So, we went to Las Vegas for a few days. We really wanted to see Star Trek: The Experience and just experience the city. I will try to detail our time there.

Day 1, Thursday, 9-6

We had to have Matt take us to the airport and he had a class at 8:30, so we had to get up about 6 and be ready to go at about 7:30. We got to the airport at around 8 and had over 3 hours before we could board the plane. We went to the cafeteria area and had a little breakfast. By the time we were finished, the ticket counter had opened. We checked our bag and got through security and waited at the gate. It wasn’t too bad. It went faster than we thought it would. The flight was pretty bumpy, which I could have done without, but it was over soon enough. I got quite a bit of reading done. We got our bags, found our shuttle to the hotel. We stayed in Circus Circus. It was decent, but we went for inexpensive, not luxury.

After we dumped our bags at the hotel, we walked to the Greek Isles hotel to get tickets for the haunted tour around Vegas. It was so hot out that I had to rest a while at the Greek Isles. We walked back to our hotel and by the time we got there, I was exhausted. The heat and the walking took it out of me. We rested at the hotel until it was time to leave for the haunted tour that night. We walked back to the Greek Isles where we had to wait a while before getting to go. It lasted about 2 hours. There was lots of cool stuff in this tour, including celebrities and regular people that haunt regular places, hotels, and businesses. We visited Redd Fox’s home and were told that on several occasions, when the bus was out front, 3 of the vertical blinds would open and there was no one there. Bugsy Siegel haunts the Flamingo Hotel which he started to build. Elvis is said to haunt the Las Vegas Hilton where he spent a lot of time. He had the entire 30^th floor to live in and after his shows, he would take the freight elevator and hang out with the backstage crew until he could safely go back to his room. The creepiest thing was not a celebrity at all. We were taken to a park where 2 young brothers were killed. There is also a woman from the 1800’s who is seen sitting at a picnic table crying. We were given these metal rods, I can’t remember what they are called, but if you hold them level and move slowly around where spirits are supposed to be, sometimes they will either cross each other or they will turn outward. There were 8 people on the tour and all 8 of us had the same thing happen. We would move slowly toward where these boys have been seen and they rods would cross. We would step away and they would uncross. Everyone did this over and over again and had the same results every time. The tour guide said he has seen activity before, but rarely that strong. After the tour, we walked back to the hotel and crashed.

Day 2, Friday, 9-7

There was a comic and collectibles shop that I found on lasvegas.com that we wanted to check out. It was a few miles walk but we figured we could make it. So, we got up and walked there to try to get there when it opened at 10. It was super hot out, so I was beat by the time we got there and then, the shop wasn’t there anymore. It was closed and there was a Sci-Fi shop opening in its place, which would have been fine except it didn’t open until Monday, September 10. I was a mess, so we started back toward the Las Vegas Hilton where Star Trek: The Experience is. I was exhausted, so we stopped at a record store to try to cool off a little, but the air conditioning wasn’t great in there, so it didn’t work too well. I decided to suck it up and keep going. I had to slow it way down because the heat just zapped everything from me.

We got to the Hilton and bought the tickets for the package we wanted. It was sort of the full experience. It included tickets to the rides, a behind the scenes tour, a meal at the restaurant Quark’s, photos taken on the bridge and in a Borg regeneration chamber, and free gifts from the gift shop. Since I was so hot and sweaty, we decided to get food so I had time to cool off. Part of our package was free pilsner glasses from the restaurant. They brought us those and we decided to get the other free gifts and have Greg run them over to our hotel so we didn’t have to carry them around. So, Greg left me with some cash to play the slots while he ran over there. I started by taking some pictures around Star Trek: The Experience. It really is amazing there. I will post some pictures that will show that.

Then, I sat down at a Twilight Zone penny slot machine and put in $1. After playing for a little while, I was over $1. Then, I hit something that got $10. That put me over $11 total. I continued to play until I was down to $10 even and I cashed out. I then took another dollar and played a Star Wars penny slot machine. This one was not so good to me. I lost that dollar pretty quickly, but that’s OK. I was bored with slot machines, so I started looking around some of the shops in the Hilton. That’s some neat stuff, but it was kinda spendy. Then, I just sat on a bench waiting for Greg.

