Here we are, on the road: We’re in Las Vegas

October 12, 2014 Lorraine’s Report

Hello and thank you for stopping by to see what we have been doing another week. We are still in Las Vegas and today we packed up all the rig and moved it over to the Road Runner R V Park. Not a bad place as far as I can see. Chuck wanted us to be in this area for several more days, so we had to find a place for a bit.

We have had a wonderful time here in Vegas. We have seen 4 shows, all nice, but the two that stood out to me are the musicals. I loved the “Jersey Boy’s” and I loved “Human Nature”. Both were very good. We had seen “Jersey Boys” the last time we came to Vegas, but I wanted to go again. I grew up listening to the “Four Seasons”. They were one of my all time favorites when I was younger. I loved “Sherry; Walk Like a Man; Dawn, Go Away, I’m No Good For You”, and all the hits they put out. As I said, they were one of the best groups and I loved them.

And I loved a whole bunch of the Motown groups, and that was the show “Human Nature” put on. By the end of that show, the group had everyone in the audience on their feet, singing and dancing to the hits they were singing. Awesome to see everyone in the audience carrying on like they were. And while I liked Mystique, the music made it for me. Louis Anderson was okay, but he had several other acts who had me laughing harder than when he was on stage. In fact, one of the performers showed us to our place in the theater, before the show.

All in all, well worth the time we took to go to the time shares.

Forgot to mention, that last week my toaster died. I went to plug it in, and it blew the fuse. Chuck had to change it, and then we had to look for a new toaster. I guess what I’m saying is that we just started on a new year of being “ON THE ROAD”. When stuff I brought from home (my sticks & brick home) is starting to give up the ghost, WOW, we must have been gone a lotta years-8 in fact. And while we are out here, we have been looking for a place to land, but so far nothing has grabbed us yet. When it gets closer to coming off the road, maybe by then we will have found something.

So that’s it for me…Hugs to all….

Lorraine

10/12/14 Chuck’s report

We decided that staying around here for two more days fits our schedule best and I don’t want to fight the traffic getting out of town on Sunday. When we came in two weeks ago we noticed the BAD traffic heading South so staying here might mean less traffic problems when we leave.

We’ve been to Las Vegas a few times over the years so we aren’t as wide eyed as some and don’t feel we have to be on the go all the time but it still has a WOW factor. And we’ve sort of figured out our way around here too so when the traffic starts backing up on what ever street, we feel ok trying a different route on our own, haven’t gotten into trouble doing that this trip.

Last Sunday after we posted our blog we headed out to one of the Station Casinos for a short visit, wanted to watch some football and we got Subway for dinner there too.

Monday we headed out to visit Freemont Experience or what we call “Old Vegas”. This area isn’t anything like the strip, I don’t know what would compare with that, but a completely different experience. They have blocked off traffic through the area and have covered the street with a canopy for about seven blocks. And this canopy is made up of millions of LED lights where they put on quite a show every half hour after dark. It’s billed as the worlds largest LED show and really draws the crowds outside of the many casinos to watch the show. But this time we were there during the daylight hours and the LED show wasn’t happening.

We tried a few of the slots at a few of the casinos before we once again were offered some show tickets if we would sit through a different time share. Once again we talked the guy into a few more items for us to give up our “valuable” time. We called our friend Richard who had just been here a couple weeks ago and he suggested trying the hot dogs at the casino/hotel where he stayed so that’s what we had for supper before returning back home.

Tuesday afternoon we headed back to attend the time share presentation at the Plaza. We did the time share thing, got our prizes and vouchers. While there we played the slots for awhile too, in fact I won enough there that I’m still even for this trip, not bad.

Wednesday we went to a shoe store, Sketchers outlet, to see what we could find. I think we both got one pair of shoes and Lorraine found a couple of pairs for Katie too. We had some time before we needed to leave for the show so on the way back to our place, we stopped by and checked out a couple of the RV parks nearby. We are due to check out of 1000 Trails on Sunday and I didn’t want to fight the Sunday traffic so we were thinking of leaving on Saturday or moving to a different RV park and staying in the area for a couple more days. Tough life, do we stay in Vegas for a few more days or not!

That afternoon we headed back to Freemont area to attend our show. We got there in plenty of time to walk the area and see the LED light show. Plus we were given some free slot play money and needed to spend that at Binion's Casino, the only place it was good. We won a few $$ with our free slot play but managed to put it back in, plus a couple more out of our wallet. Guess they know most folks will do that so it’s really not “free money” for most of us.

