooby Doo episode in my head for some reason lol.
Looking 4ward to more .........

[The_nun]

Brilliant.

[Rod Paradise]

Brilliant.

Yep, really enjoying this

[Redsgirl]

Seligman was a fun little interlude, it's claim to fame being the town that inspired the Disney Pixar movie 'Cars'
Apparently the guy behind theToy story film decided to take his family on a trip down what's left of the 66 as a long overdue vacation after not being around much for the four years Buzz and Woody took up.
Whilst researching his trip, he got to hear about a man named Angel Delgadillo, who founded the Historic Route 66 Association of Arizona and successfully campaigned to have the road recognised as being of national importance, rather than being forgotten as the new interstate freeways turned once thriving communities into ghost towns.
Thanks to Angel other states also have associations to look after their stretches of the highway too.
Mr Pixar guy thought the saving of route 66 would make a great movie, and after seeing the assortment of old cars and junkers dotted around town he thought he had the characters too.
The townsfolk have stuck eyes on the vehicles that ended up with starring roles, but if you've saw the film you'd recognise them anyway.

[Redsgirl]

As we continued on the to the South rim, the scenery gradually changed to become greener and more mountainous, and as we reached the higher elevation it also got cooler, dropping to a much more bearable 30 degrees.
As we got closer our guide explained that the Grand canyon has five million visitors per year, and last year they only had eleven deaths.
Cue stunned faces. Deaths? Nobody said anything about deaths!
'Yeah well, most of them were suicides but they don't have any fences or anything so one day while I was up here a guy was blew in by a gust of wind'
'You're kidding right'
'No, but it was a rough day and he'd got himself on an outcrop off the path. You'd have to be pretty stupid to be where he was, that's why the rangers who recovered his body said it was just natural selection'
Eight pairs of eyes involuntarily glance at Sadie.

Our five hour journey had turned into more like eight, but finally we had reached our destination.
Now I have heard all about how incredible the canyon is, how immense, how breathtakingly beautiful, but still I wasn't prepared for how completely overwhelmed I was when after walking up the little path through the forest the trees suddenly clear and there it is.
I've always been a little disdainful of a certain word that Americans love to use but that view was honestly, genuinely awesome.
We picnicked on the edge, and later watched the sun sink down and the last rays light myriad colours in the walls and rocks below, and not for the first time I marveled at, and was truly thankful for the privileges I've had in life.