The Wynn and Encore definitely want to be known as separate hotels, but they are attached and are very similar, and the locals call it the Wynncore, and it certainly seems like you are indeed staying at the Wynncore when there!

ROOM:

But our room, was indeed at the Encore and it was beautiful!

Here are some interior shots:

This is the living area – office desk to one side and the couch is next to it

The tv revolves to face the bed or the couch.  The mini bar is next to the bed.

However, the view wasn’t very nice:

The deserted Eschelon Casino

Deserted Eschelon, The Adventure Dome and the Hilton that is now LVH.

This photo that looks like a drawing is the private golf course for resort guests.

The view was a little better at night, thanks to the bright lights of the Riviera and Circus Circus.  Yes, my camera is horrible at taking night shots. They are kind of super imposed on top of each other.

But I guess it could be worse, because the other side of the tower probably only has views of the Wynn Tower?  I don’t know for sure, cause I wasn’t over there.  And I certainly have had worse views at hotels, and in Vegas.  The super suites on the end appeared to have good views.

The view should not take away from the luxury of the room.  Because we were race participants, the first night we came back to our room, we found goodies on our desk, which included arm bands for the the exclusive party in the nightclub (we didn’t go), bottled water and knit hats for keeping our heads warm during the race.  Thanks!

Also, they had the electronic control panel that controlled the lights and the curtains, like the Aria, only these worked.  YAY.  So that was a plus.

HOTEL/CASINO AMENITIES ETC

One of the things I like the Wynn and Encore is that the casinos themselves are not that large.  You can find your way around it easily and the casinos are not usually that busy, so you can generally find your favorite slot machine and sometimes even a table game in your budget.  Sometimes.  This IS an upscale hotel, so after dinner, the table games are a little rich for our tastes and the minimums are usually $25 and so we have to go down the street a bit for that (or up to the Riveria or Circus Circus).

You can however get lost in the hallways connecting the hotels and in the shops.  If you love to window shop in the expensive stores, this is a nice place to do.  Don’t wear slippery shoes, or you risk falling on the shiny floors!

Another really nice thing about the hotel is because it is new, it doesn’t have the embedded cigarette smoke smell that so many of the casinos have.  Eww.  It is still new.  And these hotels are still the most beautiful hotels I have ever seen, and that includes the even newer Aria and Cosmopolitan, also beautiful.  You can see plenty of pictures of the hotels online, but you must see it to believe it.  Here is some of the Christmas decor:

The best thing about the Wynn and Encore?  The FOOD!

Of course, this comes from a vegan leaning vegetarian, and the owner of the hotels is a vegan, but I can assure that even the non-specifically vegan food in this hotel is wonderful.  We always came here for the pancakes (always vegetarian!) and they are the BEST PANCAKES on the Strip.  Every restaurant  had a vegan menu.  Even room service.  Check this out:

This is a vegan’s dream come true.  Usually, the choices are a salad and maybe a dinner roll.  I could have stayed in the room and never come out and not had the same thing twice!  And that was just room service.  Every time we ate at a restaurant in the Wynn or Encore, I chose from the vegan menu.  Even a non-vegan or vegetarian will eat well, because there is plenty of food for omnivores and also for those who are trying to eat less meat in general – and I know you are out there!

This was one of my breakfasts – a tofu scramble on flatbread – Yum!

One day, we ate at the buffet and I had a vegan alfredo that made me moan in joy and I plan to try to recreate that at home.  Oh yeah, I do.  I have a bunch of recipes and I am going to go through them all. I have one that is by the chef that creates the meals at the Wynn, although I am not sure if it is THAT one.   I was disappointed that we didn’t get to eat at the steakhouse, because I wanted to see what the vegan menu would have been like.  But seriously, I never ate so much good food as I did as when I stayed at the Wynn/Encore.

LOCATION

But there is always a downside, isn’t there.  And location is it.  It is pretty far down on the North End of the Strip.  You can see that the next two properties – the Riviera and Circus Circus – are the neighbors and that is pretty much the end.  The Stratosphere is about another mile away.  The Strip pretty much ends here.  If you are the kind of person who pretty much stays close to home base, then great.  Because with Fashion Show Mall, the Palazzo, Venetian, TI and The Mirage close by, you will still have plenty to do, but if you like to venture to places south, as we do, then you will have some walking to do.  So just prepare for that and you will be fine.

On our last full day, we went to see Michael Jackson’s Imortal (see it – it’s a must) and we walked the whole way down to Mandalay Bay and back in one day and stopped at all our favorite places along the way, and made a day of it.  We didn’t mind and we planned for it.  So just be aware of that.  Bring cab fare or be prepared to walk to monorail station, since the Wynn discontinued the shuttle to LVH for the monorail.

FINAL VERDICT: 

I definitely recommend staying at the Wynn and/or Encore!

Here are some bonus pictures of the Christmas Decor of Bellagio Garden and the Venetian!

The Venetian’s Walkway

The Venetian’s Spectacular Tree that changed colors and in which

photos can’t do it justice.

The rest are from the magnificant Bellagio

But today, I want to talk about the Las Vegas Rock & Roll Marathon and Half Marathon held this year on December 4, 2011.  Matt & I have participated in the half marathon for the last two years.  We were going to take a pass on it this year, but then it was decided that they were going to turn it into a night run, and well, we just had to do it. We had to be a part of history.  We were amongst the very first to sign up and were pretty excited about it for most of the year.  After all, Vegas is one of our very favorite places for some strange reason, considering that we don’t drink, go to nightclubs, gamble away a lot of money or spend a fortune in expensive stores.

