Go home day. Boo. We finished up some last minute things we had to take care of on the strip: Denise had a $15 voucher she forgot to cash out at MGM, we tried to get a slice of pizza at NY NY (the upstairs part where Nathan’s is was closed for renovations), and Denise finally got to see the fountain at Bellagio. She was quite impressed!
Monthly Archive for July, 2007
Today was spent with more blackjack and bumming around Vegas. In the evening, we all went and saw Monty Python’s Spamalot, which I’ve been dying to see since it opened on Broadway and now also has a permanent show at the Wynn. We all thought it was awesome!
Afterwards, we headed back downtown where our evening consisted of more blackjack and drinking booze from accurately-sized plastic footballs.
Driving from Bishop, CA, we arrived in Vegas right in the hot part of the afternoon. The thermometer on the car read 111 degrees! After heading downtown and getting checked in at the Four Queens, we got in a little bit of blackjack before heading to the airport to pick up my other brother, Ryan, and his wife.
Later on, Denise and I entered a small, 3-table poker tournament at the Golden Nugget. I was doing pretty well despite mediocre cards but I finally got taken out with pocket 8s.
Today we spent most of the day in the car for part 1 of our Las Vegas road trip. A lot of that time was spent going through the Sierra Nevada mountains and Yosemite, which provided some spectacular scenery.
We stopped for the night in Bishop, CA.
Yesterday, Denise and I drove down to Monterey to go whale watching. Despite a couple small setbacks (me waiting until we got to the rental car place to realize that I forgot my wallet, missing our boat by like 5 minutes, etc.), we finally got out on the bay.
The weather was great and the views were amazing. We essentially followed a mother and calf humpback whale around the bay for a couple hours. I was just mentioning to Denise how you don’t really get to see the whale’s front end (their face?) when they come up to the surface. Just a few minutes after saying that, the mother popped up on Denise and my side of the boat so close that it actually startled us! I only managed to snap the picture on the right. It was absolutely incredible!
Today, with Matt and Maria working, Denise and I spent the day just bumming around the city, mainly Fisherman’s Wharf. For dinner, we ate at a delicious little pizza place called Tommaso’s.
While walking around San Francisco: “I’m telling you, these streets were laid out by Dr. Seuss.”
Denise and I arrived at SFO at about 8:30pm local time. We hopped the BART to downtown SF and took a cab to Matt and Maria’s place. We grabbed a quick bite to eat and hit the sack. Tomorrow should be more eventful.
Denise and I spent a gorgeous Sunday afternoon at Valleyfair today. The weather says it only got up to 83 degrees but it felt warmer walking around in the sun. So it felt pretty good to ride on a couple water rides (see the pic of Denise after getting drenched on the Flume on the right).
I thought the new Renegade coaster was really fun but Denise 
thought it was a little too–as she put it–”rickety”. In my opinion, that’s pretty much what can be expected from a wooden roller coaster.
I’m not typically one to fall prey to carny games, but the ginormous stuffed Stewie doll just called to me and I felt compelled to win it… for Denise, of course. On the 5th try, I was victorious (see left).
Like really old-fashioned. Like right out of the 70s. First up was a trip to the Taste of Minnesota where we dined on corn-on-the-cob, a corn dog for Denise and a foot-long hot dog for me. Oh yeah, and we rocked out to the Village People (see über-lame cell phone video number one or number two).
We decided we didn’t want to wait around for the couple hours after the Village People (mercifully) ended until the fireworks started so we headed out. Continuing 70s night, we stopped by the A&W drive-in. I, of co
urse, had a root beer freeze. But for some unknown reason (I think she was dropped on her head as a child), Denise doesn’t like root beer.
Not quite wanting to go home yet, we played a little late-night bingo. Despite coming close a few times, we won exactly $0.
Oh, and I almost forgot, after A&W we stopped to get the car washed. Check out video below of Denise being entertained by it. She’s so easily amused!
The fun continues tomorrow when we head to Valleyfair!
