You Don't Have to Gamble in Las Vegas, Nevada

Dec. 2021

I have never been much of a gambler.  I once gambled a roll of nickels away in Las Vegas. Nevada and I was a nervous wreck the whole time.  I ended up .03 cents ahead, but realized that I was never going to be a good gambler.   So why would we be going to Las Vegas for the holidays this year?  Well barring the fact that I had no lights to hang cause they are all packed away, I have a Godson and his partner who live in Las Vegas and I wanted to go visit them and there are certainly enough lights in Vegas to celebrate Christmas.  So we drove to Las Vegas this year from Tucson, AZ.  It takes about 5.5 hours to get there.  

The weather was cold and clear.  Initially, we stayed at our timeshare for a few days right in the middle of downtown, because I had researched what you could do for free in the middle of downtown.  First, I want to give you a surprising fact:  The Las Vegas Strip is not in Las Vegas...it is outside the jurisdiction of the City of Las Vegas.  I did not know that.  We were lucky though to go to the official Las Vegas downtown later on in our trip.

We stayed at the Polo Towers in downtown Las Vegas.  This hotel (which is going to be a Holiday Hilton soon) is right down the street from the Bellagio Hotel.  The Bellagio took billions to build and is really extravagant.  (Yes it has a gambling casino, but we did not visit).  We walked down to see the "dancing fountain" which is really a huge lake of water that is controlled by computer.  It was really cool to watch the water dance with holiday music.  We also walked inside to their famous flower conservatory, which is a huge (and free) area dressed differently with cool flower displays every 3-4 weeks.  Of course the holiday display was spectacular so I got my share of Christmas decorations.  The most important place in the Bellagio though, according to my partner was the 2-story high chocolate fountain that holds over 2000 lbs of white, milk, and dark chocolate!  So fun to see it streaming from glass dish to glass dish.  It really was my partner's dream come true.  So far all free. 

We wandered back to the hotel where a free holiday dinner and music were featured.  We of course participated in this dinner.  Okay, so far, everything free.  The next day, on Christmas Eve the timeshare company gave us a gift certificate of $49 dollars so we decided to splurge and went down the street to the Paris Hotel Restaurant Mon Ami Gabi.  I love the way this hotel emphasizes everything "French."  I ordered a martini with St. Germain cordial.  It was delightful.   It paired nicely (see I know that fancy talk) with a chicken and  brie sandwich.  It transported me to Paris.  I am missing Europe these days.  This made me feel just a little closer to the Motherland.  

On Christmas Eve, I usually crave the feeling of peacefulness, but we were invited to a "beer tasting" party at my Godson's house.  There were over 50 beers and many types of alcohol.  I only tasted a few as we had to make it back down to the strip on Christmas Eve, but it was a spectacular display of the beer diversity we have here in the USA.

It was a little weird waking up Christmas morning in a hotel on the Vegas strip, but we made the best of it.  We checked out and went over to my Godson and his partner's home for a couple of days.  He put together the best surf and turf dinner for Christmas and then we took off to the Valley of Fire State Park (45 minute drive) to take a short hike.  We not only saw Bighorn Sheep but some really cool petroglyphs.  It was a wonderful Christmas in my opinion.  

On the final day in the Las Vegas Area, we got up and were treated to French toast made with salt caramel whiskey.  I highly recommend this combination if you get a chance to combine it with your egg mixture.  We had to work that yumminess off so we took a 15-minute drive and went up to do a short but cold and windy hike in Red Rock State Park.  Another beautiful afternoon.

The last night in Las Vegas, our Godson took us out to Frankies Tiki Room and we imbibed some really great Tiki drinks.  They were colorful and very delicious.  Mine was the Fink Bomb (it was the bomb). It is so funny--it tasted and looked pink to me, but when I looked at the pictures, it was actually green. We ended the night in a British Pub along the main street of the real downtown.  It tell you British food is so good if it is made right, and this pub sported all the right stuff including shepard's pie and fish and chips.  

We drove home the next day through the Hoover Dam area.  That is such a cool area.  I have been through there several times, and am always amazed at how much area it takes to conserve water for this region.  It is pretty low right now and many of the scientists that run this facility area are worried about global climate change and how it is affecting the water supply in this area.  This proved to be a very memorable holiday in Las Vegas.  So much to explore in this area.  We will be back.  We ended our holiday with a magnificent sunset in Tucson, the gift that keeps giving forever.