Originally, we were going to stay at NY NY.  But then we received a friendly e-mail from the Wynn inviting us to stay there offering us some very too-g00d-to-pass-up-rates and a shuttle to/from the race start/finish and some other amenities.  We thought this was a great opportunity to stay there.  It was awesome.  We actually stayed at the Encore, and a full review will be upcoming (as well as some other Vegas hotel reviews).

Fast forward to race day.  I woke up at 5:00 a.m.  and went back to bed smiling.  The thing I hate the most about races is that early rising time.  I hate getting up at 3:00 a.m. to run a race.  I understand why races start so early.  I always thought it would be better if they started at 11:00 though.  But, that is just me.  And maybe, my friend Vicki.  Eventually, though, Matt and I did get up and we knew that there was a balance to follow between eating and not eating.   Same with movement.  We had a good breakfast, a good lunch, a little walking and resting in between.

We had planned to be on the shuttle at 4:00, for the race start at 5:30.  But as we headed to the lobby to the shuttle, we find a very long line  which doesn’t appear to be moving.  At all.  Long story  short – we get on the bus at 4:55.  The bus driver tells us that it will take an hour to get to the start.  Yikes!  I didn’t believe him.  As someone prone to exaggeration, I tend to think everyone is.  Well, he was right on.  There was so much traffic.  I guess the residents of Las Vegas didn’t get the memo about the Boulevard being closed.  Sigh.

Big races like this usually use a corral system for starting.  The faster runners start in an earlier corral and slower runners and walkers are to the back.  Matt was in corral 18 and I was in 33.  According to the booklet sent home with us at the expo, I was to start at 6:25.  We got to the start line at 6:05.  There were no corrals.  It was just a mass exodus to the start.  Matt and I were not able to gear check his warm clothes (it was to be going down to the 30s by the time the race was over), so I had to carry them with me and we were not able to use a porta potty.  In fact, the bus couldn’t even get us to the start line.  He dropped us off somewhere close by and said that it would be quicker for us to walk to the start.  When we got there, organizers were tearing up the start line and looked at us with disdain and said “Hurry it up, and get moving”.  Oh, like we are late on purpose.

I don’t know what they did with the literally hundreds of people that were still behind us waiting for busses at the Encore and Wynn and Venetian etc!  They were even later!

At this point, all we could do is … go.  It was already cold out.  Not unbearably so, but getting there.  I was warm, and I had a hat and gloves in my pocket.  I had planned to do a lot of running intervals in the beginning for about the first half and then walk totally the second half.  I wasn’t trained for much more than five miles of intervals, but at races, we can go further than we have trained for.  The cold slowed me down and having to use the bathroom made it worse.  I couldn’t run if I wanted to.  The cold made me stiff and it hurt to run.  I really needed that porta potty!

So, we are TRYING to go.  Really.  But here is the biggest problem  - Too. Damn. Crowded.  No room to move.  Couldn’t run. Couldn’t walk.  Everyone shoved in like sardines.

First water station – a little past the first mile.  It’s not even 6:25.  Not even an hour after the start of the half marathon.  This was MY ORIGINAL SCHEDULED STARTING TIME.  They had already started shutting it down.  Yes, we were all like “What? No water?”  Then we notice a little further up, water on the left side.  So we go over to the left and get some.   This was a pattern for the whole race.  Everything was on the left.  The water stations. The porta-potties.  Towards the end, there were some water tables on the right, finally.

Somewhere around mile 3, I hear “Please move aside.  Marathoners are coming through.  Please move.  We’ve already gone 15 miles” and stuff like that.  He sounded really rude. I was kind of taken aback.  I was on the right side anyway, so he wasn’t talking to me.  It was about mile 8 when I noticed that there were cones separating the lanes.  Little tiny cones.  Yeah, like we could see that.  How about putting water stations and porta potties on our side then?  Maybe we wouldn’t have to migrate over there?

All the lines to the potties were a mile long.  Eventually, around mile 5, I gave up looking for a short line and found one behind a band station. It was pretty demoralizing to watch the mass of people go swarming by.   I find out later that it was a band use toilet, but they still let us all use it. Thankfully.  When I left, I knew that I had time to make up and I did some running intervals.  I was freezing at this point, and my asthma threatened to kill me, but I put on my hat and went for it.

The crowd never ever lightened up.  The closest I got to a celebrity was seeing a Biggest Loser semi-finalist from season 3, who was running for the Colitis Foundation.  It just kept getting colder and colder.  I keptwalking faster and faster. I would find a person in front of me and catch up to them and then find another target and just keep doing that until I got to the finish.  The icing on the cake was the rain that fell during the last mile.  The sprinkles on top was that they ran out of half marathonmedals and I got a full marathon medal!  It was prettier but I didn’t earn it!

I finished in something like 3:39.  You can easily take 20 minutes of that off for my standing in line to use a toilet and that makes it 3:20 which seems about right.  This was definitely the worst race ever.  The most poorly run race ever by an experienced racing group.

Me at the finish line, with my green banana (it was ripe by Wednesday), marathon medal, very glad to be done and not be inside the madhouse, er, Mandalay Bay.

Physically, I was fine, I am fitter and lighter this year than last year.   I didn’t get sick like last year, although many did get sick.

I am going to list the complaints, mine or others’ that have shown up on facebook below:

*Expo:  Overcrowded.  I’m used to this and didn’t see anything out of the ordinary except for the Zappos area.  However, while we were there, we were given apologies and told they would have that fixed for next year.

