Thursday, January 7, 2010

The City of Lost Wages

D and I decided to celebrate our anniversary the week between christmas and new years. D has been wanting to see Penn and Teller for a long time so we got tickets, reserved a hotel room and went to Las Vegas for a couple of days.
I have to admit Las Vegas is not one of my favorite places. I hate all the cigarette smoke and not being any sort of a gambler at all I just don't see the point. I do love the cool buildings and the shows but you always feel a little dirty after walking around with hispanic men shoving pictures of naked women in your face as you walk down the sidewalks.
Penn and Teller were awesome. We had excellent seats and enjoyed the show. It is amazing what they can do. Penn (the tall one that talks) does have some interesting political views which he expresses throughout but the show is well worth the money to see. Our hotel room was nice. D sprung for the view room so we were on the 17th floor with an beautiful view of the strip. We stayed at the Rio as that was where the show was. I do not know if I would stay there again. While it was all clean and the room was big and roomy the hotel reeks of smoke and even in a non-smoking room you still get a lot in your room.
We had hoped to get tickets to see Cique's Love at the Mirage but the show was sold out. We settled for looking at cool stuff at the Beatles store and taking pictures. We did go to the secret garden at the mirage and saw the tigers and dophins. We also stood in line (seemed to be the one thing we did everyday) at the Luxor to get tickets to see the Titanic exhibit. It was cool but I was very offended by the "Photo Opp" in the middle of the exhibit when they took your picture on the re-created grand staircase. I thought it was very tasteless and wrong when they took your picture when you went in the exhibit and then to spoil the mood of the exhibit by taking your picture in the middle. The best part of the exhibit was the "big piece" which is the large part of the hull of the titanic that they raised a few years ago and have preserved. I think the exhibit that came to Salt Lake a few years ago was a better exhibit with more artifacts and a better done set up.
Coming home was interesting we drove from Cedar City to Scipio in a major snow storm. It took us eight hours to get home. It was a fun trip but I did not like all of the long and slow lines. We spent so much time standing in line we stood in line for dinner, lunch to buy tickets to ride the shuttle back to the hotel. For a city that wants the tourist to come back (especially the adult tourist) they really don't seem to want to make you want to come back. I told D next time we were going to stay in the new hotel with no casino and such. I am willing to pay the extra!