Dawn broke over the Vegas strip, as it usually does, at about dawn.
I was up at 6:00 a.m. and elevated down to the Bellagio casino to try and score a wake-up screwdriver. I was playing some nickel video poker with embarrassingly bad pay tables. After a while and with minimal nickel loss, it became apparent to me that early in the morning, the Bellagio cocktail waitresses were generally not trolling for customers in the Bellagio cheap seats ( Early morning Bellagio cocktail waitresses: 0 out of 5 Royal Flushers). So I headed back up to the room.
The Little Woman was up and looking even more beautiful that normal at that hour. This was the day for our trip to Red Rock Canyon.
We hiked down to the Avis Focus and headed out Flamingo to 215 in some direction (N,S,E,W?) past a tremendous amount of stone artfully arranged along the highway cuts. I would love to own the colored stone quarry concession out in this part of the world.
Before long, we got off 215 at an exit right at Red Rock Casino. My beady little eyes lit up. "I think Red Rock is a very good casino for video poker," I whispered seductively. "Can we stop here on our way back to Vegas?" No objections from TLW.
We drove a few miles down the road and found the Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area. It cost $7 for us to tour the Visitors' Center and then drive around the 13 mile loop. It really was interesting and beautiful in that arid western way (4.5 out of 5 Desert Tortoises). There are a number of hiking trails and I wanted to hike in the 102 degree heat, but I also wanted to live more than a few hours, so we stayed in the chilled Avis Focus.
There were, amazingly, a number of bicyclists and joggers out on that 13 mile loop. "Yeah, but it's a dry heat." It's a dry heat like my oven is a dry heat. Anyway, by the time we headed out of the Conservation Area, a cold front must have moved through because the temperature had dropped to a chilly 96 degrees. Fortunately, we passed no athletic bodies lying along the side of the road.
I double-timed it back to Red Rock Casino. What a nice place. Excellent video poker from nickel to dollar. Unfortunately, the best games are all single line, but there might be an Easter Egg somewhere in there (4.9 out of 5 Advantage Players). TLW found a two-cent Multistrike and attacked it with a $20 bill, playing eight cents per deal. She leaned over and whispered provocatively in my ear, "This place is clean and nice. Let's stay here next time we come." Okay by me. Bellagio Salon Suite? Caesars Augustus Tower? Screw it. Next time we're staying where they've got some good video poker. That's my baby (5 Royal Flushers).
Eventually we headed back to Bellagio. I was going to stop and visit Jean Scott (5 out of 5 helpful Frugal books), but a) she doesn't know me and b) I don't know where she lives. I think she lives in Henderson or Summerlin, but as we drove through those places, it seemed like a lot of territory to cover going door-to-door asking if Jean and Brad lived there.
So back in the room to watch some college football on the non-Japanese channels (My sincere apologies if the channels were actually broadcast in Mandarin or some glyph-dominated written language other than Japanese. What can I say? I'm Buckeye-centric).
That evening, we had supper at the Bellagio Buffet. (Okay, let me get this out of the way. Bellagio Buffet: 3.5 out of 5 Wynn Buffets. There I said it).
I don't really care for buffets as I don't really need to challenge myself to "Get my money's worth" of food. But we went to the Bellagio Buffet--me, TLW, Spendthrift Princess, s-i-l, and the other young couple who were mentioned in Day 1. This young couple was actually on their honeymoon so they seemed capable of occupying themselves with no external assistance for a couple of days. But we were treating them to the Bellagio Buffet on our last night in Vegas, Baby.
So there were six of us for the buffet and five of us got the unlimited, limited-selection alcohol option (a choice of three nice drafts, some sparkling wines, some non-sparkling wines, Margaritas, and Blood Marys). The damage was $381.47. Thank you, resort credits, as it was covered.
My favorite dish was the pad thai which was very tasty but available back home in O-hi-o for about $8 at the mall food court. In general, I think we all felt that the Bellagio Buffet was very good, but not THAT good. A year earlier, four of us had partaken of the Wynn Buffet and that sucker was GREAT.
However, our server was by far the best buffet server I've ever seen or had the pleasure of receiving drinks from and having dirty plates whisked away by (5.5 out of 5 Maitre d's).
Fortunately we were all able to ambulate away from the table and head back out into the casino. The four young'uns headed off on their own and TLW and I made a circuitous path to the nickel video poker cheap seats. Most of our paths in Bellagio were circuitous as I never could figure out where I was in relation to where I wanted to be.
TLW settled gracefully at a nickel Dream Card multi-line. She likes to play JOB, so JOB it was. For the record, I think it was about 3/1 JOB game (a slightly bad pay table), but we were privileged to be playing at Bellagio. Anyway, she was playing Triple-Play and on her fifth hand was Dream Card Winner-ed for a dealt straight flush. That kept her going for quite a while.
When we decided that we'd had enough, I convinced her to switch to Ten-Play for a few hands. Of course she was dealt 3OAK with the Dream Card completing the 4OAK on ten hands for a cool $62.50. We cashed out and headed toward the guest elevators. We were both mightily tuckered out from our earlier watching of people biking and jogging in Red Rock Canyon, followed by the ritualistic stuffing of our pie-holes at the buffet. Soon enough we were back in our room allowing our digestive tracks do their thing before we wafted off to Dream Card Winner Dreamland.
Max