*Illnesses:  Apparently hundreds got sick.  Not us.  Water was blamed.  Southern Nevada Health Department has tested the water and it has come back clean.  I suspect that it was due to the fact that it was a night race and people are not used to running at night. I literally saw hundreds of pieces of discarded clothing on the side of the road.  I thought people were being short sighted there.  I think these people were sick from hypothermia.  I also can’t tell you how many people I heard saying that they didn’t eat anything or hardly anything all day, thinking they couldn’t.  Just because you don’t eat before running a morning race (when do you have time when you wake up at 3:00 a.m. for a 5:00 race?  who can eat when you are still asleep?)  It is totally different at night!  It wasn’t the water!  I also suspect that there might have been some alcohol consumption going on.  In Vegas?  No, you say?

*Walkers:  Too many walkers.  I don’t think there were too many walkers.  I think the walkers were pushed to the front because of the late shuttle busses and the dismantling of the corrals, and people were more aware of them.   And I think a lot of people who walk/run were forced to walk a lot more than they would normally have because they had no choice due to the crowded conditions.  I have never heard so many rude things said about walkers at races as I did on the Competitor Group’s facebook event wall after the race.

*This race was awesome last year.  At 30,000 participants. This year, 45,000 participants were way too many.

*Apparently (I didn’t see this part) Mandalay Bay was a mess.  Gear check was inside Mandalay Bay and it was a dangerous situation with all the people.  They allowed the racers only in a certain part of the hotel.  Everyone was squished.  The medics were in there too.  People were being trampled trying to get warm, get to a bathroom, get medical attention/food, get to the tram, their gear.  Andboth before and after the race, the Michael Jackson show was letting in/out and I experienced that later in the week and that was its own kind of madhouse.  So glad we didn’t need to get in there.

*Shuttle busses – lots of people said that there were no shuttles at the end of the race.  There were. And they were clearly marked.  We had no trouble finding them.  I think the issue was when people went into Mandalay Bay never to return, when they came out , they ended up on some side street somewhere and couldn’t figure out where they were.  Gear check should have been outside

*Medals – again.  How the heck do you run out of these?  Oh, you let people take more than one?  You let people who didn’t participate take them?  That’s the rumors that I heard!  Competitor group has apologized and is making good on getting medals out to those who didn’t get them.  I e-mailed them and have heard back and I will be getting a new one.

*T-shirts –  they ran out of these too.  Apparently all the women are the size of 11 year olds cause they are tiny sized.  I have mine and it’s teeny tiny.  I should fit an XL.  There were no Half Marathon finisher shirts at the expo either.  I don’t know if they weren’t printed or if they were sold out.  Considering how early we were there on Saturday though, I would hope it was that they just didn’t print any, because that means they printed about 500 otherwise which is even stupider than not printing them at all.

At this point, that is all I can remember.

I am going to add three links below, two other blogs and a newspaper article below.  Wordpress doesn’t really link, so you’ll have to copy and press.  I particularly like the one that gives the perspective of the runner from the front of the pack who didn’t see all of the problems.

Thank you for reading this very long post!  :)

http://runitfast.com/2011/12/05/the-nightmare-on-the-strip-rock-n-roll-las-vegas-marathon-half-marathon-full-of-sin/

http://runforfun-stephanie.blogspot.com/2011/12/vegas-tale-of-two-races.html

http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2011/dec/08/marathon/

Before the show, we checked in to our hotel and headed over the Hard Rock Cafe for dinner, where we discovered, that yeah, they did change the veggie burger chainwide and now the whole chain has been ruined for me.  Such a sad sad thing.  It was perfect the way it was, why did they have to change a burger that was delicious and swap it out for Boca?  Why? Why?  Why?

What can I say about the concert?  It was AWESOME.  Here is the view from our seats:

That photo was taken with my iPhone which makes everything seem further away, so to see how close it was, well it is remarkable.  It had also been so long since I’ve been to a concert that I had totally forgotten that we are allowed to have cameras, so of course I hadn’t taken mine and all I had was my cell phone and got some rather bad photos, and should have given up, but I kept taking them.

So the concert.  The warm up act was a dance troupe Legion of Extraordinary Dancers, that I really didn’t find to be all that interesting.  I just discovered though that it a group that Harry Shum, Jr (plays Mike Chang) is involved with.  Everyone else was screaming and yelling, so either they enjoyed it or they were faking it.  :)

While we were waiting for the real act to start, they showed photos and quotes from the show on the big screens to entertain us.  Also, we were the last row before a big aisle there on the floor, before the next group of rows of chairs.  Behind that group of chairs was another stage – which we discovered would be used during the concert – as would that aisle.  Right before the performers, who will be in character, complete with Artie in a wheelchair, come out, cheerleaders come out and start to rile up the crowd and are passing out little bags.  I had no idea what they were, as I wasn’t given one.  I guess I wasn’t cheering and carrying on enough.  The big screen lights up and Jane Lynch as Sue Sylvester comes on and explains to us what is going on and it is her Cheerios passing out puke bags for the concert.  Oh Sue.  What are we going to do with you.  Turns out, I didn’t need that bag, eh?

