Jordan and Alison do Vegas

Jordan flew to Phoenix and then we left the kids with my parents while we went to Las Vegas. So just what do two people who really aren't into gambling or the party scene in general? I'm so glad you asked.

Eat

One could easily drop at $100 a day eating in Las Vegas. Assuming the restaurants are all as good as the one we tried, there's so many good ones! We chose Diego, Rick Bayless' Las Vegas restaurant. He does a show on PBS (Mexico, One Plate at a Time) and generally makes anything sound good.

Aren't the plates cool?

Though, really one could spend under $10 total each day and just eat these hot dogs.

We learned about Slots A Fun's large and cheap hot dogs while watching a PBS documentary on hot dogs. This documentary is easily 10 years old, and when it was made the hot dogs just cost 99 cents. We set off to find the illusive hot dogs and found that inflation had taken over and the dogs now cost $1.99. They are still really big though!

Moral of the story? Let PBS plan your vacation meals.

Look at Cool Stuff and Buildings That Are All Lit Up

That staircase in the top left corner? That's an escalator. The figures in the top center picture? At first we thought they were real people. Then water started coming out of their fingers, so we thought they must be statues. But then we eventually decided they had to be real people. The picture on the top right is the fountain show at the Bellagio. The fountains are set to music. Cool stuff. Las Vegas is full of random shows like this. There is also an erupting volcano that we missed because it is not a punctual erupting volcano.

Look at Animals

There's a lion habitat at the MGM Grand - with people in it! It would have been fun to see the trainers interact with awake lions instead of sleeping ones. There was a little (enclosed) walkway through the habitat and, while we were there, a surprising number of people were enjoying checking out the bottom of the sleeping lions.

At the Flamingo Hotel, you'll find none other than flamingos. And frogs and fish and other birds too.

Go to a Show

We saw Cirque du Soleil's Beatles Love. Good show. We also saw a magician of sorts. Not nearly as good, but it was free, so who cares.

Ride the Monorail

Not as cheap as the bus (and ultimately involved a lot of walking to get through the hotels and to the stations) but lots of fun.

Visit Every Rolex Dealer that Vegas Has to Offer

This particular store that Jordan is standing in front of sells only Rolex and has 600 on display in the store. They have another 1500 in the back and another 2000 downstairs in the vault (correct me if I'm wrong, Jordan). There is much expensive and fun stuff to look at in the all the stores in Las Vegas.

Try the Pool Scene

It seems like all the "in" hotels have either a shopping mall or a cool pool (or both!). Ours took the cool pool route. Jordan enjoyed the hot tub (why am I always pregnant when such opportunities present themselves?) and I enjoyed the lazy river.

So, there you have it. In addition to loosing 25 cents gambling (and wondering how one plays Pai Gao Poker or whatever it was called), that's how we killed time in Las Vegas.