Vegas Vacation Day 5 – Batman needs a better dental plan

Happy Birthday, Mom!  Her birthday is not today, but it was on the fifth day of our trip, so I figured I’d throw a shout out to her regardless.

Day 5- 2/18/15

Because of the flexibility of the time share where we were staying, we were able to move to another Vegas resort for a couple of days, which was kind of nice because we could change it up a bit.  The Grand Desert resort was much closer, had more shuttles, and was a lot larger, although the rooms were about the same.  This one may have been a bit bigger, but they both had the same amount of space and amenities.

For lunch, we headed to Naked City Pizza, which apparently was featured on the show Diners Drive-Ins and Dives.  It was really good, despite the waitress needing a little bit of help taking our order.  From my own experience, it’s tricky to take a party of six’s order from memory without errors, which is why I don’t attempt it.  I’m assuming that it’s usually easier with pizzerias, as even larger parties likely end up sharing a pizza, two at the most, but I guess we are not most larger parties.  She got the order right eventually, I think.

After that, we were able to drive back to the resort, since we had rented a vehicle for some ease in traveling.  We wanted to head to the Hoover Dam, and possibly the Grand Canyon at some point, and we were told by many a person that renting a vehicle would be easiest.  Since a trip like that would wipe out a lot of the day, we opted to do that tomorrow, and today’s trip would be to Old Vegas on Fremont Street, which was also highly recommended to us.

Luckily for us, I thought, I was super observant after the show last night, and when we went to Harrah’s to transfer to the Rio (where the World Carnival Buffet was located) I noticed a shuttle that advertised Fremont Street, so we were going to opt for that instead of trying to drive there in hectic traffic.

I worded this whole travel scheme so poorly that everyone assumed that the shuttle was AT the Rio, which we were able to rectify before we got on the Rio shuttle, thank goodness.  This is why I’m not a travel planner.  Well, that and a lot of the SNAFUs found in Day one’s post, but that is neither here nor there.  After discovering that the shuttle was actually at Harrah’s, we investigated further and found that this was a veeeerrrrryyy roundabout way of getting to Fremont Street, and were gauging the delicate ratio of time traveling to time actually spent at the location before having to leave.  It was at this time that a lovely man calling the cabs suggested we take a limo, since it would cost more to take two cabs.  We agreed, since we were running short on time, and while most of me was super embarrassed that I was a terrible travel planner, a small portion of me was psyched to be in a limo, since I’ve never done that before.

I LOVED everything about Fremont Street.  It felt fun, cozy, and a little bit more real than the “new” Vegas where we had been occupying most of our time. 

We even got to meet some Super Heroes who I could only describe in the following way:

• Captain America- Good ‘ol Captain America had clearly fallen on some hard times, and while he still wielded his shield and mask, instead of his armor, he had but a T-shirt, and denim jeans with boots.  It was like a sad story of a man clinging to his past and the glory of his former days.
•  Catwoman- I was impressed at the amount of (p)leather required to cover her not-quite-as-svelte figure.  Clearly the Catwoman I know and love has been eating her feelings.
• Batman- As Deltra Lynne and I waited for Andrew and Darrell, we were approached by this strapping, charming and non-stalkerish superhero wannabe.  He appeared to be the most legit of the three of them, but once he opened his mouth to harass beckon us, we could see there was something horribly awry.  We timidly tolerated his poor dental health and comments, until he said something to the effect of "I'll come find you!".  Yeah, no.  Time to leave.

We headed into the nearest casino, which was Binion's, to find the boys, while Dyllon and Lisa hit the zipline.  While we definitely enjoyed our time there, we hadn't yet eaten and we were in a bit of a time crunch, so we had Andrew find us a restaurant called Triple George, and we elected to eat there.

It turns out that this small restaurant on the corner of the lesser known Vegas strip was a huge success!  The drinks were incredible (I ordered a lemon drop martini with a sugared rim, Lisa had a blackberry cherry martini special, and I think Deltra Lynne ordered something that was gingery or pumpkin-y that was also quite tasty) and the food was amazing.  I was aching to try their homemade barbecue sauce, so instead of ordering the fish filet, I opted for the miniature beef filet with mashed potatoes and fresh vegetables (all of which I ate, thank you very much).  While I agree with the critique that, if your steak is prepared perfectly you won't need sauce, I wanted to try it anyway, and I will say that I could have opted to go sauce-less and I still would have enjoyed it thoroughly.  To top it all off, our waiter was the one who was positively mentioned in a comment we found in a review of the restaurant, and despite the fact I can't remember the answer, he was more than equipped to be able to respond to the question "Why Triple George?"  Kudos to you, waiter man.

We took two separate cabs back to Harrah's, because the Linq was right next to it, and that's where the Divas show was.  We picked up the tickets, but still had a bit of time to gamble, so the video poker we hit.  I actually caught quad eights, which I was pretty pumped about, so I cashed out immediately and silently fist pumped in my head.  Dyllon had invited me to play 21 + 3, which I should have known I'd suck at, since anything with the semblance of a mathematical equation is sure to do me in.  It was a good time, regardless.

I didn't quite know what to expect from the show, but I had been to a few drag shows in the past, so I thought it would be pretty similar.  Frank Marino was the host, and his comedic timing was superb.  Not to mention he had intensely intricate costume changes that were done in time to rival Miss America contestants changing from swimwear to evening wear during a commercial break.  Tres impressive.  A lot of the performers were very good, but to be honest some of them were a miss for me.  A few of the impersonators lacked the on stage energy required to pull of the song they were performing, and maybe I'm being too nitpicky, but a lot of them weren't making believable enough mouth shapes or facial expressions for me to really get into believing they were the person singing.  I know what it looks/feels/sounds like to hit high notes, and some of those ladies just weren't giving it their all.  Here's how it's done, folks:

Anyway, after the show we figured was as good a time as any to conquer the high roller.  What is the high roller, you ask?  Apparently it's the world's largest observation deck, standing at 550 feet high and containing 28 gyroscopic spherical orbs from which passengers can view the strip.  It takes just about a half hour for the oversized ferris wheel to complete one rotation, and it makes sense that partaking in this excursion at night is a bit costlier than during the afternoon.

We elected, on the rare account that it was the eve of Dyllon's birthday and rapidly approaching midnight, to purchase a sphere that contained an open bar, so we could thoroughly enjoy our half hour of sight seeing from above.  We nearly had the entire sphere to ourselves, but the three other people sharing with us were very nice and had to tolerate our shenanigans, so we were not bothered by them at all.  Here are some of the better pictures I gathered from atop the wheel:

We then traveled back to the resort for an epic game of Cards Against Humanity, and then bedtime.  We were eager to drive out to the Hoover Dam and Grand Canyon in the morning, so we needed to rest up!