Welcome to part one of a multi-part post of our trip to Vegas.
On Monday, April 28th I flew in to Vegas to attend the SSTC (Systems & Software Technology Conference) for work. This is the second year I've attended the conference. Last year it was in Tampa Florida, which was nice, but I would have loved to have someone there with me, like, say, my wife or someone. So when I heard that the conference this year was going to be in Vegas, remembering that I would have loved to have Maria with me last year, and realizing that this year was our 10th anniversary, I suggested to Maria that I fly her in for all or part of the conference and we could enjoy Vegas together.
So the plan we decided on was that I would go to the conference for a few days, then Maria would fly in on Thursday and join me for the weekend.
This was my and Maria's first trip to Vegas, so it was all new to me. Monday was spent just figuring out where the hotel was and getting registered for the rest of the week.
On Tuesday the conference didn't really get going until after lunch, so I had a full morning to start exploring. I drove around the strip figuring out the locations of some of the shows we were planning to attend and exploring a hotel/casino or two, such as the MGM Grande.
(The MGM lion)
After an afternoon of the conference, I went out again in the evening for more exploring. This was where I learned there was more to Vegas than meets the eye. I decided to take the monorail back to MGM and sort of start at one side of the strip and see what I could see for the night.
At MGM I stopped at their "Television City" attraction where you can watch upcoming TV shows and offer your opinion. I watched a pilot for a fairly awful sitcom called "Single White Millionaire" starring Fred Savage. It was fairly forgettable with a pretty stupid premise ("Successful writer of romantic comedies is unsuccessful in his own love life"), and I rated it fairly low throughout.
(New York, New York)
From there I went over to New York, New York and walked through that casino, then I went down the street, just missing the fountain show in front of the Bellgaio, and went through the Paris & Bally's Casinos. It was nearly 8 pm at this point, when I saw a sign for Penn & Teller at the Rio Casino. I looked around and saw the Rio was behind the Bellagio & Caesar's Palace just across the street. So I started down the street to see if perhaps I could still get a ticket to the show. This was a huge mistake.
According to Google maps, the distance from the MGM Grande (where I started the evening) to the Rio Hotel & Casino is 2.2 miles. I found out later that it is a fairly common phenomenon for tourists to mistakenly think that the hotel they can see down the road means it is close by. The Rio looked literally like it was just behind the other hotel, but as I started walking, it never got any closer. Pretty soon I found myself out in the middle of an empty road with no choice but to either keep going or turn around and go back, requiring a long walk either way. I chose to continue on, hoping I could make it there before it was too late to get in to the show.
View Larger Map
It was probably about 8:45 by the time I got over the freeway and into the hotel to find where Penn & Teller where playing. My feet were getting pretty sore by this point and I had no idea how I would get back since the monorail doesn't go to this hotel. I would have at least as long of a walk back to get to the strip after the show. When I found the Penn & Teller theater, I noticed it was pretty empty. My first thought was that everyone was inside and seated. Then I realized, it was empty because they didn't actually perform on Tuesday nights! So I'd come all this way for an empty theater. I found an automatic ticket machine and bought myself a ticket for the next night so that the trip wasn't a total wash and then prepared for the trek back home. Here's where my only bit of good luck for the evening occurred: I found a free shuttle that went back to the strip. That saved me another mile of walking, and got me back to the monorail so I could get home for the night.
On Monday, April 28th I flew in to Vegas to attend the SSTC (Systems & Software Technology Conference) for work. This is the second year I've attended the conference. Last year it was in Tampa Florida, which was nice, but I would have loved to have someone there with me, like, say, my wife or someone. So when I heard that the conference this year was going to be in Vegas, remembering that I would have loved to have Maria with me last year, and realizing that this year was our 10th anniversary, I suggested to Maria that I fly her in for all or part of the conference and we could enjoy Vegas together.
So the plan we decided on was that I would go to the conference for a few days, then Maria would fly in on Thursday and join me for the weekend.
This was my and Maria's first trip to Vegas, so it was all new to me. Monday was spent just figuring out where the hotel was and getting registered for the rest of the week.
On Tuesday the conference didn't really get going until after lunch, so I had a full morning to start exploring. I drove around the strip figuring out the locations of some of the shows we were planning to attend and exploring a hotel/casino or two, such as the MGM Grande.
(The MGM lion)
After an afternoon of the conference, I went out again in the evening for more exploring. This was where I learned there was more to Vegas than meets the eye. I decided to take the monorail back to MGM and sort of start at one side of the strip and see what I could see for the night.
At MGM I stopped at their "Television City" attraction where you can watch upcoming TV shows and offer your opinion. I watched a pilot for a fairly awful sitcom called "Single White Millionaire" starring Fred Savage. It was fairly forgettable with a pretty stupid premise ("Successful writer of romantic comedies is unsuccessful in his own love life"), and I rated it fairly low throughout.
(New York, New York)
From there I went over to New York, New York and walked through that casino, then I went down the street, just missing the fountain show in front of the Bellgaio, and went through the Paris & Bally's Casinos. It was nearly 8 pm at this point, when I saw a sign for Penn & Teller at the Rio Casino. I looked around and saw the Rio was behind the Bellagio & Caesar's Palace just across the street. So I started down the street to see if perhaps I could still get a ticket to the show. This was a huge mistake.
According to Google maps, the distance from the MGM Grande (where I started the evening) to the Rio Hotel & Casino is 2.2 miles. I found out later that it is a fairly common phenomenon for tourists to mistakenly think that the hotel they can see down the road means it is close by. The Rio looked literally like it was just behind the other hotel, but as I started walking, it never got any closer. Pretty soon I found myself out in the middle of an empty road with no choice but to either keep going or turn around and go back, requiring a long walk either way. I chose to continue on, hoping I could make it there before it was too late to get in to the show.
View Larger Map
It was probably about 8:45 by the time I got over the freeway and into the hotel to find where Penn & Teller where playing. My feet were getting pretty sore by this point and I had no idea how I would get back since the monorail doesn't go to this hotel. I would have at least as long of a walk back to get to the strip after the show. When I found the Penn & Teller theater, I noticed it was pretty empty. My first thought was that everyone was inside and seated. Then I realized, it was empty because they didn't actually perform on Tuesday nights! So I'd come all this way for an empty theater. I found an automatic ticket machine and bought myself a ticket for the next night so that the trip wasn't a total wash and then prepared for the trek back home. Here's where my only bit of good luck for the evening occurred: I found a free shuttle that went back to the strip. That saved me another mile of walking, and got me back to the monorail so I could get home for the night.
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