Monday, November 27, 2006

Las Vegas for Thanksgiving

Spent last week in that bastion of capitalism, aka Las Vegas. My first visit there, and it was memorable for so many reasons, none of which included losing a ton of money or waking up with no memory of what went before.

We stayed at Bally's, right in the middle of the strip. It's opposite the Bellagio, famous for music coordinated fountains and the closing scene of "Oceans 11". Also, it's adjacent to the Paris hotel, where we went to celebrate Linda's birthday. We had a fantastic but hugely expensive dinner there in the Eiffel tower restaurant, overlooking the Bellagio. I'll be paying that one off for a few months!

All the hotels are huge, it took 15 minutes to get from the sidewalk outside our hotel to our room. It's really interesting to see how they are all themed, and how some even add scent to the air conditioning to cover the stink of cigarette smoke.

Not sure what was my favorite hotel to visit. The Bellagio was the classiest, with lot's of well dressed, tanned, attractive looking Europeans. Caesars palace was the size of a small town, and was one of my favorites. The Venetian, well what can you say to an indoor grand canal and gondolas. It may well be the closet I get to Venice (no wait, i have been there, well the plane landed to refuel on the return from Athens).

We saw the Cirque de Soleil (sp) "Mystere" show. That was amazing and funny and totally incredible.

And for our Thanksgiving day meal, well, we went non traditional and had first rate Asian food at PF Changs. I'll go back to that chain anytime.

As you can imagine, I did not do any excercise that raised the HR above zone 1, but we did walk, and walk, and walk. I have no clue how much poundage I gained, but I was not holding back on deserts, so I should not be surprised if the scales bust.

Went for a guilt run / shuffle yesterday, after bailing on Sat's team ride (sorry RB, just could not scrape myself outta the sack). Did 45 minutes, my longest since i started and the first with my fancy Adidas running shoes. I was slow, but damn i looked good.

Anyway's, back at the office desk now, and getting the routine back, so hopefully on the bike tomorrow.