Las Vegas Trip Day 7 -- I love the smell of burning waffles in the morning.

Woke up this morning to the smell of burning waffles. The motel offers a self serve breakfast room where guests can get Danish rolls, cereal or make waffles on one of those flip-over waffle makers. They have two but one runs hot and burns the waffles.  We stayed at this motel last week and they had only one machine plugged in but some helpful person plugged in the hot one.

The Belgian Waffle was a topic of discussion this week because the US Men's World Cup soccer team was due to play the Belgian team and some wise guy decided we should boycott Belgian Waffles. Well, they played yesterday and it was a good game but the US team lost in the last few minutes in overtime. So, today I ate my Belgian Waffle as a salute to the hard fought game and the final winners....Belgium.

At breakfast I looked at the USA Today newspaper and it is odd how different people can watch the same soccer match and see different things. Everyone praised our goalie - Tim Howard - for his saves (16) but then there were some who complained that the US team's defenses were nonexistent. Belgium was a tough opponent, we have the best goalie in the World Cup, we needed to take the ball to their goal. We lost by one point in overtime. Not bad.

We are in Flagstaff but we get home today. It shouldn't be much more than a four hour drive and we will be able to pick up Watson   He has been at the animal hospital with his Barbie doll.

On the way back we stopped in Winslow, Arizona, to take pictures of us "Standing on the corner in Winslow, Arizona."  They have a statue and a little scenario where folks stand and take their picture...complete with a flat-bed Ford. We went across the street to an old  Route 66 diner and had biscuits and gravy and watched the people come to take pictures. It's a continuous stream of people.

We made it home with Watson around 4:30. Happy to be home. Doing laundry. Gonna stay home for a while.

Las Vegas Trip - Day 6 -- Desert Storm

Today was our last day in Las Vegas. I always call it "Las Vegas" because I don't feel familiar enough to just call it "Vegas" and if I went only with its first name it would be "Las" and no one would know what I'm talking about. So, anyhoo, we checked out of the hotel. You can't beat the price of the room. Four days at the Riviera was cheaper than three nights at Econolodge on the interstate for the whole trip.

Jill went to the closing session  for the convention. B.J.Novak (The Office) was the speaker and he writes some kids books and was a good supporter of what libraries do. He will go to libraries and read to kids.

I spent my time drinking coffee and eating a scone and watching the World Cup. Even the workers were trying to watch the came. Argentina beat Switzerland but it was a tough match.  I walked around the convention hall...it was a little weird because crews were dismantling everything. The empty  rooms were a little spooky.... waiting for the next convention.

We finally hit the road around 11 AM and stopped for a lunch and then headed out of town. We got turned around a little but finally got it right. We stopped to take a look at Hoover Dam. It is a little costly to take the tour so we just did the pedestrian walk out on the new bridge.  Lake Mead is at its lowest level since it filled up originally. Power generation is curtailed to only a fraction of what it should be. The drought has everything in a tailspin but you wouldn't know it in Las Vegas.

It is a long drive from Hoover Dam down to Kingman AZ where you pick up I-40 going east.  I think I got a little too much heat walking out on the bridge to see the dam and that was added on top of all the other days of 110 degree heat in Las Vegas plus the motion and driving in the car. We climbed from the low spot near the dam (maybe 1200 ft.) up to over 7000 feet and I was feeling a little sick at times.

We headed east at Kingman into a huge thunderstorm that finally hit us a little east of Seligman. The rain was coming down in buckets and the roadway wasn't draining it off which made driving hazardous. A truck almost jack-knifed in front of us at one point. We saw a SUV that ran off the road and rolled several times in the median with smoke and steam pouring out of it. Some folks were stopped to help...it had just happened and it looked serious.  We had to creep along very slowly. The lightening was fearsome. Desert storms are extreme and dangerous but amazing to watch and experience.

We ran into a lot of road construction but finally made it to Flagstaff. We had a good supper and relaxed in the room.

Las Vegas Trip - Day 5 -- Stick a Fork in Me, I'm Done

Well....the merriment continues.  People are starting to get a little bedraggled and some are grumpy...but not me. The temperature today is 110 degrees and walking across the parking lot to the convention center (more than 2 football field lengths) is an ordeal.  Our hotel is one of the closest but it is still a 10-15 minute walk in the heat.


One of the vendors at the convention hall is selling shoe inserts. I bought a pair because of my sporadic foot problem (plantar fasciitis) and they work great. I went back today and bought another pair and got a coupon for a third pair.  I've been walking a lot and it feels good to be this active....especially since my feet are feeling OK.

So, what did we learn today?

• The publishers are starting to just give books away so they don't have to take them back home with them. Some are selling them for $1 to $5 each. I have somewhere around 50 books so far and I've paid $3.00 for the bunch. Librarians are starting to cull their collections and you find books laying around on tables or chairs in the convention hall or in the hotel. I found one at breakfast this morning that looks pretty good: Gutenberg's Apprentice by Alix Christie. 

• Librarians are more conscientious than corrections employees and are actually trying to attend the sessions even though this is day four. The sessions are still filling up.  I can recall some ACA congresses I attended where folks didn't last as long and sessions sometimes had only a dozen people.

• Slot machines are unkind. I brought a fair amount of gambling money with me and have only used a portion but it is easy to lose money.

•  I can't find where they keep the strippers.  I know they are here somewhere.

Well it is evening and Jill is at a librarian 'hunger games'  event where they act out the parts. I opted not to attend. This blog doesn't need to report on that. (Update....she had a good time.)

I watched the World Cup games: France and Germany won and will move into the quarter finals. Algeria and Nigeria go home. They are all good games.  USA plays Belgium tomorrow but  we will be on the road again.

We hauled some of our stuff to the car so we don't have to wrestle it all tomorrow
morning when we check out. The place is starting to thin out and is less crowded around the pool. We went down to the food court and had fast food. Eating here is expensive.

The Riviera Resort Casino is interesting because it dates to the era when entertainers like Jack Benny, Liberace, Barbra Streisand, Frank Sinatra and Elvis all performed here. Pavarotti performed here as did the Village People. It's a Rat Pack place. They have a plaque on the wall with the names of the performers who appeared in the showrooms. Now they have a Crazy Girls show, a Men show (sort of a Chippendale's thing) and a comedy club and sometimes a magician.

I think that Riviera's history is a strength.  If they try to compete with Bellagio or The Venetian they will fail.   Across the street is a huge construction site for some new casino development. I'm sure that it will try to out-do the top tier casinos and will make the Riviera look even older.  

Our room was nice but a little bit 1970-ish. Some parts of the hotel have been recently renovated but ours is still untouched by the 2010s.  We have blond furniture, a lamp that sags over to one side, a little make-up station and a flat screen TV.  The bathroom is very nice and roomy.  There is no microwave or refrigerator. There is no coffee pot. The hotel doesn't provide a breakfast.


So we head for home tomorrow.  I'm ready to go home but I might come back. This was my first time here and there's a lot to do. I had a good time.