We headed back to the Plaza to see the show we were given, a comedy show with Louis Anderson as the headliner. They had two comedians on stage before he came on, the second one was the best. We were surprised to see the the first one was one of the ushers who seated us. Louie put on a good show but guess he isn’t one of our favorite but at least it was not X rated. We enjoyed it but don’t think I need to do this one again.

Thursday morning we headed back to the strip, wanted to see some of the big, glitzy casino/hotels. We started at Paris and as we walked in, we were once again offered some show tickets if we would attend a time share presentation. This time they offered two show tickets to “Jersey Boys”, the number one show on the strip. We agreed to do yet another time share, this one was a little longer as they actually bussed us over to the presentation and then again to their complex to see what their place looked like. Very nice but once again we decided it just wasn’t us, at least this time our life. This was Wyndham where you purchase points and use them to stay in their properties around the world. I think if we lived in a house instead of traveling in our motorhome we might have been interested in this one. And of course, like most of these things, I think you can pick up used memberships from owners who want out. After we got back to our place, we headed over to Arizona Charlie’s for dinner before calling it a night.

Friday we just hung out, waiting to head back to the strip to see the Jersey Boys. We planned on finding a place to eat before we went to the theater and ended up at a café for sandwiches instead of paying $75 for two buffets. Boy are the prices on the strip a lot higher than the area where we are staying. The prime rib buffet at Sam’s town is only $9.99/person Sunday thru Thursday.

Then we waited in line for the show, they had a big bottleneck because they wanted to take pictures of everyone and sell them after the show. But finally we got inside and directed to our seats. We had good seats, the back row on the floor level but the gal sitting in front of Lorraine was very tall and big so she didn’t have an unobstructed view. So we just moved over to a couple of empty seats and we enjoyed the show from there.

This show is the story of the Four Seasons group, starting with two of the brothers before they formed the band. These guys were regular Jersey boys from the street, some had spent some time in jail even. But when they finally found the last guy for their band, they set out as the Four Seasons. After a few years, two members dropped out and they picked up three more and became Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. I had forgotten they were the Four Seasons before they became Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. This is a good show and we would recommend it for anyone who would like to see a good show in Vegas, only thing is it doesn’t have all the glitzy stuff on stage but very good none the less.

Yesterday we drove over to Sunset Station casino where we played on the slots of awhile and watched some football at their sports area. I think they have over 20 TVs there but we couldn’t find the Washington Huskie game, shoot. On the way back to our place, we stopped at Wal-Mart to see if Lorraine’s prescription had came in yet. We’ve been by there three times now and still no prescription. This time they promised Lorraine it would be ready in the morning and she just received a phone call telling us it was ready. Sometimes its tough to do normal things when on the road but usually it works out, at least we are still in the area.

This morning we got everything put away and headed out to a different RV park, the Road Runner, about a mile South of the 1000 Trails park where we have been staying. I drove the rig and Lorraine followed in the car. I did pull into the gas station to fill the rig up with diesel, at $3.49/gal it about the best price we’ve seen. We got set up here and I started this blog.

The weather this past week has been really nice, most days it gets to the low 90s and drops to the low 60s at night. Both of our air conditioners run pretty much the whole day and we close the shade on the front windshield during the day to keep out some of the heat, that helps a lot. We did have one day that was cloudy most of the day and more humidity, Lorraine said she should have worn long pants vs shorts as she was cold that day (it was in the 80s and she was cold, guess our blood has thinned out a bit).

We’ve firmed up our plans a bit, will leave here either Tuesday or Wednesday and head over to West Covina to the Elks Lodge there. The California RV show is going on in Pomona and the Elks is not to far away. We’ll probably attend the RV show one day but it’s pretty big so may go two days, we’ll see.

We plan on leaving there and head up 101 to Santa Maria where we will once again stay at the Elks Lodge there. This is the one that has the BBQ on Friday nights, feeding over 300 people each Friday. We were there a couple of months ago and will try it again.

Then we will head back to the Elks Lodge in Santa Clara for our two weeks with Susy and Katie. I’ve got one doctor appointment with the VA and will try to get more while we are there, need to finish out my yearly exams and this may be as good a time as any, we’ll see.

And now to add some pictures. I don’t think we took too many this week so this shouldn’t take long.

Lorraine in our booth at Louis Anderson show on the left. Fremont street on the right and following pictures.