Las Vegas Day 2

Tuesday, St. Patricks day I ate lunch with Stefan and Megan while Jere went off to his conference (which is why we went to Vegas in the first place). Somehow he managed to get three hours of sleep and make it through all his meetings. I was pretty amazed. Anyways after lunch the three of us booked a show for later that night and headed out to Hoover Dam. I hadn't ever been there and although I'd seen it in movies and on TV sites always seem different in person. Since it's located on the Arizona/Nevada border I got three states into this trip!

This is a picture of the bridge that's being built over the Colorado river that flows out of the dam. I think that's the right explanation - Stefan was trying to explain it all to Megan and I and I hope I got that right...

This is the lake that Hoover dam is holding back. It was really really low and you can see how high it's normally supposed to be by the white line located on the mountain walls.


This is the spillway that drains into the Colorado river when the lake overflows. As I said before, the lake was really really low but the white line where it's supposed to be was just about even with the top of this spillway. It would have been awesome to see tons of water flowing down that huge hole.

Us.

After visiting Hoover dam, we met up with Jere and went to dinner. We reserved seats to see Penn & Teller that night at the Rio Hotel so it ended up being smart to eat there too. I am so glad we did because it was awesome food. I think the restaurant was called the "All American Grille" and we all had some sort of steak. I got filet mignon (my favorite) with mashed potatoes and veggies and everything tasted soooo good.

Before the show started the audience was allowed to go on stage and check out this box as well as sign an envelope (the envelope was later used in a trick). This box seemed pretty fool proof and obviously empty but at the beginning of the show Teller (the small guy who doesn't talk) jumped out as his entrance! That was a pretty good entrance. I got a picture of Megan inside but thought I would look kinda ridiculous trying to squat inside after having eaten a huge dinner and feeling huge.

After the show we saw people crowding around and realized that Penn & Teller were signing autographs and taking pictures so we joined in the crowd. Some random (probably drunk) guy jumped behind us and got in the picture...He was so excited to see Teller and Teller just told him to get back. It made me laugh. Also - Teller is the one who doesn't talk and we heard him talk in the show!

Penn is the tall dude and he is REALLY tall. Jere is 6' so this guy has to be almost 7'. I noticed that in the beginning of the show he started out with a braided pony tail, half way through his pony tail became unbraided and at the end of the show his hair was just flowin' free. I'm not sure why he does it...Maybe just part of his act?

Stefan suggested that we see this show and I am so glad that we did. It was probably the best show I've ever seen. These guys are magicians but they don't act like they have powers of any sort. Half the tricks they did, they showed us afterward how they did it and they are just experienced slight of hand performers. Penn (the talker) kept saying that psychics and all that are phony and that if anyone tried to make you beleive it, they were crooks. Of course he was way funnier while explaining it. It was just an awesome show.

After the show, we weren't done. We had a cab take us to Mandalay Bay which is at the opposite end of the strip from our hotels and we walked all the way back stopping at a few hotels and walking through a couple casinos trying to find a place to get dessert. We finally stopped at an Italian place called "Il Fornaio" and I was glad because my feet were killing me. I didn't think we'd be doing a whole lot of walking when I decided to wear nicer shoes than flip flops...So we walked along the strip and I'm glad because I got some shots to remember everything.

Us in front of the Bellagio.

Excalibur Hotel

Fake Eiffel tower. I thought it would be ironic to get a pic of this since we lost all the ones we had of the real tower.

MGM Grand Hotel

Annndddd our hotel. I was sad to say goodbye to Stefan and Megan after this long day but since I knew we were going to see them in a few days (at their engagement party in San Deigo) I was really ready to get into bed.