The Vegas Strip at Night

After such a lovely meal, it was time to hit the road, Jack. I wandered for the next several hours to enjoy a pretty town all lit up.

The sun was setting as I headed south from Caesars Palace towards the Bellagio. I’ll admit that I’ve never officially seen the water show. So I decided to wait tonight until the next water extravaganza began.

It was only about fifteen minutes away and totally worth the wait!

I watched as one-by-one, the casinos turned on their lights. It made for some pretty views, that’s for dang sure!

It will be fun when it gets a little darker so we can see the lights even better.

Uh oh. What have we here? It was really neat. They must play it to different songs all the time, because I can’t really see Faith Hill’s “This Kiss” really being the theme music for this town every half hour.

It was pretty impressive how intricate the water fountain is. It follows the music precisely and does some pretty cool things during the show! This was so amazing!

And high! Holy smokes, that water can shoot up!

This is actually one of my favorite pictures from the entire evening.

    

After the Bellagio Water Show had ended, I made my way up Las Vegas Boulevard to enjoy some very interesting people-watching.

Oh yeah, and some pretty buildings, too.

Here is Paris, and the new Cosmopolitan.

After not that great of a dinner, I wish I would have seen this “Sugar Factory” restaurant earlier. Doesn’t that sound like something that I would enjoy trying? They had crepes and sandwiches and all sorts of yummy stuff, judging from their menu.

Next time…

Planet Hollywood has a prime spot on the Strip, just across the street from the Bellagio on one side, and Paris on the other. Inside is a giant mall called the Miracle Mile Shops. I didn’t head in tonight, but tomorrow for lunch!

I don’t think I’m quite cool enough to stay at the Cosmopolitan. Like, ever.

But their restaurant listing sounded pretty neat. If I didn’t have a budget, I would love to try each and every one of these places for some grub!

    

This is one of the escalator entrances up to the Bellagio. I actually didn’t go inside for this trip but have been there several times. And this second picture shows some of the new shops just south of the Cosmopolitan.

They finally finished the ritzy ones for stores such as Louis Vuitton and Gucci.

As you can imagine, I didn’t go inside those, either. But the building facades sure are cool! Especially in a sunset!

Planet Hollywood is home to the largest screen on the Strip. This thing was massive and crystal-clear! In fact, when it would show up with an image that was white, I had to shield my eyes a little because it was so bright!

Oh, didn’t I tell you? I could never fit in here long enough to live here! Shielding my eyes from the casino lights?! I’m surprised  that I didn’t get thrown out of town right then and there.

Who does that?

This is a fun view near the Louis Vuitton store looking back towards the Strip. Everything is so bright and pretty!

And this was about as far south as I decided to walk tonight. But I waved at the MGM Grand from across the street. This weekend was hosting a Manny Pacquiao fight, so already the MGM was hopping for Fight Night.

Wow, that screen is just crazy talk.

And, though I didn’t get any closer than this tonight, I have visited New York, Luxor, and the Monte Carlo before.

It’s kind of neat seeing the Empire State Building down there, huh?

Where am I?!

Ha! Look at that! As I turned to walk north on the Strip once again, it was already time for another water show at the Bellagio.

I can’t imagine how much these guys spend on water in the summer because of evaporation.

And here is Paris. This is the closest I’ve ever been to this place. Someday, I need to go inside to check it out. It’s massive, I know that much!

    

But the Eiffel Tower is so pretty. I love how they have recreated the highlights of Paris in this giant casino.

Now, I need to get to the real Paris to see how accurate they were!

Hubby and I stayed here on our trip to visit family a few years ago. He had never been to Vegas, so we decided to make an overnight stop of it.

It was a really fun evening showing him the town, but I learned the hard way that flip-flops and lots of walking are hardly a good mix.

I wish that this was the entrance to Space Mountain! But it’s just the escalator entrance to Bally’s Casino.

So close.

And just across the street from Bally’s is The Flamingo. A very flamboyant place, if I may say so.

I hit some of the highlights of this city. Someday, I need to actually eat at a Margaritatville to see if it’s any good.

Hubby and I saw “Defending the Caveman” here when we visited. It was so funny and actually clean! I would highly recommend it for anyone who is looking for a great show.

It’s one of Hubby’s favorite t-shirts…the one he got for free at this event!

From across the street, the Forum Shops are just beautiful.

And here is The Mirage! Their volcano is pretty fun outside, in case you’re bored. But how could you possibly be bored here? Have you seen the people who walk these streets?!

I’m embarrassed to admit that I’ve never actually been able to witness in person the pirate show from the pirate ship located at this casino. How can I even show my face in this city?

 
My timing was perfect. It was early December, which means all sorts of beautiful Christmas decorations were on display. It seemed like the Venetian went all-out with their tribute to my favorite holiday.

They had live music. And, later when I came back outside from the Venetian, they had a Christmas parade! I was too far away to get any pictures, but it looked pretty fancy and all lit up.

And, for some unknown reason, I really love this picture. Perhaps because of that giant sparkly thing in the middle?

The Venetian has all sorts of pretty things to admire tonight. But let’s go inside and warm up for a few minutes, shall we?

I’ll admit that I heard that there was a cupcake bakery inside, and I wanted to see if anything was worthy of my coinage.

Though I’ve been here many times, this ceiling never ceases to amaze me. It would be fun to sit to the side and watch people’s faces as they walk through the doors to this first view of the casino interior.

