We ate at a restaurant in the Linq promenade. I was glad they let me order lunch (not always a sure thing during breakfast hours) although my croque monsieur was a so-so incarnation.
After breakfast, we took in the Bellagio Conservatory and Botanical Gardens (along with seven million other people).
They were quite impressive. I liked this portrait made of living things. Which you can’t see because camara self-portrait, not phone self-portrait, so you don’t know exactly what you are getting when you push the button.
From there, we took the monorail (monorail!) to its northern terminus, and walked south.
I liked the view of the linens ready for washing
We stopped at Circus Circus (but not for breakfast breakfast) and arrived a the right time to see this affable gent balance on ever taller ladders.
From there, we checked out the Wynn Botanical Gardens which were not as extensive as the Bellagio’s (and also empty, a plus).
That was it? Matt exclaimed, as we walked through.
From there, we headed for the cab stand for our next destination: Area 15.
We chose Battista’s Hole in the Wall for dinner, and boy howdy was that the right choice. It was an old-school Italian restaurant much like the Old Spaghetti Factory, where your dinner comes with courses.
We got a carafe of wine for our table, garlic bread, a salad, an entree, and homemade cappuccino.
I got chicken alfredo and Matt got manicotti. There was a split charge of $20, and we should have taken them up on that. It was a lot of food. We skipped the cappuccinos.
From there we walked off our dinner touring the strip. I don’t think these pedestrian walkways had been built when I visited in 1996, but they were a good addition. And you can see the consequence I got for sitting on top of the tour bus.
We watched a performance at the Bellagio fountains. Our song was “Billie Jean,” and the water did look like Michael Jackson’s moves from that era.
And then we headed over to see Zombie Burlesque. I wanted to see a showgirls-type show.
It was a fun and raunchy performance. The emcee was great with the audience, and the dancers were amazing to watch. One of them also balanced on unsteady things that got higher and higher in a nerve-wracking manner.
The show was tight and well-performed, and I think I could spend a good month taking in all the different entertainment options, given an unlimited budget for food, lodging, and tickets.
We started our day with a hop on hop off bus tour of Las Vegas. We hopped on and didn’t hop off until we got back to our starting point, but it was a very good choice for our first full day. We had a great tour bus driver, a Las Vegas native, and it was good to hear her perspective on things. I can tell you that she really misses the Mirage.
After sitting in the sun, I needed a nap, so we headed back to the hotel and spent the afternoon both resting and also playing a fun new Exit game.
Despite being only two dots out of five and much closer to novice than expert, we had some trouble solving and ended up with not many stars. It was a fun and inventive time, though, just like we’ve come to expect from Exit.
During our game time, people used a room key and unlocked our door. They had been assigned our room, too. We were on a timer for the Exit game, so we said “occupied” and they went away. After we were done, Matt went to investigate. No one at the desk knew what had happened. But no one else came into our room after that.
After wiling away the afternoon it was time for our evening activities.
We arrived at the Harry Reid International Airport, transferred to our hotel (the Linq) and set out for the Rio, where we would hopefully grab some dinner and for-sure see Penn and Teller.
First learning curve. Things in Las Vegas look like they aren’t that far away, but when one sets out on foot, they sure are. It was a mere 1.4 miles away, but took us much longer to walk that 1.4 miles than I thought. Plus, the casinos did a good job of getting us a little lost. There was no time for dinner! But we did find the theater.
Penn and Teller have been at the Rio since 2001, which is enough time to have some very large pictures of them. Here’s one with us in shadow.
Here’s another one this is probably closer to the beginning of their residency.
We were at the last show before they started their summer tour, so it was a fun night to be in the theater.
We were in the first balcony, and they kept us busy beforehand with filling out a sheet of paper with a random dream, and coming up front to sign an envelope.
Off to the side, there was a duo playing some standards. It was a good jazzy atmosphere.
There was a large screen that would show different views of the stage, and at one point it gave a close-up view of the stand-up bassist. “That looks a lot like Penn,” I said to myself, as Matt was off returning the golf pencils we used to record our dreams on the sheet of paper. When Matt came back and the camera switched to the same view, he said immediately, “Hey, that’s Penn!” And so it was Penn. He plays the opener to his own show!
Matt went down to sign his name on the envelope.
Eventually Penn went away, leaving the piano man to finish the set. And then it was time for Penn and Teller!
It was a very fun and funny show. One of the volunteers messed up which card was hers, which led to some ribbing. There were tons of fun tricks. At one point, balloons were passed through the audience, and we managed to snag one. We were instructed to pop them all at the same time on the count of three.
The result was many pop pop pops rather than one loud bang.
Inside our balloon was a playing card.
Matt’s playing card in the balloon wasn’t the card of choice.
