Walking, Dinner, Neon Museum

(Written Monday, covering Sunday)

Vegas as a tourist equals a lot of walking. A lot. And it is deceptive. I can see the Bellagio from my window. But it is a 20 minute walk, on paper, a half mile on Google maps, but it is longer. And hot. And brutal. Doug loves it, but I am not a fan. I tolerate it and find I have a threshold where I'm like "fuck that noise, let's sit and relax." 

Vegas also does not have a sit and relax culture. There are no benches in any of the casinos to just sit on and take a load off. They want your asses at gaming machines. And if you're not gaming, don't sit there. It's a nice catch 22. 

I'm incredibly sore. Friday we walked a lot, Saturday we walked a ridiculous amount, and Sunday we walked a lot too, but a significant amount less than Saturday.. 

Sunday morning, we got out early-ish around 11. Doug was up for hours but I've started to get on Pacific Time in my brain and he's still Eastern. We ate lunch first at the Yard in the Linq alley, and it was our second visit. They have an extensive beer list, everything on tap. Most places have Miller/Bud and the surprisingly exotic Goose Island (not really exotic) as their craft beer choice. 

Doug wanted to show me Caesar's and Bellagio. He's been here a couple of times for work and conferences, and he took these walks, these tours in the past. I like that he wanted to take me to see the different buildings on the other side of the street since we spent so much time at Harrahs, Linq, Flamingo, over this site. 

After a while there is just so much interior design opulence/hoo ha I can tolerate. Stores with suited security guards glaring at you as you pass, doors with red velvet ropes. Please, get over yourselves guy. 

I can't imagine any of these stores in all the casinos turn any profit. But then again I see people carrying Hermes and Cartier bags all over. Maybe they do. 

I got kind of cranky and exhausted in Bellagio (and it was stupid crowded in the lobby and everywhere) so we started to head back. There are pedestrian bridges over Las Vegas Boulevard which is super smart. I can't imagine the amount of humans needing to cross that busy road. 

Overall I did pretty good. Not the best but. Pretty good. I got super mad at Doug because he abandons me. He claims he's not abandoning me, but if I stop to look at something, then turn back, he's gone. He doesn't answer his phone, he doesn't read texts. So there I am walking in circles looking for him and I eventually find him somewhere I don't expect him and I'm mad. We decided to head back toward the hotel, cross on one of the pedestrian bridges. Past the Flamingo and into the open doors of the Linq where we stopped to play some slots and get a beer. 

Both of us had fairly good luck with the slots and two beers takes the edge off of cranky Chrissie. Air conditioning is good too. Eventually I got less angry, and we headed back to the room. He napped, I didn't. But I did relax and feel better. 

Hockey game was on, so we watched and got dressed and ready to go out. 

Doug wanted to go to the Palace Station Oyster Bar so we took a cab up there.  They don't take reservations, so you're winging it when you go. The bar was full so Doug asked about it at the adjacent restaurant which looks like it is connected, but it is not. The girl indicated there was a line, so we looked and around the side of the adjacent restaurant, there it was. 

... a thousand people deep. After talking to the people who were next in line, they'd been waiting for over two hours, and looking down the long queue of humans, we said no. We don't wait for food, and to be honest, you can get oysters (Doug's favorite) anywhere. Including the adjacent restaurant. And they were there, we were there, so. Perfect match. 

A little higher scale experience for what we expected for the night, that adjacent restaurant is the Charcoal Room. And they actually close at 9pm. Well. Perfect here we are. Let's eat. Dinner was great, the wait staff was lovely. And Doug got oysters, I passed on a steak because I know steak houses are expensive but I'm still not 90 dollars for 6 ounces of steak fancy. The scallops were more reasonably priced and delicious. 

I told Doug it was weird eating seafood in the desert. 

After dinner, what do you do? Do you schlep back to the Strip? No. You go to the Neon Museum. Jess had told us we needed to go, calling it "Dougcore," which is anything they see and loves and immediately says "Dad will love this." Glad we took the suggestion. Took a cab over there, and spent a good 90 minutes walking through the maze and looking at the treasures. It is open during the day, but no one should go there in the day. It's too hot. And you don't get the gorgeous impact of the lights and the history. We were particularly taken by the Tim Burton exhibition items from Lost Vegas. The Area 51 motel sign especially, and all the cool details in it. 

Today we're off to the airport. Doug got us a 3pm ish flight which gets us home around 10pm ET. Wrapping this up so we can get our acts together and go. 

More later for the Monday update. Images from the Neon museum below. Digits after that.

Sunday digits

exercise: 11/12 hours.  Missed 11am on accident, forgot to finish with my fitbit on my hand; 3 walks, one of 17 min, another of 49, another of 18. 16,500+ steps by bedtime.

blood glucose:

9am: 134
5pm: 197 (retested after nap at 7pm for 144)
11:30pm: 250 (retested at 1am, 179)

food:
coffee/water
12ish: 2 beers, onion rings, bacon bleu burger; metformin
2 beers whilst playing penny slots
7:45pm: metformin+jardiance
8pm: lobster bisque, 4 scallops on parsnip pureé, one nice cocktail.