Tuesday, February 15th, 2000

NOTE: ALL OF OUR HONEYMOON PICTURES ARE NOW ON FLICKR, WHERE YOU CAN LEAVE COMMENTS!
Please view them HERE instead.
You may have to scroll down a bit to get to the first honeymoon pics. Note that they are in reverse order.

Tuesday we woke up at 8:30am. This time we were more determined to go to Rent-A-Wreck than we were before. We knew if we kept getting distracted on the way there we wouldn't make it there by around 6 PM when it closed. So we had to stay focused. There's simply too much fun stuff to do.

So we Walked towards Rent-A-Wreck.

We passed Stardust on the way, and refreshed ourselves from the warmth with the fountains.

Stardust

Stardust

We stopped and went inside Westward Ho this time around.
More 99-cent 27-ounce Margaritas (of course, it was still before noon :) ).

Westward Ho Are these trees, lamps, or umbrellas?

We sat down to drink our Margaritas and watched the birds, which someone else had fed (which was of course against the rules).

pigeons at Westward Ho (Carolyn's leg in corner)

We continued to Rent-A-Wreck. Clint's stomache hurt from the Margarita and he layed down on the sidewalk for awhile. But we were still far from the strangest people in Vegas.

Finally, after more walking we got to Rent-A-Wreck & rented a Dodge Shadow. What a crappy car! But for $20 a day it got us around and the radio stations in any tourist town are always far superior to what northern Virginia has to offer.

We were hungry, so we drove to the Holy Cow! brewery/restaurant/casino. We ate, and gambled while waiting for our food. Clint won 500 quarters ($125) at Wheel of Fortune. We went upstairs and looked at the actual brewery.

Holy Cow! Brewhouse/ Restaurant/ Casino, where Clint won $100 on a Wheel Of Fortune slot machine wheel spin. Huge 50-pound bags of different malts and hops. We were there for the free tour but no one ever showed up, so we left with full stomaches and $60 profit.

We were full of food, but not energy, so we checked out a tobacco store/tatoo shop that was right next door. Surprised by the absence of slot machines, we left and just cruised around in our Dodge Shadow for awhile, simply glad not to still be on foot.

We decided to "touch a mountain", so we pointed at a mountain and just drove towards it.

driving towards the mountain

It took awhile to figure out the right neighborhood roads to get exactly to the mountain, but it was impossible to get lost. Drive towards mountain on the way there, drive towards the Stratosphere on the way back. It couldn't be any simpler.

arriving at the base of the mountain

After we finally got there, we climbed a bit, saw 2 lizards, then drove back.

hanging out on the rocks

not sure when we took this picture, but it was probably during our trek to the mountain... Carolyn thought the clouds were really cool.

It was a shame needing to give the finger to this very unnecessarily impatient driver on the way back. He was in a such a rush to get to that red left turn arrow that he just couldn't stand waiting for us to go through our own light (which was green).

"The Sawyer Building", which we drove by on our way back from the mountain

Went back to hotel to take a nap. We hadn't had what we consider a real night's sleep since arriving. We slept from 3 to 6PM-ish, then woke up. We decided to see an actual show, since we hadn't done that yet. We decided on going to Excalibur to and seeing the "Tournament Of Kings" dinner/jousting show.

Driving down the strip at prime time was stressful but quite interesting. Incredible amounts of people everywhere. The billboards were amazing. They were like huge televisions with high resolution, true color, total angular view. It was a new experience for both of us, especially driving-wise.

Also, their Department of Transportation is weird. They do things that would never exist in Virginia, like turn lanes that shift left through the center of medians (hard to explain). The biggest difference was that they didn't paint lines on the roads, but rather used these huge "thumb tacks" that they stuck into the pavement, 4 dots equivalent to 1 Virginia dotted yellow line.

We didn't like "the thumbtacks" at first, and they were the subject of some of the stand-up comedian's jokes that we saw later. However, it's functionally superior to Virginia because you can see and feel when you drift out of the lane.

Finally, we got there:

Excalibur, home of the "Tournament Of Kings"... Notice the sign, Las Vegas Blvd. That's the strip, FYI.

We rushed in because we thought the show was an hour earlier than it actually was.

When we first got in, we didn't buy our tickets right away.
First we stopped at some of the gift shops.
And bought a shotglass. :)

This is the Excalibur shotglass we bought. It's another one of those color-gradient-type shotglasses -- silver to clear. The reflective silver metal is neat. The transparant bottom is cool because it let's one see the color of what one is drinking.

Finally, we bought our ticket to the show. We should have done that right away to get slightly better seats. Oh well.

We ended up in the "Dragon" section, which means we didn't have a country to cheer for (England, Russia, France, Ireland, Hungary).

We were instructed to cheer for the evil Dragon king.

Here's our ticket. Cool knight in the background.

We went downstairs towards the show, and it was a huge arcade. Lots of games, and stands where you do things like try to get the ping pong ball in the floating bowls, try to toss the plastic ring on top of the wine glasses, try to shoot the water into the hole and blow up the balloon, etc. etc. Carolyn did the horse-racing. I think that's where we won the half-yard plastic container (pictured below).

We won this green translucent plastic half-yard beer container (pictured left) while at the Excalibur arcades. Basically it is a plastic version of the original glass half-yard beer glass (pictured right), which we also received as a wedding present from Clint's cousin Laine Bowen (pacecar25@aol.com)

We cashed in our tickets and got some comic books & Sweet Tarts.
Clint lost about $80 after being up $25 at the $1 Wheel of Fortune slot machine ($3 per spin).

2-story tall fountain @ Excalibur

The jousting grounds for "Tournament Of Kings"

Then we went to Bellagio's. Won about $20-30 at Wheel of Fortune, got 2 drinks, saw what really seemed to be high-class hookers (which is still illegal in the town limits).

We lounged on a couch in a lounge with a lounge singer. It was soooo strange to have live entertainment that you didn't have to buy a ticket for.

indoor garden at Bellagio

view of Paris, from Bellagio parking lot, south side Note: This is from the 5th floor.

view of the rest of Vegas, from Bellagio parking lot, north side

We cruised around for awhile longer. We visited a club, but decided against paying the cover charge, so instead we drove aimlessly for awhile. We went to some sports bar/restaurant, looking for food, but they didn't have it. There Clint won about $24 @ Wheel of Fortune, Carolyn won $10 in nickels, and since they didn't have food we left with all their money. :)

Then we went to Stardust looking for food. We won about $10 (could have cashed out at $32, but didn't know when to stop). Finally, we left for our hotel and crashed.

Click here to go to the next page and see what we did Wednesday...

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