That's better. It's easier to recognize the Strip at night with the lights.
With the nap and grocery shopping concluded (food prices for the residents of Vegas…ouch! Not even Albertsons in Austin could be this bad), we got our first day started but kept it light.
The rental car this year is a Kia Forte which proves the Koreans can make a car as crappy as the American Alero or Aspire. How little the car manufacturers learn from selling their stuff to rental fleets. It’s still good to have our set own of wheels while on vacation.
To kick off our gambling tradition of video poker or what we call the Maggi Video Poker Tournament, we hit Luxor but played the inaugural match at Mandalay Bay while the Mavs v. Heat game happened in the background. Another thing I love about Vegas, most major sporting events end a couple hours before bed time, allowing you to keep enjoying the night. I didn’t stay too long in the sports book area when I noticed how large the Miami faction was.
We kept the evening light. Some quick gambling (I lost), a few pictures of anything that caught our attention, people watching (Austin may be filled with Hipsters, Vegas is filled with Vin Diesel wannabes and Skanks) and a cheap dinner at McDonald’s. One thing I wondered aloud about to Somara was this, what would real Ancient Egyptians’ reactions be to Luxor? Say the people from their civilization’s Middle Kingdom. Would they find this place blasphemous? Do the hieroglyphics make any sense? Are the colors on the Sphinx correct? Or would they just be too impressed by air conditioning?
Just great. I'm now at that age when the bands of my high school years do the old-fart-reunion thing.
One new thing we’re trying out this trip is paying for mobile Wi-Fi. Our timeshare offers a discount on a Clear USB dongle device which hooks into a 4G network. As you can see, it works really well but only on one Mac. Either it has some kind of provisioning to operate exclusively on my MacBook Pro or Somara has a funky issue we don’t feel like figuring out. I guess we’re stuck hitting a nearby Starbucks once or twice.
Wish you all were here! The weather is gorgeous.
Gambling Report:
- Video Poker: Somara 1, Steve 0 ($25, $0)
- Somara: +$5
- Steve: -$20