Las Vegas Pictures

This past Sunday and Monday we were in Las Vegas with our friends Dan and Carol.  There was a lot of gambling and a lot of fun, not much winning.  I gave up early Monday and decided to ride a bus that was available for getting from one place to another on the "Strip".  The bus went from one end of the "Strip" to the other and you could get on and off as often as you liked.  It only cost $8.00 for a one day pass.  A good deal and I used it to the fullest.  I got on near the middle of the "Strip" and rode all the way to the end and then all the way back to the other end and finally back to near the middle where I got on.  It was about a 2 hour trip.  The following pictures were mostly taken during the bus ride.  The first 4 were taken from our room on the 29 floor of the Treasure Island casino hotel and the last two were taken while I was walking on the street.

 

Entrance to the Treasure Island Hotel and Casino from our room.

 

 

The Palazzo Hotel and Casino from our room window.

 

 

The Venetian Hotel and Casino from our room.

 

 

The Wynn Hotel and Casino from our room.  The area just to the right of the building with all the trees is a golf course.

 

 

Part of the "Strip"

 

 

MGM Hotel and Casino

 

 

Entrance to the MGM

 

 

The Mandalay Bay

 

 

MGM Lion and Lady GaGa

 

 

Monte Carlo entrance

 

 

The camera was NOT tilted.  These two building lean away from each other as they get taller.  I still don't know what they are, hotels, office buildings?

 

 

Everybody knows Bubba Gump

 

 

Entrance to the Paris hotel and casino

 

 

These two "gentlemen" were outside a construction project on the "Strip" 

 

 

Harahs hotel and casino on the right and Treasure Island in the distance.

 

 

I think this was a hotel/casino, but not sure which one.

 

 

Getting closer to the space needle building

 

 

Space needle

 

 

Another casino with a nice statute out front.

 

 

This billboard was along the way on the "Strip".  Not sure what all their "products" might be.

 

 

Encore hotel and casino.

 

 

This shot shows the tower our rooms were in.  It is the one on the right and our room was only a couple rooms from the end on the 29th of 36 floors.

 

 

Caesars Palace entrance.

 

 

Ballys entrance near Paris.

 

 

This guy would strike a pose and stay that way for several minutes.  He looked like a statue until you looked real close.

 

 

Same guy in another pose.  Don't know anything about the ad on the truck.

 

 

That is the end of the show.  Hope you enjoyed it.

 

Patrick

 

Casino Trip

Yesterday we took our good friends Carol and Dan to the casino that is on the other side of Lake Havasu.  It is a nice boat trip and the restaurant there is a nice place to eat.  We made an afternoon of it and had a nice time.  The following pictures are of the boat that takes customers to the casino and also one nice picture of Carol and Dan.  They have big smiles because they had some good luck at the casino.  Pat and I mostly just had a good time.

 

This is the boat on its way back to Lake Havasu City to both return people going home and to pick up the next group wanting to come out to the casino.  Please ignore the blur.

 

 

This is the boat pulling into the dock at the casino  The next picture is just another shot of the same boat pulling in.

 

 

 

This picture is of Carol and Dan with their big winning smiles.

 

 

 

Patrick

Oatman AZ

Today we took a road trip to Oatman Arizona which is around 58 miles from Lake Havasu City.  Its big claim to fame are the wild Burros that roam the main street of the town,  It is an old mining town that the famous route 66 goes through which is the main street.  They also have old western gun fights there on the weekends and today they also were having the annual bed races.  The town was full of people and Burros.  The following pictures cover our day.

 

This is the first picture I took as we came onto Main street from where we parked the truck.  These are some of the Burros that roam the town.

 

 

This is the first picture of the guys preparing to do the gun fight.  The story was that they were going to rob the bank. 

 

 

These are two of the gun fighters, the one on the right is carrying the bag of money they got at the bank and they are on their way to Mexico.

 

 

There was a disagreement with one another member of the gang and this poor fellow was the first one shot as the gun fighting started.

 

 

This is the guy that didn't think the guys should go to Mexico and then shot the guy above and also shot the guy you can see on the ground at the top of the picture.  He is now the only one of the robbers left.

 

 

It was then that the Sheriff showed up and tried to stop the guy above.  You can see the Sheriff just hitting the ground with his feet in the air after being shot.  Prior to the shooting he had asked the bad guy to be sure and hit him square in the chest which the bad guy did,  The end of the story was that the Sheriff had a steel plate under his shirt and he got up and shot the bad guy and the play was all over.  The good guy wins again.

 

 

This is a new friend that Pat made.  The Burros are real friendly.

 

 

Another picture of Pat and her new friend.

 

 

This is the Oatman Post Office and it is a real operating Post Office.

 

 

This is the main street of Oatman looking south from the north end of the street.

 

 

One of the higher class shops in Oatman. 

 

 

A couple of the characters that wander around town.  He had just fired that shotgun he carrying and it was very loud.  She was giving candy to the kids. 

 

 

This is the emcee for the bed races.  He said they got him out of bed early this morning and he only had time to put his hat and boots on.

 

 

This was the first team in the bed race and they were in the process of putting the sheet on the bed and the pillow cases on the pillows.  The rules of the race were for four people to push a bed with one person on it around 50 feet to where a table was with a mattress on it and a pile of sheets and pillow cases.  They had to put the fitted sheet on the bed and pillow cases on the four pillows and then push the bed back the 50 feet to the starting line.  This was all timed and the fastest team wins.

 

 

This was the second team heading for the table with the mattress.

 

 

This was that same team putting the sheet on the mattress and the pillow cases on the pillows.

 

 

 

And this is the same team on the way back to the starting line.  Their time was 34 seconds and they were fastest the last we heard.  We gave up watching at that point because we couldn't see all that much.  I would guess there were at least 200-300 people surrounding the area where they were doing the races. 

 

 

 This is a scenery shot we took as we were leaving Oatman.  The hills were very pretty in the sunshine, but it didn't show up well in the picture. 

 

 

A second scenery shot.

 

 

And that was our trip to Oatman.  Hope you enjoyed it as much as we did.

 

Patrick

Nice Views

This weekend was the Hot Air Balloon Festival here.  The past 3 mornings, the hot air balloons would take off over the lake.  On our way to breakfast this morning, we were able to get a few pictures.  In addition to the balloons, the background scenery isn't bad either.

 

 

 

Rugged Country

This afternoon we met a high school classmate and his wife at a place that's tucked way back in the Buckskin Mountains near Parker, AZ.  Once we turned off the main highway, we had about 6 miles of rough and hilly roads with top speed of about 15 mph.

 

 This is just one wall - no building behind it.

My classmate, Jim Johnson, is sitting to the right of Patrick; his wife, Sara, is second from left.  The other couple are friends of Jim & Sara (forgot their names).

This is the main attraction - Desert Bar - all outdoor seating and live music.  It's only open from noon to 6:00 pm and on weekends only.

After driving on this rough road for 6 miles, you can understand why they close at 6:00 pm.  It reminded me of climbing Pikes Peak with no rail guards and narrow road.

 

It was a fun afternoon and we would have never known about this if Jim hadn't told us.  It's definitely an experience we'll remember.