Finally, the cast comes out and starts to sing.  They open with “Don’t Stop Believing” as expected, even though that was a Season #1 song.   At this point, I don’t remember everything about it in sequence, so I am going to just spill my thoughts.  :)

I loved the back stage because I was so freaking close to it.  I am not a crying because I am there with the performers live kind of fan.  Maybe cause I am old.  But I just really liked seeing everyone up close.  The Warblers sang in the back.  The first person to sing in the back was Puck.  The young girls really flipped out over that.  He walked through the aisle in front of me.  Again, I didn’t die.  I’m just old, I guess.  :)

Throughout the performance, they would put vignettes of Mr. Shu and Sue Sylvester on the big screen interacting with the “kids”.  Problem with that is that is that the dialogue got drowned out by the real kids screaming and yelling.  I didn’t really understand that.  It wasn’t like they were actually there?  Again, I didn’t get it.

I had heard a rumor that when they sing Born this Way, they switch their shirts, but they didn’t.   I heard a rumor that Gwyneth Paltrow toured with them.  I guess Cleveland wasn’t exciting enough.  :)

The only thing, besides Mr. Shu not being there, (I know, I know, he is on Broadway) that disappointed me was that they didn’t sing any of their mashups and, to me, those are their best songs which shows the creativity of this group.  Fiddler on the Roof/Umbrella (c’mon, that is creative genius) does require Gwyneth and Matthew, I know, and they weren’t there, but there are plenty of other mashups that could have been sung.  Surely, those are better choices than Big-Bottomed Girls?  But, whatever.

But it was a  great show, lots of talent, good music and good dancing (except from Finn) and even Matt, who doesn’t watch the tv show enjoyed the concert.  Here are some of the photos I took.  And these are the good ones.

This was when they first came out

Puck singing – yeah, lovely picture, but look how close!

iPhone perspective

Kurt and Rachel – back stage

Mercedes – backstage (no flash)

Artie – safety dance – big screen shot

Safety Dance

Single Ladies (Encore) Back Stage

Complete song list (from internet, not me) not including encores:

“Don’t Stop Believin’”
“Dog Days Are Over”
“Sing”
“Slave 4 U”
“Fat Bottom Girls”
“PYT”
“I Want To Hold Your Hand”
“Ain’t No Way”
“Born This Way”
“Firework”
“Teenage Dream”
“Silly Love Songs”
“Raise Ur Glass”
“Happy Days”
“Lucky”
“River Deep Mountain High”
“Don’t Rain on my Parade”
“Jesse’s Girl”
“Valerie”
“Loser Like Me”

The first weekend in June, Matt and I went on a trip with my fellow zoo docents to the Columbus Zoo in Columbus, OH and the Good Zoo in Oglebay, WV.  Columbus Zoo is a HUGE and beautiful zoo and if you are a fan of zoos, I highly recommend this zoo.  There are animals there that we don’t have at our zoo, like koalas, tree kangaroos, red pandas, Pallas cats, artic foxes, wolves and the fishing cat.  Oh and a really big bat!  Thank goodness we don’t have those big bats in Pittsburgh.  I would have to move.  I couldn’t live in a place where those big bats are!  My favorite exhibits were the gorilla exhibit because it looked so small but yet was so big.  They have a lot of gorillas and you look at this exhibit and think it’s small, then you see a gorilla and how little space he takes up and you realize just how humungous it is.  I liked the exhibit because it had climbing things and ropes and ledges and all kinds of fun looking things for them to do.  I also liked the outdoor penguin exhibit.  I like outdoor penguin exhibits.  Not all breeds of penguins can be kept in outdoor exhibits of course, but when they can, I like the outdoor exhibits.  There were lots and lots of baby animals.  Mostly primates.  And they were all oh so cute.

It was extremely hot this particular weekend.  Heat indexes of 97 degrees.  Pretty much a heat wave on the whole Eastern Shore, I believe. Although Columbus is hardly the Shore.  Ha ha.  The Columbus Zoo does have a water park as well.  So if you go, you can make a weekend of it, spend one day at the zoo, and one day at the water park.  We stayed at the nearby Chase Suites Hotel, which was a very nice hotel.

The next day we went to the Good Zoo at Oglebay in Wheeling, WV.  I didn’t even know that this zoo existed.  It is 70 acres, so it much smaller.  But boy is it nice. They too have really nice exhibits and very well cared for animals.  We loved seeing the baby zebra.  She still had her fur on.   We had a great time!  Since I took about 400 pictures of this trip, I’ll just post four – one of my favorite animal, the baby zebra, and two more photos that I am just proud of.

Baby Zebra at Good Zoo

Always my favorite animal (next to kitty cats of course)

I’m proud of this photo because this little guy was elusive.  It took forever to get a good shot of him.  (Columbus Zoo)

And this shot?  Well, c’mon.  Look at it.  It’s just beautiful.  Also, not an official zoo animal.

Now on to North Carolina part of the post.

Just like St. Petersburg, the main reason we visit North Carolina is to spend time with family.  This time it is my sister, three nieces and nephew.   This trip was scheduled for Friday – Monday.  We do fly to Raleigh, and although we could fly direct via USAirways, we usually choose Southwest.  This time, we had to choose a flight with a 2-hour layover.  Then we get a notification that our plane was going to be delayed for two hours.  So four hours in the BWI airport.  That is way too long to have any layover anywhere!  But we finally get there and was very happy to be there!  :)

We got up early the next day to travel to King’s Dominion in Virginia.  The last time Matt and I were there Maddie was just a little thing, a baby.  I don’t think Owen was even born.  Maddie is now 11, so it had been a long time.  King’s Dominion is a three hour drive from where they live.  We got there shortly after opening.  The East Coast heat wave was still in effect.  The kids didn’t care.  :)  We had a nice split.  The two younger girls and their parents went their way and the two older ones came with Matt, Kayla and me.  We rode the big rides, the rode the small rides.  We did hook up for food and things we could all ride throughout the day.  It was so much fun.

