Anyway, so I figured I would share them with you all. Enjoy!
Monday, June 18, 2012
We Are Family
We went to the Rose Garden in Julia Davis Park downtown and took some family portraits. This is the first time I've tried to take our family portraits myself, rather than go to a studio. It made them a lot cheaper ($12 total for 4 8x10 prints!) and I think they turned out alright. I still have things to learn about doing portrait photography, and I know a few things I will do differently next time we do this, but I think they turned out well enough that we will do this again.
Anyway, so I figured I would share them with you all. Enjoy!
Anyway, so I figured I would share them with you all. Enjoy!
Sunday, June 3, 2012
Viva Las Vegas
So we just got back from our summer trip - this year we went to Zion National Park, the Grand Canyon, and Las Vegas. Everything was new for all of us, as none of us had ever been to any of these places before. It was really tiring, but it was a great trip.
First of all, we drove the long haul, from Boise to St. George. This was a really long drive, but we wanted to get the longest part behind us at the beginning of the trip, when we were fresh and could take it better. We stayed in the Best Western Abbey Inn in St. George, and really enjoyed it. If you travel through there, we highly recommend it. It was probably our favorite stay the whole trip.
The next day, we drove from St. George to the Grand Canyon, passing through Zion National Park along the way. The girls really thought the 1 mile long tunnel was cool. It was certainly the longest tunnel I've ever driven through. As an interesting side note - the tunnel has two lanes for traffic, but they only let one direction through at a time. Once we got in there, I commented that they probably did that because they were worried that the two lanes were too narrow for two directions to pass at the same time - but in Germany, they'd have no problem with the width as it was; in fact there are plenty of two way roads narrower than that all over Germany.
We stayed overnight in a tiny little town called Tusayan, just 10 minutes south of the Grand Canyon. It seems that the only purpose of this town is to host about 6 hotels, a couple of restaurants, an IMAX theater, and the airport where a bunch of Grand Canyon helicopter tours take off. The next day, we saw some more of the Grand Canyon, and then headed off for Las Vegas.
On the way to Vegas from the Grand Canyon, we realized that we were traveling along some of what was once Route 66, the old Mother Road. We even had lunch in a cool little '50s period cafe.
In Vegas, we stayed in THE Hotel at Mandalay Bay. This was a really nice place, but it was so HUGE. You had to walk forever around the casino to get to the pool, or pretty much anything else.
It was quite nice, however. While we were in Vegas, we saw a number of the cooler hotel/casinos - The Excalibur, The Luxor, The Venetian, The Bellagio, The Paris, New York New York, The MGM Grand, Circus Circus, Caesar's Palace, and The Mirage.
In retrospect, I wish we had known a little more what these things were like beforehand, so we could know what was worth seeing, and what was a waste of time. Circus Circus, for example, sounded really cool, but was actually a real disappointment. I had expected "the world's only permanent circus" to have high wire and trapeze acts going on almost all the time, perhaps with some smaller things in-between as filler, but instead we got a fairly tame tumbling act every half hour or so. It looks like they do have trapeze acts occasionally, but we would have had to hang around for a long time to see one. When you add how old and smoky Circus Circus is, and how far north up the strip it is (quite far from the other main attractions), it just wasn't worth the trip. Oh, while I'm on that subject, the Las Vegas monorail is almost completely useless, unless you are visiting one of the hotels that are actually physically at one one of the stations. The ones where it says this is the "closest station" for getting to such and such a place are incredibly far to walk.
Also, the "Fall of Atlantis" animatronic show sounded like it might be interesting, but it was completely not worth the walk. You couldn't understand any of the dialog, and the animatronics were like something Disneyland might have thrown away 20 years ago. By contrast, the Venetian was really impressive, and the period street performers we saw there was a really fun free show. The plaza where they performed was quite amazing - the ceiling was painted such that it looked like the early twilight sky, and you really felt like you were in a plaza in Venice, especially with the gondolas rowing along the canal.
The "M&M World" store was basically just a big souvenir shop, but it was kind of fun. We met a young couple from Brazil there, and I tried to break out some of my very rusty Portuguese. we actually saw them again at the Luxor, which was kind of funny. We also saw a couple of shows that were really fun. The Blue Man Group was really cool, and the Tournament of Kings dinner show at the Excalibur was neat. After that show, the girls had some fun playing games in Excalibur's "Fun Dungeon".
Of course, we had to have the Las Vegas gambling experience, so our last night, we set the girls in front of the Disney channel with instructions to open the door for no one and headed down to the casino. I had $65 in cash, so we set that as our limit - when it was gone, we were done. We played a couple of slot machines, and I fairly quickly turned $3 into almost $40. I wanted to try my hand at blackjack, or even poker, but got intimidated by the other people at the tables. I really didn't know what I was doing, and I didn't think I was gambling enough money to be able to fit in, so I opted for roulette instead. There, over a little while, I turned $10 into $100. I should have quit at this point, because we were totally ahead here. Of course, I didn't, and not only did I lose the winnings, but ended up losing the rest of the money we set aside as well. The last little bit we had left, we tried on a slot machine again, and ended up with 5 cents. So, we went from $65 to 5 cents. We're going to put that nickel into our scrapbook. *chuckle*
Upshot - like the '80s movie "War Games", "the only winning move is not to play". Or, at least, I totally should have quit while I still had that $140 I had won. Ah well. It was definitely a good idea to set aside an allowance and stick to it. Once it was gone, we were done. We just should have been done BEFORE it was gone. *chuckle*
First of all, we drove the long haul, from Boise to St. George. This was a really long drive, but we wanted to get the longest part behind us at the beginning of the trip, when we were fresh and could take it better. We stayed in the Best Western Abbey Inn in St. George, and really enjoyed it. If you travel through there, we highly recommend it. It was probably our favorite stay the whole trip.
