My next planned destination was Vegas, baby! But Vegas was about 300 miles and a traffic jam away.
They started posting warning signs for the traffic jam as soon as I left I-17 and got on I-40. But, what could I do? I didn’t know the area and the maps I had didn’t show enough detail to plan a detour. Oh, and there was no cell service.
At one point, everyone just turned off their engines and got out to stretch. Some guys played soccer. Some headed toward the bushes with kleenex in hand. I headed back to Flo. It’s nice to have your own restroom with you.
Eventually, we got moving again, and I ended up in Golden Valley, Arizona for a couple of nights.
It was quiet, reasonably priced and had good showers. I also used their very clean laundry facilities to get ready for the next portion of the trip. It was dry and had acres o’ gravel, but it filled the bill.
I rested up and got ready for the last part of the drive to my friend’s house. A few hours on the road and we were there.
Cora and I accepted Jim’s offer of hospitality. What a novelty to sleep in a house! Cora enjoyed the experience, although I was a bit worried. For the first day or so, she spent a good deal of time hiding under Jim’s bed.
And Cora hiding under the bed became part of the act when we went to see Gerry McCambridge’s act at Planet Hollywood on the Strip. When we entered the theater, we were each given an index card and a pencil. He addressed the audience via video while we were waiting for the show to start. He had us write our full names across the top of the card. After that, we were to write two questions we didn’t know the answer to that were personally relevant. The final thing we had to write was a piece of information that only we would know.
At one point, we were directed to collect our cards and put them in a box on the stage. We were sitting in the rear of the theater, so I collected them for our row as well as several rows in front of us and took them up to the box on the stage.
After several other parts of the show, which he did while blindfolded, he got to the cards. He reached in the box and started feeling them and crumpling them up. He first said that he was looking for a woman with the initials K M. (Jim says it was K D, but I’m telling the story!) So, he spoke with this woman for a bit – who was sitting at the other end of my row.
Then he said, “No, I’m looking for K M D.” There were a couple of us, and then he narrowed it down to me. He got my name, Jim’s name, the Airstream and that I was worried about finding a camping spot in Zion. He named Cora and that she was hiding under the bed. The only thing he didn’t mention that was on my card was “Ludlow 7334”, which was my first phone number from when I was a child.
Then, he asked the other woman if she was going to gamble tonight. She said that she wasn’t. Then he asked her if she’d like a good luck charm. She said no. He tried a couple times to get her to say yes to the good luck charm. I finally said, “Hey, I’d like a good luck charm.” I thought that he needed a way to end the segment of the show.
Well, he crumbled up the papers some more and then threw one out into the audience and told them to pass it to me.
It was the index card that I filled out! I was gob-smacked!
Now, the rest of the show was good, but I have to say that this was my favorite part!
If you are looking for a good act when you are in Las Vegas, I would recommend The Mentalist.
Cora did come out from under Jim’s bed. Unfortunately, she really enjoyed exploring the fireplace. My pretty white kitty was covered in soot! Jim did his best to try to brush it out of her coat. That got some of it. I washed the rest of it out with a washcloth. She didn’t seem to mind at all.
While I was in Vegas, we did some fun stuff, but the kind of stuff you do when you visit anyone. You go out to eat…
Of course, the gaming industry probably wouldn’t be too thrilled to know that these messages are in the fortune cookies!
You visit friends. These women are Jim’s neighbors. Lea was celebrating her 90th birthday, and I got to join in the festivities.
While we were there, I got a hostess to take a photo of Jim and me.
We’ve hardly aged a bit since we taught at the American School of Guatemala back in the 1980s!
One of the things that was left on my Vegas “to-do” list was to get my picture taken at the world-famous “Fabulous Las Vegas” sign. Jim had some things to take care of, and I had an appointment at the Apple Store to have my phone looked at. When I was finished, I zipped over to the sign.
The line was long! What was really holding things up was a wedding party that was doing all of their photos there. But, once they got back into their white stretch limo, the line started moving. Unfortunately, the sun was going down! Would I make it?
YES! I did, but just barely.
I like Vegas for the things that you just don’t see everywhere – like a combination gas station/car wash and 24 hour slot parlor.
And sculptures of tennis players waiting to cross the street.
We had one more show to attend – a taping of Penn and Teller’s “Fool Us”. They were taping the shows and they needed a live studio audience.
I got tickets for me, Jim and his friend, Bill. We all managed to amuse ourselves with our phones while we waited.
The lines to get in were incredible! I think they had us split up into four LONG lines. We all got in, but we were seated just about as far up in the balconies as you can go. It was a good show.
The most unexpected part of my visit to Las Vegas was the rain.
Luckily, there was a canopy over the gas pumps – and I was especially fortunate that Jim got out and pumped the gas for me.
The last full day I was visiting Jim, about 0.8 inch of rain fell. They usually get a little less than 4.25 inches of rain in a YEAR! The roads were flooded and it was a mess!
The washes were awash! Eventually, the rain did drain away, and I was able to get hitched up and head out the next day without a problem.
On to Utah!