One highlight – the biggest roller coaster in the park, the Intimidator, uses the elevator pulley to pull you up the first hill like the Millenium Force at Cedar Point does.  And like the Millenium Force – it will occasionally break down.  And it did.  With Owen and Kayla on it.  Um.  Uh-oh.  Owen was good about it though.  No freak outs.  So that was a relief.  Matt and I had that happen to us at Cedar Point, so we know how it feels.  The staff at King’s Dominion were a bit rude with us though.  Funny, Matt took a picture with his cell phone (okay, so I guess we do have a picture of this trip somewhere) and they said “You can’t take a picture of that”.  Matt said “I already did”.  At least they didn’t make him delete it.  We told them our small nephew was on the ride, but they still made us leave the premises, but we stayed as close as they would allow.  Yeah, we were those people.  :)

The park was not crowded.  The longest line was about 25 minutes and that was for the Volcano.  Which I love, but Matt says is too slow for him (I think that is why I liked it).  We kept thinking that all of the people were over in the water park and that they would be coming over to the rides side before long, but no, they never did.  In fact, the park just kept getting emptier and emptier.  :)

We had a blast.  Matt and I even got on the ferris wheel at night with the little girls.  CoCo is just filled with so much joy. She is just incredible to spend time with.  When people say we should look at life from the eyes of a child, they are talking about children like CoCo.  She is so very delightful.  Here are some quotes that I lifted from Matt’s facebook page.  Shh…. don’t tell him, and me = Matt in these.

CoCo: “It almost makes me want to cry!”

Me: What?

We closed the park and headed home.  My sister and I were in the same van with the girls and the boys and Kayla in another van.  They took one route, we took another.  On our route, we encountered the road being closed and so we had to detour.  We are exhausted, sleepy, thirsty, and here we are lost in the dark in Williamsburg Virginia.  The GPS was useless as it kept wanting us to go back to the exit where we were forced to get off in the first place.  But we got home – it took an extra hour.

Then we discovered the hamster was out of her cage.  We had a middle of the night rescue.  Yes, this is definitely an interesting trip.  :)  Fortunately, Sunday and Monday were much less eventful.  We spent time in the pool and playing with the kids and talking and just having fun in general.

Of course, there was the fun of actually getting home.  We had a very very short layover coming home.  I guess to make up for the four hours going down, eh?  Then we find out our flight from Raleigh was delayed.  Yay!  Our record of getting out of RDU airport continues to be 0%.  But we are always very early anyway.  We check our bags, the ladies taking care of this area are not paying attention and this took a little too long for my liking.  I know, what is the hurry?  Stay with me here!  We go through security.  Didn’t take long, but everyone had to be naked checked, no more sneaking through metal detectors only, so that slows us down.  We get to our gate and what do we see?  A plane that is boarding going to BWI where we are headed!  After spending two minutes discussing with Matt whether we should try to get on the plane and him not wanting to, I try anyway, and I run to the Customer Service desk and the lady said that she can get us on, there is lots and lots of room, the plane is half empty!  Yippeee!  Except.  The stupid gate man wouldn’t let us on.  Boooo!  So now we are down to our original and still 20 minute layover.   Mind you – all those annoyances – the luggage ladies paying attention, or not using the stupid scanners or not arguing with Matt – and we could have gotten on that plane! We literally missed our chance by two minutes.  So it was hard to relax waiting for our plane and even being on our plane despite being reassured we would make our connection.  We get off at BWI and we are literally one gate over from our flight to Pittsburgh and they are just lining up.  We get right in line and get right on the plane.  WHEW!

If only layovers were always that smooth. Oh wait, no.  It was too tenseful.

We take Kayla home and go to bed.  The next day, we have to get to Cleveland for the Glee Live concert and that is a post for another day.  I’m quite tired of writing.  Talk to y’all tomorrow.

I’ll refer you to my sister’s blog for photos of the children – she is in my Blogroll – All My Little Chickadees.

So, as soon as he could buy the tickets, he did.  Then we started scouring flights.  Flying to Toronto used to be so easy.  It’s less than an hour and it used to be cheap.  Now … it was very expensive.  Anything cheap was not direct and took many, many hours.  So we decided to suck it up and just drive.  We are not generally fans of driving to destinations much further than 3-4 hours.  There are other considerations too.  A drive can be short, yet difficult.  Or long, yet easy.  The first time we travelled to Toronto together, we didn’t really find it difficult.  Our problem was when we left, when we tried to get home, we couldn’t find our way “out” and we were driving all over Cananda and even when we finally found a place to stop to ask for directions – well, the people spoke French.  So … we thought – now we have GPS.  We can survive.  So we drove.  And yes, it wasn’t hard.  The hardest part is just when you get close to the city and that is where I made Matt drive.  And we parked the car and didn’t use it again the entire trip, because we didn’t need it.  Toronto has excellent public transportation and is also very easily navigable on foot.

Unfortunately, Toronto’s weather shadows Pittsburgh’s, except colder.  So they were also having cold and rain, just like us.  So we had to deal with being cold and all of that.  In the past, we’ve gone to Toronto in July, when it’s hot, but we were hoping they would get a freaky warm episode, so that we could go enjoy the islands, but no such luck.

We drove up on a Thursday, got there in time for dinner.  We basically did just that.  Checked-in the hotel, went to dinner, walked just a short while just to feel like we were in Toronto and then hung out in the room.

