PEOPLE WHO ARE VIOLENT TO ANIMALS RARELY STOP THERE!

Monday, September 17, 2012

Day 1 ( Monday)

Day 1 started way too early for  most of us, as we got up at 4:30 am to get showered, get dressed, have breakfast and be ready for the 6:15 am shuttle to the Buffalo Airport. We choose to fly with Southwest, as it was the cheapest airline and I must say I was impressed, despite the "horror stories" about Southwest from the TV show "Airline" and things I have read, it was all but that, so that was nice. The flight left on time at 7:55 am. Due to the plane being relatively empty we each had our own row to sit in and spread out, nothing worse than being crammed into the narrow airplane seats. The flight was pleasant and the scenery we saw was amazing. Flying over Colorado and the mountains was just beautiful. And then you saw the first outlines of desert living and desert mountains. So beautiful. We landed a little bit ahead of schedule in Las Vegas, getting of the plane a gentleman tapped me on the shoulder and handed me his business card, apparently he had overheard me as we boarded the plane in Buffalo talking to some fellow Canadians about the Donkey Sanctuary and he said he likes to help Sanctuaries. Great...we will see what he can do for us. We all thought it was a good start to our Donkey mission while being on vacation. Vegas Airport was were it already started....the sounds and lights of casino life. We retrieved our luggage and made our way to the shuttle bus to get our rental car. We rented a Toyota RAV, the same car that Terri drives here at home, and we were all set for the trip to start. We spent the first day in Vegas, found our hotel, the Imperial Palace, right away, thanks to Terri's navigation skills and her frequent visits to Las Vegas, cleaned up a little and then toured Las Vegas Boulevard. We did a lot of walking while visiting the biggest casino/hotels along the Strip. Cesar Place, Bellagio, Paris, Harrah's, etc were impressive, the malls inside the Casinos were amazing and everything was full of glitz and glamour. I just have one question.....why? As impressive and beautiful everything was, the deeper peek into the life in Vegas I really find sad and depressing. After a short little nap at the hotel we were ready to take in the Fremont Experience...now compared to the rest of Las Vegas, that I liked much better. We had dinner at some tiny little restaurant of to the side and it was delicious and then we took in the sounds and sights of where it all began....Fremont Street. There were bands playing at each street corner, at the top of the hours traffic was stopped so you could take in the sight and sound of tributes to bands that were broadcasted on the space frame over Fremont Street.There were lot of buskers and of course the famous Golden Nugget. So I enjoyed that part very much.
Bellagio  Hotel Ceiling in the Lobby

Bellagio Garden inside the hotel

Space frame over Fremnot Street: Musical tribute to Bon Jovi and Queen.
That was amazing.
 At the end of our night and before turning in for the night we stopped at the Bellagio to watch the dancing water fountain. That was cool too.

To sum Vegas up in a few words: BIG-COLOURFUL-OVERWHELMING- But I guess something you have to see at least once. And I am sure it's true "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas", but we had that motto for our whole trip. :)

1 comment:

Sharon said...

Glad you had a good flight! I love flying.

Vegas is pretty, yep. Have been a couple times, don't care to go again. Not in town anyway.

Beautiful once you leave the glitz behind.