stephanie is: 
hungry…
hello from las vegas! it is the morning of our second day here. i am typing this offline because the hotel charges for local calls… both to connect and by-the-minute once you go past a half an hour.
our travel day on saturday was pretty uneventful. in the morning i did laundry, packed, cleaned the litter boxes, did dishes, and cleaned 2 bathrooms. the taxi arrived at 2pm to get us and i had just finished. i hadn’t flown since 2001 but security wasn’t bad. they sent my shoes through the scanner. i still have my cold. by the time we boarded for our flight my right ear was completely clogged up and i only had about 25% of my hearing in it. i had taken some of danny’s dayquil but it didn’t do anything. the flight was empty so we spread out. it was only an hour long. i crocheted. i had some stabbing pains in my ear while we descended but it wasn’t bad. the second flight was full. it was a four hour one. i crocheted some more and listed to music. 
they only gave out pretzels… you could buy a meat sandwich for $10 if you wanted. my ears didn’t hurt much that flight but were still all clogged up.
we took a cab to our hotel – the stratoshpere. they put us on the top floor of the hotel part (23rd). we don’t really have an exciting view, but it is still pretty at night. the room is an average hotel room but the bathroom is a bit bigger with granite tiles and there is a little area with a desk and armchair around a corner from the bed.
we bundled up (it is currently in the 30°s at night and the 50°s in the day) and started walking in search of a late dinner (it was around 9pm pst at that point). we ended up walking about 2.5 miles down the strip till the cold drove us into ceaser’s palace. we ate some mexican food in their shopping area. it was getting far too cold to walk (especially with our colds) so we took a cab back to the hotel.
yesterday i wanted to see everything, and we came pretty damn close. even though we got to sleep after 1am pst, i woke up at 5:45am… i am not really good at sleeping in hotels and my cold didn’t help.i crocheted and read a magazine on the sights. around 10am we walked a block to eat breakfast at ihop.
we spent the day going into the hotels, sight-seeing, and taking pictures. we visited a gallery and listed to an audio tour about the paintings. there was a van gogh, picasso, monet, etc… i always love seeing the canvases in person and so close up. we ate lunch at a chinese place in the new york new york hotel. we split an order of schezuan string beans, mm. 
at the mandalay bay hotel we visited the shark reef. it was nice having the ability to take movies with my new camera – the fish don’t really hold still long enough for me to take non-flash still photos. it was starting to look really stormy when we left the hotel. we had walked the length of the strip and wanted to head back so we could stop at bally’s hotel to get show tickets for the night. 
as we walked the clouds got darker and darker and the wind was really picking up. we had to duck into another hotel as the rain started. we decided to try to take the trolly to bally’s but we were getting frustrated trying to find it in the dark and cold. when we found the stop we realized we didn’t have change for it. we walked a ways to another hotel casino so danny could get some change. he put a dollar into a nickel slot machine and won $15 total. the lady who gave him his change was watching and smiling. i have anti-luck so i mostly let him play. he does pretty good. i only won 25¢. i only like the 5 cent ones… i can’t bring myself to stick a whole quarter in just for one turn.
the rain had stopped, so we decided to brave the cold for a little while longer and just walk the rest of the way to bally’s. we got tickets for the 10:30pm showing of “jubilee”. most of the other classic vegas showgirl-type shows were dark for the holidays. i was happy to choose this one though, because i had watched a series following several of the dancers through auditions and rehearsals. once we had the tickets we headed back in the direction of our hotel (which is all the way at the end of the strip area). i think we intended to take the trolly or something but we just kept walking and walking. finally it got the the point where it was only a half a mile away so despite our impending exhaustion, we just kept pushing ourselves. when we got there i stumbled straight into the shower. after 10+ miles of walking on 4 hours of sleep, i needed a hot shower to sooth and relax my muscles so they wouldn’t get stiff. 
danny took good care of me for quite a while… ahem.
around 8:30pm we took a cab back to bally’s and ate a quick dinner at a cafe there. i had a guacamole vegetable wrap that didn’t have much guacamole in it. it was good anyway. the show was good – we were sitting a lot closer than i expected. i loved that the dancers all had ral dancer bodies – no fake boobies. a lot of them were as small is me. the costume were pretty and very vegas. the music was cheesy but appropriate. i recognized one of the male dancers from the series i watched. the dancers weren’t as in sync and i expected from seeing how grueling their rehearsals are. but still, very cool, and i HAD to see showgirls while i was here.
it is actually the next day now… we’ve been taking it pretty easy since we are run down from the day before. i am feeling a bit achy and gross from my cold. despite the long day and large amount of walking yesterday i still only slept 4 hours. hrmph! we are meeting our friends jen and jon in the main lobby at 6pm so we can hang out and get dinner. they just moved here from california. we haven’t seen them since the last time i flew – which was to thanksgiving with danny’s family in palm dessert in 2001. before we do that, we are planning to go check out the tower area of our hotel and hopefully get some pretty pictures during sunset.
i haven’t read my email or any web site (even mine) since saturday morning. it is going to take me a week to catch up…
we are back from seeing the sunset from above the city… so pretty! i’ve got to get this posted so we can go meet our friends!