The next morning, Friday, we got up and had breakfast at the hotel, which was included in our room rate (thanks AAA).  This was also the day of the Royal Wedding.  Just FYI.  :)

In all of the times we had been to Toronto, the one thing we had (surprisingly) not done was go to the Hockey Hall of Fame.  So we decided to go do that.  This was also the only place the whole trip, pretty much, that I took pictures.  Here are some of them:

The Great Hall in the Hall of Fame – used to be a bank building.  I just thought this was beautiful!

More of the Great Hall

Me with the current Stanley Cup.  I wanted to point out the square with the most recent Penguin win, but Matt wouldn’t let me.

Why so serious?

This is the original Stanley Cup

Later that evening, after locating some food, and believe me, we eat well in Toronto (I think we went to the Hard Rock), we saw the musical Billy Elliot.  We had never seen Billy Elliot before, and it was good.  There wasn’t a heck of a lot happening in the theater this particular weekend, but we managed to fill our time.  Anyway, we did enjoy the show and we had really awesome seats.  We always have good luck getting great seats at theater in Toronto.

Saturday was dedicated to the UFC event.  In the morning, it was hotel breakfast again.  Then to the UFC fan expo.  We chose to walk to the venue.  It was a good 1.5 miles.  And Mother Nature was actually kind enough to let it not rain long enough for us to get there without the rain.  It was still chilly though.  :) This was such a great idea!  There were vendors.  And there were fighters!  And the fighters were set up to meet the fans and there were going to be photo opps and autograph sessions.  However … I am not sure what exactly happened.   But the expo was WAY too crowded.  It was no fun at all.  What we actually got to see was LINES.  There were LINES to get into LINES.   The vendors were not very interesting – and some of the fighters were sponsored by the vendors, so the crowds were around the vendors and we couldn’t look at the vendors’ booths even if we wanted to. Everyone was packed in like sardines.  I would say that the expo needs some big time re-working.  :)     Matt was very disappointed that he didn’t get to have the experience he had hoped for and I felt horrible about it too.  I know he was really excited about it.  So we went back to the hotel and hung out until dinner.  I think we ate at Hey Lucy, which was tasty, tasty.  Then to the fight we went.

Now, I have to admit.  I was not excited about this.  Fighting never really seemed to be my thing.  It never really excited me. I don’t get it.  I am a very non-violent person.  Why would anyone want to beat anyone else up? FOR FUN?  And worse? BE BEAT UP?  I had planned to be totally bored.  Yep.  Planning for boredom.  I took a book with me in my purse.  But then I got to the event.  And I actually watched the events.  Every single one.  Some were quick.  Some were longer.  There was one fight where one fighter had a hematoma almost as big as his head and yet he kept on fighting.  Now that is tough.  I do admit that by the end, even though I did watch them all, I was kinda getting tired of being there.  Blame the ADD.  I was ready to move on to something else.  But they did keep things moving, and the down time between fights wasn’t that long.

My biggest gripe about the fight itself is the music.  At first it was okay.  But by the end of the night is was SO FREAKING LOUD that I was losing my mind.  It just kept. getting. louder. and. louder.  It totally wasn’t necessary.  I’ve been to concerts that weren’t as noisy.  I understand the music filled in the gaps between fights, but still!   And the people next to me – and yes, I realize this has nothing to do with the event – were smoking cigarettes!  They were not permitted and it wasn’t until the end of the night that I discovered who it was, or I would have reported them.  All I knew is that I smelled them.  I thought I was losing my mind! I asked Matt “Do you smell cigarettes?”  and of course, he either didn’t or he wasn’t sure because the smoke would start blowing in another direction.  Oh well.  So in addition to going deaf, I was getting lung cancer.

So, once again, I surprised myself by enjoying something I didn’t think I would.  Would I go to another UFC event?  Yes.  In fact, there is one in Pittsburgh tonight.  Oh sweet irony!  It was announced after we bought tickets to go to Toronto.  Thing is – I didn’t know if I would want to go.  So Matt bought two tickets only, so that he could take my cousin and then in the event she couldn’t go, I would go.  But had I known it wasn’t totally intolerable, I would have had him buy three.  Oh well!  What are you going to do?

It makes absolutely no sense to me, because I really do abhor violence.  I do not like people fighting each other, either physically or verbally.  I do not like acts of violence against ANY sentient being.  But maybe because this is agreed upon ahead time?  Consent?  Is that what makes the difference?  I do not know.  It is just another of life’s conundrums.

Back to the Toronto trip.

Sunday, we had no real plans.  So we decided to see the play Calendar Girls.  If you are not familiar with the story, it is about a group of mostly middle-aged women who need to raise money for their garden club, so they decide to pose nude for a calendar.  This is a true story, of which a move was made, and then the play.  We really liked it and thought it was really well done and funny.  We were pretty surprised to find out later that there were very very negative reviews of this posted online.  Harsh critics they were.  I can pretty harsh, and I am not an expert.  But really, it didn’t deserve the criticism.

Another thing we did on Sunday was go to a movie, which I have to admit, I forget which one.  But I have to say – this movie theater was the coolest theater I have ever been in.  It was an AMC  theater and the building was round.  You walk in and pay on the ground level.  You need to then go up two levels on the escalator before getting into any theaters.  The theater itself was two levels!  Toronto has an extensive underground city – the PATH they call it – and also a subway – and at ground level was a subway stop, and part of the PATH.  The first two levels of the building had shops and a food court.  Then the first level of theaters and the second.  The theaters were stadium seats, they had 3D theaters and an IMAX and it was so clean and super new.  It was just beautiful.  Honestly, I should have taken pictures.  But I would have looked really, really ridiculous.  But I wish theaters in this city were half that nice.  We have ghetto theaters, with a nice one thrown in here and there, but nothing on this scale.

