Monday 12 January 2015 Las Vegas

The weather report on the TV said that yesterday was a record rainfall with one half to one inch of rain in the area and a high number of vehicle accidents. At home we make fun of people in other places who can’t drive in snow, but here they can’t even drive in rain!

We went to McDonalds in the food court and got a not bad breakfast for under $4 USD. There we again ran into Celeste’s seat mate from our flight down here.

We set out to explore the strip and find some discount show tickets. The weather was so pleasant that we turned around to take our jackets back. 

Our first stop was across the street at New York New York. 

There we found Hershey’s Chocolate World. I could have spent all day there, but, having just finished breakfast, we decided to move on and come back another time. 

Soon after that we stumbled upon a Ben & Jerry’s store. This time we could not resist and shared a cup of three different flavours of ice cream. 

We pressed on down the strip and scouted out the Wallgreen’s drug store which Shaela had recommended as a good source of many lower cost food items. We then briefly toured the Miracle Mile shopping mall and picked up a few souvenirs for the folks back home.

Shaela had recommended Tickets 4 Less for discounted tickets. We came across several other discounters, but not the one we were looking for. We finally decided to check out the one we were nearest to at the time. They only had tickets for today and tomorrow, which, I suspect, is pretty standard. So we ordered up tickets for tonight for the Tournament of Kings, i.e. the medieval feast and jousting show at our own hotel. We also learned from them and another guy we talked to on the street that you have to buy your tickets for “O” three weeks ahead of time, and that is the show I wanted to see most of all. We decided to head directly to their theatre at the Bellagio and see what we could do. It turns out that, although it is mostly sold out, there are still tickets available. We got tickets in the balcony for Thursday and better seats were also available if we were willing to pay the premium.

We were a long way from home and it turned out that what we bought from the discounter for tonight was just a voucher that had to be exchanged at the hotel for actual tickets. And, the longer it took for us to make the exchange, the worse the tickets. So, we made our way back to our hotel. We were pretty tired anyway and were glad to get back to our room for a rest. It is not exactly like running a marathon, but walking and shuffling for three or four hours is pretty tiring. Celeste had a nap and I uploaded pictures to my laptop and did some blog writing.

At the medieval combat show we sat beside a couple from Calgary that were there for the first time. I warned them that it was a bit corny, but also entertaining, and I was proven correct on both counts. The crowd was divided up among the contestants who continuously played to the crowd while telling a story concocted for the event. You cheered "Huzzah!" and banged on your table for your guy and then in the battle between all our good guys and the bad guys. If you buy in and play along it is a lot of fun. I didn't even have a drink and still left a little bit hoarse.

After the show we went across the street to explore the MGM Grand, specifically to find the monorail station. We are thinking of getting a three-day pass on it, but we are also considering a couple of bus pass options. We made it another early night.