Racation

I know I'm supposed to blog about something that starts with the letter R but since we just got back from vacation, I'm going to blog about "racation", which is the Scooby-Do pronunciation of vacation. There, done!

I knew it was going to be difficult (impossible) to blog on vacation. We did not bring a computer, and Las Vegas has terrible cell phone reception. In fact, the only place in the hotel that we could even check Facebook on our phones was in the bathroom in our hotel room, and even that took 5 minutes to load. So, hopefully nothing super huge happened on Facebook while we were gone. Before leaving, I decided I would take videos instead. So, here is the fist video I took. It's the "pre-vacation" video:

AND just so you know, I am STILL getting over that cold. In fact, the weather back here has made it worse again. I'm in the "cough till you puke" phase this weekend. Awesome.


Next up is a really cool e-billboard we saw on day 2 (I think). We were walking the north half of the strip and stopped at this. And watched it go though its entire ad cycle. Twice. Jim wanted me to record it, not so we could share it you, but because he knew he'd want to watch it again :)

This next video I took on the way out of Aria. I had just lost money in there and when we came out, we came across this neat water wall. The beauty of this was somewhat lost on me because I was feeling ripped off. Disregard my jaded comments:

This one is a quick video and it really is worthless except for funny I find it every time I see this game. The pandas in China Mystery are wild, and if they can be used, they become animated and look like they are in a dryer...I know I shouldn't find that funny, but it cracks me up...

And, shortly after posting the Panda in a Dryer video on YouTube, someone commented "your face is appalling". Thanks for that, jerk-off :)

Ah, the fountains at Bellagio. It's something you have to go see if you visit Las Vegas. When we went on our honeymoon, we were treated to Andrea Bochelli and Sarah Brightman's "Time to Say Goodbye" which we both really like and enjoyed. This time, the first one we saw was "This Kiss" by Faith Hill. Now, I won't say that I don't like that song, but it was kind of stupid to watch the fountains with it. In fact, we both agreed that it was hokey enough that we would come back again on another night and hope for a less lame song. So we went back on another night and was treated to David Foster's "Winter Games". No offense to anyone, but of all the songs, that one is not a favorite. And I am not picky when it comes to music. We decided to try AGAIN and see what else was on the song list. When this started up, I thought someone was playing a joke on me..

A few weeks back, I hurt my back. I was bummed because I wanted to ride roller coasters and the zipline down Freemont Street. Luckily I was able to rest and take muscle relaxers so that I could walk. When we got there, on day 2 we rode the roller coaster at New York, New York and it was so much fun! Then on a different day, we rode the roller coaster at Circus Circus, which was also fun. We decided to try the ziplines at Freemont Street. You start at about 5 stories high and end about 2. I loved everything except for the end. I slammed so hard at the end of the line that it freaked me out. Of course, it didn't freak me out enough to stop me from doing it again!!! We were able to go once during the day and once at night, and that was AFTER a wicked fancy dinner at Binion's Steakhouse. Thankfully I didn't puke up my scampi :) This video is one I took of other people doing it since you are not supposed to film while on the zipline.

Now, onto the slot machine wins. I had a couple of decent hits while we were there, but nothing spectacular. The losses were slow enough that we were never going back to our rooms with empty pockets, but the wins were more there to keep us floating. On our last night, we went back to the room to do some pre-packing. It was late, after 11pm, and I was tired. We had some 20's left from the day (about $200) so we decided to go down and play them. Here is what happened:

And here is the hand pay. Every time we visit a fountain we always throw money in. Since I already knew we were going to have fun and we weren't losing all of our bankroll every day, every coin I threw in I wished for a hand pay. A hand pay is when you win on a slot machine, and the winnings are over $1200. It is a federal law that you get an attendant to pay out the winnings along with the required federal tax forms. Since we tend to play penny machines, hand pays are not prevalent. But I wished anyways. And now, you get to see my wish come true:

After we got our hand pay, we went back to our room and took all of these obnoxious pictures of the cash we were bringing home. We were so excited to be leaving with a profit!It was nice to be fake rich even if it were only for a night :)

The next day, we got on a plane and came back home. We are both still fucked when it comes to sleeping (we can't get to sleep and end up sleeping way too late) and I can not get rid of this cough. But our credit card is paid off, we have money to get the driveway fixed, and maybe even have a little something left over. Of course with this storm of death coming, maybe we should go get a generator :)

Here's the link to our Vegas 2012 Racaction pictures, if you want to see more:
http://jimanddanapictures.shutterfly.com/pictures/667

Dana C