Monday, we headed home and that was our wonderful trip to Toronto.  I love Toronto.  Even though it was cold and raining most of the time and we had to carry umbrellas, there is no such thing as a bad trip to Toronto.

]]> http://www.jennriffle.com/2011/06/26/travelling-tales-part-ii-ufc-129-and-toronto-canada/feed/ 0 http://www.jennriffle.com/2011/01/21/aria-the-bright/ http://www.jennriffle.com/2011/01/21/aria-the-bright/#comments Fri, 21 Jan 2011 23:31:21 +0000 jenn http://www.jennriffle.com/?p=292 Continue reading →]]>

We stayed at the Aria hotel on our last visit to Las Vegas, in December 2010.   There are lots of choices as to where to stay in Vegas, and with the price of hotels, making an educated decision is always better.   We have stayed at a few other hotels on the Strip, varying widely in price/luxury:  Mandalay Bay, Excalibur, Planet Hollywood, Caesar’s Palace and Palazzo.  They all had positives and negatives, except the Palazzo.  I have nothing negative to say about them.  Here is the scoop on Aria.

PROS:

*The room is nice and clean, and a comfortable size

*Bed was comfy

*Large screen, HDTV

*Being a newer hotel, it is definitely a lot more navigable than some of the older ones (and MGM), and doesn’t have cheesy theming.

*Also doesn’t have the cigarette smell that the older ones have (yet)

*Guest elevators are near the front door

*24 hour sundry/gift shop

*Easy access to Crystals and the tram to Bellagio/Monte Carlo

*Gelato and patisserie

*Easy access to Planet Hollywood (yummy breakfast buffet)

*Cafe Vettro treated us nicely as we got there between breakfast/lunch and there was nothing on the menu exactly to my specifications, they accommodated me and let me eat “off-menu”.  We liked it despite the bad reviews we read, and it’s really pretty.

*There is a pretty fountain outside the main doors.

*We did not gamble here, so we have no opinion on the casino itself, other than looks

CONS:

*Set far off the strip, and while they have a nice easy walkway, it is still a walk to The Strip.

*This also upsets the traffic flow of pedestrians.

*The tram to Bellagio/Monte Carlo is practically useless.  It’s quicker to walk to the locations outside, than take the tram.

*The buffet is expensive and not really that good.  I’ll offer up a disclaimer, that we ate during the special weekend dinner thing, which made the buffet super expensive and reek of fish.  However, we did try it at breakfast, which we figured they could get right and, well, no.  For the money, walk across the street to PH and eat at their buffet.

GOOD IDEA GONE WRONG:

From their website it says the following:

The most advanced guestroom technology in the world puts total control of your stay at your fingertips, allowing you to customize the lighting, room temperature, and music – transforming your room into a sanctuary of relaxation. Oversized floor-to-ceiling windows fill the room with natural light and provide spectacular views of the Las Vegas Strip or surrounding mountains.

Let me tell you about this technology.  :)

What I liked is the push button control of the curtains/drapes.  That is not innovative, The Palazzo has that too.  I liked the bush button control for privacy or service.  I liked the fact that the bathroom had dimmers, so that you could leave just a tiny bit of light so you don’t walk into the walls, but not so much to wake you up.   I liked the button by the bed that controlled the bedside light and when you pressed goodnight or whatever it said, it turned off all the lights in the room and closed the curtains.

HOWEVER —

The master control panel for the whole electronic room was a royal pain. It just did not work.   The MCP is about the size of an iPad and from there, sitting in bed, you are supposed to be able to control the lights in the whole room, the drapes, the tv and the thermostat.

The thermostat worked, and as far as we could tell, this was the only way to control it, despite there being a wall unit.

The MCP unit’s “Goodnight” function closes the draperies, and dims the light and turns the tv on to a music station.  WTF?  I’m trying to sleep!  And we had to mess around for a good 10 minutes before we could figure out how to turn off the tv.  The tv’s remote didn’t work.  But once we got the tv off, except for watching Glee, we didn’t turn it back on.  Fortunately, the goodnight button next to the bed worked as a goodnight.  The MCP needs to call that setting Romance instead of goodnight.

And the result of all this so-called “cool” technology?  The room never gets dark.  It is too busy glowing!  From the MCP and the all the button controls on the wall.  I didn’t even need those bathroom dimmer lights.  And the curtains didn’t shut all the way and there was no way to pull it tight and there was a big gap at the top.  So for those of us who have trouble falling asleep at night with light in our eyes, this is not the place.  I even tried wrapping the MCP in towels to dim the glow, when it was obvious you couldn’t turn the damn thing off or unplug it.

This was our view:

It shows you how far it is set back from the strip.  At least I could watch the fountain at night.

I think unless you are on one of the top floors, the strip view is minimal, and a mountain view would be better.

So there you go. If you are the kind of person who doesn’t care about the room being bright to sleep, and are the kind who sticks around their resort most of the trip, consider Aria.  I don’t think we’ll stay there again.

Every year, my husband and I go on a trip for our anniversary.   Last year, our 10th anniversary, we went to Kauai.  This year?  Erie, PA and Niagara Falls, ON, CA.

