The sun is up and Andrew and I are up… it doesn’t matter that we didn’t get to sleep until 2 am. We soaked in Joyce and George’s hot tub for a little while, worked on the computers and had lunch at Dona Maria, a tamale shop that was recommended. They had a great green sauce and all the food was really good.
We took Joyce and George out to dinner at BJ’s Restaurant and Brewhouse they liked nearby. Pretty good beer for a chain brewery. They recommended a few shows to see and cautioned us on a few that were not worth seeing. They also gave us a tip on parking; the casinos have free valet parking, all you pay is a tip when you pick it up. Far easier than trying to find on-street parking anywhere. So the best bet is to valet park and walk or take mass transit to where you want to go.
It was getting late, but we headed back out to the Strip. This time, Andrew (being the big kid that he is) wanted to check out the Big Top at Circus Circus. This is a casino with carnival rides and circus acts along with all the usual cheesy Midway games. I guess the Idea is to keep the kids occupied while Mom and Dad loose all their educational funds gambling. In comparison to the night before, Circus Circus seemed older and kind of sleazy. The ceilings were lower and the cigarette smoke was terrible (Bellagio seemed to have a great air handling system, we couldn’t smell smokers at all). The most annoying thing was the people trying to sell us time-shares in their affiliated condo units. They were giving away free tickets to crappy shows in exchange for us to sit thru several hours of time-share hard sell the next day. No thanks! We were approached by perhaps a dozen people with the same time-share company.
We left Circus Circus and walked around the north end of the strip, but all the places seemed old and run down. It was late and we were tired from the night before. We were back atr the house a little after midnight.