Isn’t it spectacular?!

The Venetian is famous for lots of things, but one prominent attraction is certainly the gondola ride through the casino. I’ve never done this but have admired it from afar on numerous occasions.

It just always seemed kinda creepy to ride a gondola alone, you know?

    

While I never found my cupcake place (wop wop), The Venetian connects with The Palazzo shops underground. And they had their main lobby all decked out in Christmas. Isn’t that “frozen” waterfall so pretty?!

   

I always feel like I’m missing out on the fun when I’m inside, so I headed out to the Strip once again. Here is The Venetian from that view, but it failed me tonight by not providing cupcakes…

What trip would be complete without a bronze statue tribute to Siegfried and Roy, the lion masters of Las Vegas?

These are huge…probably ten feet tall at least. And they always crack me up.

Judging from these statues…they’ve had a little work done. But you didn’t hear it from me.

I can’t imagine how expensive the rent is for Denny’s to have a restaurant in such a prime location! And who on earth would come to Vegas just to eat at Denny’s, when you could eat anywhere?!

On the right-hand side of this picture is The Mirage Volcano. Last time that I was here, they were doing lots of renovation and new landscaping. Maybe they don’t even do a volcano show anymore?

It’s a good thing that we aren’t flying home tonight, because trying to salvage some semblance of night vision is not going to happen in such a bright town!

And I can’t help it…the entire time while walking around, I have Brandon Flowers’ “Las Vegas” song in my head. Even now as I type, I’m singing about drugs and bad luck, etc.

By the way, I totally grew up with Brandon. He lived just a few blocks away from me. Close enough that he attended the same church.

Yeah, sure. He claims Vegas as his hometown. But he didn’t move there until his Junior year in high school!

His music is awesome, by the way.

     

Now that I was on this side of the street, I peeked my head inside the Forum Shops.

And promptly left. I would never pay those prices, so why wander?! Pretty interior, though, huh?

Hey, we’re getting close to where we started a few hours ago! I grabbed the monorail from the Flamingo, remember?

We made it through the entire Strip at night! And I didn’t even get mugged or high! Bonus!

It’s fitting to have a saloon as our last picture for today.

More Las Vegas to come in tomorrow’s post!

Changing a Tire with Teenage Girls

For the past few months, I’ve had a new “job” at church. I now work with the Young Women, ages twelve to eighteen. I have really been loving this calling. We’ve had some really fun activities lately, too.

Mingled in with the fun are some educational evenings as well. A few weeks ago, we taught the girls how to check the oil and change a tire on a car.

A helpful guy from church, Steve, was able to help us out with the instruction side of things. This is his adorable son, Max. Isn’t he cute? He is just as sweet in person, too.

Don’t worry. He is probably passing judgment on how badly we changed this tire tonight.

The girls and leaders alike were pretty excited about tonight. Once we got them here, that is. It turned out to be a great evening, where they had fun and learned something useful in the process!

I know that we’re not supposed to have favorites. But I really love this girl.

You can probably see why.

The girls were oh-so excited about their greasy fingers after taking their turn with the iron wrench. One of the leaders allowed her car to be worked on tonight…bless her heart.

To our knowledge, the tire has miraculously stayed on ever since.

This girl is a sweetheart. She can be incredibly shy but has so many talents. We’re working on getting her to see what we all see.

Easier said than done with teenage girls, I’m afraid!

At least we know who did all the work tonight.

This beauty, who thinks that greasy tires aren’t as much fun as they sound. I really love this girl, too. No favorites, right?

In the end, we just needed some loafer-clad muscle to get the tire to finally budge. Steve stepped in to help at the last minute, making sure that each girl had a shot to try it out first.

He also let us use his fancy car jack, since we would probably still be there had we used the car-equipped one. I can still feel the burn…

These are some of my older girls. Both beautiful and brilliant. One is the only member of the church in her entire family. The other has a 4.3 GPA and is applying to lots of Ivy-League schools this very month.

I like them both quite a bit.

Once we got the tire off, it was time to put it back in place. Here is one gal tightening up the screws after the weight of the car is back on the tire.

This was exhausting work! I just watched and took pictures and was pretty tuckered out at the end!

How many teenage girls does it take to open a car hood? None, since they never actually found the hook to release the hood from the car. This picture cracks me up, though, since they tried so hard!

Aaaaaaaaand, still trying. At least they look pretty while they’re doing it!

When the hood finally did come free, we were pretty excited about it. Some more than others, obviously.

I don’t think that a tire change was necessary tonight, but perhaps a car wash couldn’t hurt! The girls actually wrote fun things in the dirt before we left for the night. What a fun way to remember the car owner’s courage by letting them remove her tire!

Soon, it was time to check the oil and find where certain things are located in the engine. We have some pretty hilarious girls, but you can probably get that vibe from this picture.

The girls got to check the dipstick and even found out how to know which type of oil to put in. Half of these girls have their drivers licenses now, and the rest are just around the corner from it. So I hope that tonight taught them some neat things that they will remember when the time comes.

Though feet were dragged initially, I think that these pretty girls really enjoyed themselves. And I think that we all learned a thing or two about car tires in general!

I feel so blessed to get to associate with these gals (and some pretty neat leaders) several times a week. It’s amazing how we end up in places where we truly belong.