Leaving Las Vegas

[Wednesday 20 September]

Wednesday was spent with coffee in the room and just relaxing. There is little here in Las Vegas that holds much interest for either of us. But we're here until our flight leaves Thursday. The good news is our nephew, Jonathan from Maine, is here attending a work conference so we'll meet up with him later this evening for dinner.

In the meantime, Susie went for a walk late morning while I tidied up the blog you're reading right now.

In the early afternoon we both put on our bathing suits and headed for the pool. We no sooner arrived and got settled into a couple of pool chairs than the clouds rolled in, the thunder began and the lifeguards informed us that no one could go into the water, at least for the time being. And then the rain began, at one point turning to hail, and with very gusty winds. I called it quits and returned to the room, Susie stuck it out but eventually she too had to throw in the towel literally and came back to the room.

After getting cleaned up and dressed we headed out in search of an afternoon coffee, and our objective in that regard was the Eataly located in the Park MGM Hotel. We had visited one of these in Munich last year and thought their approach to food was pretty incredible, lots of Italian food products for sale in addition to coffee of course and pastries. The one in Munich was also a grocery store, something this one lacked. But it was fun to stroll around the various stands: Italian Street Food, another one selling cheeses, another wine, and so forth. 

To get to the Park we had to traverse New York New York, which I must admit was fun, much of the interior actually laid out to resemble some of the iconic NYC streets (Bleecker, Fulton Fish Market, etc.) We had our coffee and later an aperitif before heading back. And since the rain returned with gusto it was nice to walk inside. (Most of the hotel/casinos are so HUGE that you could  actually get from one to another without going outside, except to cross a street to the next casino.)

Leaving the Park MGM we made our way back through NY NY back to the Tropicana. Seeing several of the the other hotel/casinos though made us realize how truly tired our hotel is. There are virtually no shops, certainly fewer restaurants, worn appearance, and the overall impression of the Tropicana is that of an aged queen who has fallen on hard times.

Later that evening we made our way to the Paris complex to meet up with Jonathan for dinner at Mon Ami Gabi, a restaurant made out to resemble a typical French bistro. We had looked into using the monorail for transport but found the nearest station difficult to get to and actually quite costly so we opted for an Uber. 

We arrived a little early which gave us time to stroll through the streets of Paris (literally and figuratively), which was similar to the idea of NY NY but much lighter and cleaner looking.

It appears to have all the same inscriptions as the actual Arc de Triomphe

hotel entrance

Jonathan met us just outside the entrance to the restaurant and before long we were seated outside on the patio overlooking the boulevard and directly across from the Bellagio, whose fountain occasionally treated us to some spectacular water dancing.

It was a lovely evening, traffic and street noise notwithstanding. We all caught up on the latest news: Jonathan talked a bit about why he was there for work and what he was doing and his family news; we brought him up-to-date on his Gram and the general Grand Rapids news. 

Eventually we had to say au revoir and while Jonathan headed off to his hotel we walked in the opposite direction back to ours. The sidewalks were packed with people but before long we were back in our room and settled in for the night.

Tomorrow it's back to Michigan!