Matt’s favorite trick was this balloon one. Three people were on stage who said one random thing about themselves. They were each given cards. After the balloons were distributed, three people with balloons came on stage. Once everyone popped their balloon, it turned out the three randomly chosen balloon people had the cards of the randomly chosen people on stage. Magic!
My favorite trick was one that was kind of weird and involved scarves and kind of ended without much falderol. It was a little weird, but became clear at the end of the show when Penn and Teller returned to the stage with a drum kit (Penn) and other percussion (Teller) and played the video of the trick backward while narrating it, and it became a very cool sequence.
I also enjoyed that we got to hear Teller’s voice. He was playing the part of a psychic gorilla.
It was a very fun show. Then we had a long walk back to our hotel.
Laurie, Kelly, and I watched the Academy Awards at the Kiggins Theater in Vancouver, and boy, was that the correct choice. There were prizes! Laurie won!
And so did I!
The Kiggins gave everyone a raffle ticket with a nominee on it; if your nominee won, you got a prize. And then, because turnout was a bit light, we got extra tickets.
After each award was given and the broadcast went to commercial, the Kiggins people had the gift certificate donor come up and talk about their Main Street Business, and then hand out the award. It was like we had our own awards ceremony, and we also got to learn a ton about downtown Vancouver businesses.
I won because the person who really won wasn’t there, and I had best sound in a different category, and they gave me the prize, which was to a music store. A woman offered to trade her prize (a comic book store) and I did. So now I have $50 to spend!
Us after the show.
We also played the Happiest Oscar Viewer game. It was the kind of Oscars where I wasn’t overly excited for many categories, so I wasn’t happy very often. But also wasn’t annoyed.
Also, this quote from David Chen was spot on and made me laugh.
Thad passed along this unique puzzle, and Matt puzzled away, completing it in a short amount of time. (Some evening game time was sacrificed. And perhaps some normal bedtimes.)
The puzzle mechanism has a surprise, which has not been photographed so the vast readers of this blog don’t have the surprise spoiled. But I was glad I got to see it.
I’ve missed the last few movie quizzes, but was back again for December. Greg and Renee joined the fun, and we held up the bottom third of the bracket like we usually do. We’re Battleship Cinematic Universe .
While many of the teams are regulars, some of the regulars tweaked their names to include a holiday theme. We didn’t think of that, but we’re ready for next year.
Cinema Toast Crunch was sitting in front of us. It was amazing to see how few questions they missed.
I wonder if team Very Good knew ahead of time how bad they would be?
The last round was anagrams, and that was Not Good. Hopefully they won’t be back for a while.
In late November, the TriMet Riders Club email advertised TriMet’s Ugly Christmas Sweater.
“That’s not ugly,” I thought to myself, “That’s a thing of beauty.” Soon after, I ordered.
Then, time passed. I wondered if I actually had ordered the sweater because I received no email. But then! A delivery notification saying the sweater had been shipped from Portland and would be delivered on Saturday, December 9, by 9 p.m. Wonderful! Deliveries are usually earlier than that, so it might be here in time for Heidi and Kevin’s Christmas Party.
But no. The time came to depart for the party, and no sweater was to be seen. It also hadn’t been delivered by the time we got home.
The tracking went dead for a few days, until one morning when I was told it was out for delivery! In Indianapolis, Indiana. A city that is not Portland.
Over the next week and change it would also travel to Detroit, Seattle, and then back to Portland. It arrived on Friday, December 20. I didn’t get to wear it to square dancing, work (when people were there) or out and about, but I did get to wear it to the Snow Ball Chorale and Christmas.
I posted this photo on Instagram, and someone commented, “Is that the TriMet Christmas sweater???” So clearly it was worth the wait.
The Snow Ball Chorale was also not a smooth landing. I invited people, most couldn’t go, but friend Kelly said she could go and bought a ticket. Then I let a few days go by, and when I went to get my ticket, it was sold out! I volunteered to buy Kelly’s ticket off her, because I didn’t mind going alone. Instead, she gave it to me.
Terrible organizer fail. I had a good time, though. And I liked wearing my sweater.
I’ve lived in Portland for twenty-three Christmas tree lightings and finally, on the twenty-fourth time, I attended.
While I didn’t love how many times they wanted us to clap for their sponsors (three times over the course of an hour; the sponsor names were prominently displayed around the stage; it felt like the sponsors were very needy) I did enjoy this evening of cheer and signing.
Good old Thomas Lauderdale loves a community sing along, and China Forbs loves to sing. We also got performances by a variety of choral groups.
There was a bouncing ball, and the person in charge of that had a hard job. The lyrics on screen didn’t always match up with what we were singing.
Santa came out to flip a massive light switch after we counted down from 10, and the tree was suddenly alight. I enjoyed that a few of the bulbs started to flash as we got closer to one, before the entire tree was ablaze.
Thanks to Pioneer Square (and their sponsors, of course) for putting together this community celebration.
