The rest of my Vacation.

JournalCon Linky Squee entry is back one!

So I didn't fly home from JournalCon. I figured that if I was flying across the country I should spend some quality time in Vegas. If I had a do over, I probably wouldn't. It felt too long away from my boys. When I couldn't get through on the phone Sunday night I was nearly in tears. I should have stayed over in San Diego until Monday and just come home. Ah well, hindsight and all.

The thing I didn't say in the linky squee jcon entry is that for me it was a JournalCon of pain. The "heavenly bed" played hell with my back. Then I walked a ton the first day, both messed up my feet with blisters and had serious hip pain for the whole rest of my trip. Despite being so obese the one thing that I've always been able to do was walk easily. This trip seriously made me question if that is still the case. I'm not sure if the next step is to see a doctor, walk more, or just hop back on the weight loss wagon since that's probably what I really need.

Anyway, so Vegas baby. A delayed flight. The taxi line from hell. A room at the very end of the long hallway. And pain. Whee.

I trooped over to Caesers first thing to pickup my show tickets. I forked over some big bucks for Elton John and wanted to be sure to get them by the deadline. Before the show, I had some time to kill. So I had dinner there and plunked my butt down at a machine. Nickel slots, not for making money but good for killing time. I played a while and managed to triple my money so I stopped. That was the last time I was ahead the whole trip. In fact between the end of the show (which was excellent, by the way) and by 9am the next morning I had managed to lose all that I'd won and then some.

So Monday I got some show tickets, some sodas at the store and went back to figure out what I could do that didn't involve losing every dime in my checking account. I settled on swimming, seeing a movie, having a nice dinner and riding the new monorail to the end of the line and going to the top of the Stratosphere. What an amazing view. But next time I won't do that after having several drinks with dinner as the two didn't mix so well for me.

The next day it rained. Yes, I went to Southern California and it was cool and misty the whole time, then I moved over to Vegas in the desert and it rained. Not just rained, poured rain. Lost some more money, did the gallery at Bellagio and cruised the Forum Shops. Happily desert rain clears out quickly, so after lunch I went over to the Mirage to visit the beasties there. That turned out to be one of the more amusing things I did. The dolphins were very fun, and did their tricks just because. Plus you really get much closer to the big cats there than at any zoo I've ever been to. Of course the hazard is that the male tigers mark their territory a good bit and if you happen to be in the way you get marked too. I've never seen my fellow tourists move so fast (luckily I was out of range). A little shopping, a little gambling, a little watching the sox from the comfy chairs in sports book. A show, some more sox (damn that was a long game) and off to bed for an early flight.

The plane back was full to the brim. The flight was cramped and long and Balitmore never looked so good to me. The boys went straight from school to dinner at SILs while I sat home waiting for them. Then home to hugs and pressies. I really missed them both.

I would have sworn I'd stayed on EST but Thursday morning was just darn hard. Now I'm just playing out the end of this week at half speed until I can start next week back in the regular routine.