Doug's Sounding Board

Julie & Fish were going to be spending two weeks there and rented a house. We were invited to join them for a weekend so after a lot of figuring out, we made the journey.

Thanks to for watching the dogs and cat for the weekend, and thanks to for letting the dogs out Friday afternoon.

We drove because flying is too expensive right now. The drive there was uneventful. We stayed Thursday night in Buttonwillow and continued on to arrive for lunch on Friday. Friday night we went to wander the strip. After watching the Atlantis animatronic thing in Caesar’s (bad animatronics and bad sound) we tried to get out to get to some other casino. 15 minutes later we managed to find an exit.

From there we went to Paris where I won $5 on The Price is Right slots. We were hungry but the restaurants there had a 2-hour wait so we went in search of a less popular place to eat. Standing outside it was about 90 with a strong breeze which felt nice and after the crazy guy walked by we decided on Bally’s. After a few minutes we found Chang’s and had good chinese food.

After dinner we played Hot Hot Penny slots where Julie won $70. From there we wandered to the Bellagio and got some gelato and watched the fountains for a few songs.

Saturday morning my Uncle Dave and his wife, Carol, picked us up and we went to breakfast at Arizona Station. It was good to catch up with them since it’s apparently been 13 years since last we met. After that it was an afternoon of laying around. Nicole and I drove north of town to look at Red Rock so we took the scenic rout and looked at scenery. Scenery that day included a dead body. Two police trucks and two other trucks were parked in a turn-out and there was a sheet over the body. There was no sign of an accident so we were thinking heart attack. When we got back Nicole went to the Liberace museum with Fish and had a great time. That night we went to Starbucks for the internet to look up possibilitied for Nicole staying longer, but it ended up that she was coming home with me on Sunday.

Sunday we had breakfast at Blueberry Hill (good pancakes) and then got ready for the drive home. We learned that going through Barstow Sunday afternoon is a bad move.

The population has tripled there in the last 6 years.

I think the police there are the busiest of any police I’ve seen. They either have someone pulled over or they are rushing to go somewhere with sirens on.

There are no minor accidents, when the wreck they do it right. Lots of crazy drivers too.