He got back and we decided to go through the Behind the Scenes tour first. This was pretty cool. They let you in on some secrets that you wouldn’t know otherwise. We then went through the Borg 4D ride. While we were waiting, there were 3 Borg statues behind glass. One of their heads moved. He kept looking at me and it was freaking me out. Then, we went on the ride. It was a great ride, can’t say much about it, but it was fun. We then went to get our photos taken. On the bridge, we could be in each other’s pictures, we had one with Greg in the Captain’s chair and I was in Counselor Troi’s chair and another with me in the Captain’s chair and Greg in Commander Riker’s chair. We then each got one taken in the Borg regeneration chamber. That room is cool because they have 2 Borg statues on each side of the one you stand in, but they also have sound effects going the whole time. This is an actual set piece from the movies. Very cool. We then went through the museum and took some pictures there. They have some very cool stuff in there. The pictures should show that as well. We then went on the Klingon Encounter ride. This is awesome because you get to go on a transporter ride. I don’t know what Dr. McCoy was complaining about all those years. It was pretty cool. We then went through the gift shop and spent some money. We were in geek heaven, how could we not? We then went to the Rio to get our tickets for Penn & Teller the next night. We then went to our hotel.

Star Trek: The Experience is great. If it was just a restaurant, a couple of rides, and some decorations, it wouldn’t be as cool. They have actors walking around made up as some of the aliens. They have a Borg, an Andorian, a couple of Klingons, and a Ferengi. Not the nicest species. We didn’t experience this, but we were told that if you antagonize them, they will not be nice about it. If you ask them, they will allow you to take pictures of them and with them. The Ferengi was funny while we were eating. He thanked Greg and I for not sharing. Then, he was barely looking over a glass partition looking at a table of ladies. They started laughing because they were kind of startled. I don’t know what was said, but he started snarling at them and walked away. I had my own startling experience. We were eating and I suddenly heard something behind me. I glanced around and there was a Borg standing behind me scanning the area. It kind of scared me. Even if you only sort of enjoy some of the Star Trek shows, I think you’ll have a great time here. You just have to let yourself get into it and you’ll love it.

Day 3, Saturday, 9-8

We had found an outlet mall on the lasvegas.com site and thought it might be interesting. We got ready to go and when we were ready to go, there was still about an hour before the mall opened, so we went downstairs and played some penny slots. All Greg had were $5 bills and couldn’t figure out the bill breaker machine, so we each put in $5 and just said we’d watch what we spent. My machine didn’t seem to like me being under $5. If I went under, it would give me 40 points to push me over $5 again. I was getting bored, but Greg was still going. Once I hit $4 left, I cashed out. Greg on the other hand, blew all $5 one penny at a time. When I cashed out, Greg only had about 30 cents left. He didn’t have the luck on his side. He also doesn’t know when to call it a day on a machine. All in all, we ended up with 25 cents more than we spent gambling. So, technically, we made money gambling in Vegas.

Then, it was time to grab a cab and head to the Las Vegas Outlet Mall. They had all sorts of different stores, but we didn’t spend a lot of money there. The best thing about this mall was that it had a Disney Outlet Store. This is where they send the stuff that was exclusive to the Disney theme parks when it has been around for a while. This was a cool store. We found a few cool things there. There was a Fedex Kinkos out there too, so we decided to ship our purchases home because we knew we’d be close after the stuff we bought at Star Trek: The Experience. This would just give us a few less things to worry about packing. Then, we walked back to the main entrance of the mall to catch a cab to the MGM Grand hotel.

At the MGM Grand, we ate in one of their restaurants. Then, we checked out a little of the Lion Habitat. Just walking into the entrance, there were 2 lions lying on top of the clear hallway coming in. That was a really weird thing to see. We then went out and continued to walk up the strip. We stopped into one souvenir shop and kept going until we hit the Bellagio Hotel and the Dancing Fountains. I had started not feeling so well shortly after leaving the MGM Grand and thought I would be OK. We caught the last few minutes of the Dancing Fountain show that was going on, but not much. Once it was over, they announced that it would be about 20 minutes until the next show started. I knew I couldn’t make it that long and I didn’t want to go into the hotel to get sick, so I asked Greg if we could go back to our hotel. He wasn’t thrilled about it, but we went. Since I was hanging out at the hotel, he decided to head back to the Hilton. On Friday, we saw that someone from Star Trek: The Original Series was going to be there signing autographs, Beverly Washburn. She was also in Shane, Old Yeller, Spider Baby, The Lone Ranger, and Superman and the Mole-Men. Greg said that since there was no one else around, he got to stand and talk to her for several minutes. He got autographs for both of us and headed back in a much better mood than when he left. We relaxed for a while and then got ready to go to Penn and Teller.