The next day, we drove from St. George to the Grand Canyon, passing through Zion National Park along the way. The girls really thought the 1 mile long tunnel was cool. It was certainly the longest tunnel I've ever driven through. As an interesting side note - the tunnel has two lanes for traffic, but they only let one direction through at a time. Once we got in there, I commented that they probably did that because they were worried that the two lanes were too narrow for two directions to pass at the same time - but in Germany, they'd have no problem with the width as it was; in fact there are plenty of two way roads narrower than that all over Germany.
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| The entrance to Zion National Park |
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| Zion National Park |
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| Zion National Park |
We stayed overnight in a tiny little town called Tusayan, just 10 minutes south of the Grand Canyon. It seems that the only purpose of this town is to host about 6 hotels, a couple of restaurants, an IMAX theater, and the airport where a bunch of Grand Canyon helicopter tours take off. The next day, we saw some more of the Grand Canyon, and then headed off for Las Vegas.
 |
| Grand Canyon panorama |
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| Grand Canyon, Desert View Watchtower |
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| Grand Canyon, Desert View Watchtower |
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| Grand Canyon |
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| Grand Canyon |
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| Grand Canyon |
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| Grand Canyon |
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| Grand Canyon |
On the way to Vegas from the Grand Canyon, we realized that we were traveling along some of what was once Route 66, the old Mother Road. We even had lunch in a cool little '50s period cafe.
In Vegas, we stayed in THE Hotel at Mandalay Bay. This was a really nice place, but it was so HUGE. You had to walk forever around the casino to get to the pool, or pretty much anything else.
It was quite nice, however. While we were in Vegas, we saw a number of the cooler hotel/casinos - The Excalibur, The Luxor, The Venetian, The Bellagio, The Paris, New York New York, The MGM Grand, Circus Circus, Caesar's Palace, and The Mirage.
In retrospect, I wish we had known a little more what these things were like beforehand, so we could know what was worth seeing, and what was a waste of time. Circus Circus, for example, sounded really cool, but was actually a real disappointment. I had expected "the world's only permanent circus" to have high wire and trapeze acts going on almost all the time, perhaps with some smaller things in-between as filler, but instead we got a fairly tame tumbling act every half hour or so. It looks like they do have trapeze acts occasionally, but we would have had to hang around for a long time to see one. When you add how old and smoky Circus Circus is, and how far north up the strip it is (quite far from the other main attractions), it just wasn't worth the trip. Oh, while I'm on that subject, the Las Vegas monorail is almost completely useless, unless you are visiting one of the hotels that are actually physically at one one of the stations. The ones where it says this is the "closest station" for getting to such and such a place are incredibly far to walk.
Also, the "Fall of Atlantis" animatronic show sounded like it might be interesting, but it was completely not worth the walk. You couldn't understand any of the dialog, and the animatronics were like something Disneyland might have thrown away 20 years ago. By contrast, the Venetian was really impressive, and the period street performers we saw there was a really fun free show. The plaza where they performed was quite amazing - the ceiling was painted such that it looked like the early twilight sky, and you really felt like you were in a plaza in Venice, especially with the gondolas rowing along the canal.
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| Period street performers in The Venetian |
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| The Plaza in The Venetian |
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| The volcano in front of the Mirage |
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| New York New York |
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| The Excalibur |
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| Outside the Luxor |
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| Inside the Luxor |
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| The Eiffel Tower at The Paris |
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| The lobby of the Bellagio |
The "M&M World" store was basically just a big souvenir shop, but it was kind of fun. We met a young couple from Brazil there, and I tried to break out some of my very rusty Portuguese. we actually saw them again at the Luxor, which was kind of funny. We also saw a couple of shows that were really fun. The Blue Man Group was really cool, and the Tournament of Kings dinner show at the Excalibur was neat. After that show, the girls had some fun playing games in Excalibur's "Fun Dungeon".
 |
| M&M World |
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| Waiting for the Blue Man Group show |
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| Poster outside the Blue Man Group theater |
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| Waiting for the Tournament of Kings to begin |
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| The Tournament of Kings arena |
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| The "Irish King," after the performance |
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| Playing in the Fun Dungeon |
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| Playing in the Fun Dungeon |
Of course, we had to have the Las Vegas gambling experience, so our last night, we set the girls in front of the Disney channel with instructions to open the door for no one and headed down to the casino. I had $65 in cash, so we set that as our limit - when it was gone, we were done. We played a couple of slot machines, and I fairly quickly turned $3 into almost $40. I wanted to try my hand at blackjack, or even poker, but got intimidated by the other people at the tables. I really didn't know what I was doing, and I didn't think I was gambling enough money to be able to fit in, so I opted for roulette instead. There, over a little while, I turned $10 into $100. I should have quit at this point, because we were totally ahead here. Of course, I didn't, and not only did I lose the winnings, but ended up losing the rest of the money we set aside as well. The last little bit we had left, we tried on a slot machine again, and ended up with 5 cents. So, we went from $65 to 5 cents. We're going to put that nickel into our scrapbook. *chuckle*
Upshot - like the '80s movie "War Games", "the only winning move is not to play". Or, at least, I totally should have quit while I still had that $140 I had won. Ah well. It was definitely a good idea to set aside an allowance and stick to it. Once it was gone, we were done. We just should have been done BEFORE it was gone. *chuckle*
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