At 7:30 we went to get a cab and head to the Rio Hotel. We wandered around looking for the Penn and Teller Theater. After a while, we found it, but there was a gate up, so we couldn’t go in and we couldn’t look at their gift shop. So, we went back out to the casino and found some more penny slots. I played $1 for a while and got bored so I went and watched Greg. He played $1 on one machine, got sick of it and moved to a different machine. He cashed out with $1.50.

Then, we went searching for water. We were both really thirsty, but couldn’t find a shop open. Finally, we went to the bar and asked if they had bottled water. They did! Yay! 8 oz. water for $3. We were going to make that last for a while.

When we headed back toward the Penn & Teller Theater, we saw that they were just letting people in. We first got our books that came with the tickets we purchased. Then we found our seats. We were in the 4^th row off to the side. There was a guy playing piano and Penn was playing the stand up bass. They were pretty good. We thought for a long time that the guy playing piano was Teller but then looked through the book and found that he was listed in there. The show was amazing. There are too many things that they did that boggled my mind to go into too much detail, but just know that if you are ever in Las Vegas this show is well worth the price of admission. It is not just a magic show, it is really funny too. After the show, Penn and Teller were out signing autographs and taking pictures with people. We didn’t have a camera, but we both got autographs. They were great!!

After the show, we got in line to get a cab and headed back to our hotel. Once at the hotel, we had to get our stuff packed and get ready to go because our shuttle was going to be there to get us at 3 in the morning. Our flight was at 6:25. We got all of our stuff together and tried to get a little bit of sleep. It didn’t work because we were afraid the alarm wouldn’t work. We had set it on the first day and it didn’t go off. So the few hours that we might have gotten to sleep were spent tossing and turning and watching the clock.

Day 4, Sunday, 9-10

We got up at 2 to get dressed and make sure we had everything together. We were in the lobby at about 2:30 waiting for the shuttle. At about 10 minutes before 3 we went outside where the shuttle would be picking us up. There was a group of people sitting out there already. Greg says one of them was Flavor Flav, but I didn’t see him. That guy and another guy left on one of those little motorcycles (crotch rocket). The shuttle was about 25 minutes late because it had other people to pick up from other hotels. It doesn’t matter; we got to the airport in plenty of time. The airport ticket counters didn’t open until 4 and we were probably 20 minutes early and just got to stand in line waiting for it to open. We got through security and found our gate. Greg grabbed some Cinnabon for breakfast and we grabbed a newspaper. Otherwise, we just had to wait for the flight to start boarding. What was weird is someone kept coming over the intercom and telling jokes like if you have lost $5000 with a yellow rubber band around it, we found the rubber band and stuff like that. That catches you off guard at that odd hour of the morning.

Greg and I both tried to sleep on the flight back, but were unsuccessful. Greg kept waking himself up. I kept waking up because of noise around me. Every time I was almost asleep, a door would slam or someone would close an overhead compartment. Even with my ipod, I couldn’t drown it out. Plus it was super cold. It was so cold that I had to buy a blanket to cover up. The great part of the flight was that I kind of overcame the fears I had of flying. On the flight out there, Greg was next to the window and he was feeling claustrophobic, so I offered to sit next to the window on the way back. I watched us take off and once I figured out that I wasn’t going to be able to sleep, I left the shade open and watched the flight. There were quite a few clouds, so there wasn’t much to see. I wanted to see us fly through the clouds and that was awesome. Then, I was fixated on the farmland and the little houses and stuff like that. Then, when we came closer to the city, I was trying to figure out where we were. I found that and before I knew it, we were right over the runway. It was really cool.

We arrived to the airport early but there was another plane at our gate, so we sat on the runway for about 25 minutes waiting for this plane to move. As soon as we landed, I had texted Matt to let him know we were early. Even though our plane landed 20 minutes early, we got off the plane about 10 minutes late. Matt and Crystal were waiting for us. We loaded our carry on stuff into his car and went back in to wait for our bag. The temperature was about half of what it was in Vegas. If was only about 52 and we were used to temps over 100. It was chilly. We got home and showed Matt and Crystal the stuff we bought. Once they left, we crashed for a while. We were exhausted. Thus ends my epic tale of our trip to Las Vegas.

Random Observation: I enjoy people watching. One thing that I noticed is lots and lots of women running around the city in high heels. Running around a casino is one thing, but walking down the strip is another thing. I wore tennis shoes the whole time and my feet and legs were a mess. I have blisters on blisters and my legs are so stiff and sore it isn’t even funny. I know I weigh more than most of the women in Vegas but I saw some larger women wearing them too. In my opinion, they should only be worn for very special occasions, not every day.