Our actual anniversary was spent with him at a college football game and me at zoo training, then rushing home to load the car to drive to Erie.  What’s in Erie?  Nothing really, but there was a marathon the next day and Matt was participating in the half marathon and I, the 5K walk, the next day.  Once we got to Erie, we had an exciting dinner at Steak ‘n Shake and then went back to the hotel and rested for the very early and long day the next day.   Matt did his half, I walked my 5K and then we headed for the falls.

I’m not going to give you all a play-by-play, that would be boring.  But I am going to summarize and tell you what I thought were the high points and the low points.

Food:

We ate mostly at well known eateries.  We had the hotel breakfast buffet and it was okay.  The view of the falls was nice.   Twice we had breakfast at a family restaurant on Clifton Hill. They had good home fries, but it was just okay, edible.  Nothing incredible.

The standout was the Secret Garden.

Inside, the decor reminded me of a grandmother’s house.  Pick any grandma, it doesn’t matter.   I ate the grilled eggplant sandwich and Matt had the chicken fingers and fries.   That doesn’t sound spectacular, but it really was good.  Even Matt, who wouldn’t touch an eggplant if his life depended on it said “That looks good for what it is”.  :)    But the ambiance and the fact that they served real, unsweetened brewed iced tea are the reasons to visit.

Here is the cute birdhouse on our table.  All the tables had one, and they were all different:

And here is the dining room.  There is also outside seating.

Entertainment/Tourist Attractions:

My favorite thing that we did, besides Maid of the Mist boat ride, was the Daredevils exhibit at the IMAX theater.  The exhibit had videos, artifacts, reproductions and even the actual vessels from attempts to go over the falls.  It was small, and inexpensive.   The movie that plays at the IMAX was just okay.

While you are down at this end of town, you will probably want to do the Skylon Tower.  And I recommend that.  Supposedly you can see all the way to Toronto up there, but we could not be sure that we saw it, even though it was indeed a clear day.  However, you should skip the 4D movie that they try to sell you.  It’s totally a waste of money and time.  The story is contrived, and the effects are designed just to make the seats move and squirt you with water.  Has no bearing on the very stupid movie they show you.  Plus when you wear the glasses, you feel like you are going blind.   Please don’t bother.  It’s 20 minutes of your life you can’t get back.

Obviously, since I already mentioned this, the Maid of the Mist boat ride is a must.  You will get wet, but it is very much worth it to be there under the falls.

Clifton Hill is the street where all the other touristy things are.  The things we did that were fun were the Louis Taussad’s Wax Museum, Guiness Museum, Ripley’s, Galaxy Golf (very challenging), and the shooting “ride” at the Canadian Midway.

Movieland … well, it was so bad it was funny.  The theme, movies, is obvious.  Inside there were wax figures.  Terrible wax figures.  A few DID look like who they were supposed to, but for the most part, had they not put name tags on the figures, we would not have been able to identify them.  There was what I called the Hall of Crazy Arm Arrangements and Michael Jackson was missing a hand and Meryl Street an arm.   Not saying for you not to go, just don’t expect greatness.

And how can I forget? Bird Kingdom!  This is walking distance from Clifton Hill, it’s on the road by the falls, past the Rainbow Bridge (you have to walk under it).  It is Canada’s aviary.  At first, it is a weird place. They have more space then they need, and when you go in, you think “ghetto”.  But the small bird room was fun with all the birds walking around.  Then you get to the main attraction.  The main aviary.

From the Maid of The Mist

Hotel:

We stayed at the Sheraton on the Falls.  It was a great hotel convenient to Clifton Hill and this was our view from our window:

The Casino Niagara was attached to the hotel, as was a game room, the Hard Rock, Hershey World and a water park.

We highly recommend this hotel.

Casinos and Miscellaneous facts:

The Fallsview Casino is down by the Skylon Tower and Horsehoe Falls.  It is billed as a resort and it is on par with a Las Vegas casino.   The Casino Niagara was equally nice.  One of the things I noticed in Canada, is that you have to be 19 to get into the casinos and they are non-smoking facilities.  Want to smoke?  You go into the smoking room.  I wish all casinos in the US would be that way.

And if you are there after Labor Day, don’t go to the Dairy Queen looking for chocolate ice cream.  Canadians don’t eat it and the stores only carry it for tourists and once tourist season slows down, its out with the chocolate!

And that is it!

But enough of that.  What has June brought me?  Puppies!  Yes, puppies.  Everyone around me is getting puppies.  A friend just got a little puppy they named Charlie, my husband’s boss got a little bulldog named White Chocolate (or W.C.) Truffle, or just Truffle and my brother-in-law and kids just got a Boston Terrier named Rylie.   You want to see?  Okay.

Here is Truffle:

Here is Rylie:

So, at the end of June, we went to visit my sister and the kids, for our bi-annual visit.  Summer usually coincides with Maddie’s birthday, so we usually celebrate that.

This year was a little different because the kids had to go to karate lessons and CoCo had a birthday party on Saturday, so our beach trip was reserved for Sunday.   I love that they live only two hours from the beach, I would go to the beach all summer long if I lived so close to the beach!  Our day was perfect, it was hot, near 100, but it didn’t feel bad at the beach.  The waves were really rough this year, which we attributed to a storm coming through at some point (and it did).

I was so proud of the little girls.  Ginger went into the water this year.  Not far, but enough.  Good brave Ginger.  And CoCo showed no fear and went out to the water almost to her hips!  In a few years, we will be having trouble keeping her close by!  Maddie is a stronger swimmer than I am and so I found it funny that she couldn’t go out in the water without an adult (who was mostly me, LOL).  Maddie is such a charmer.   Owen, well, he is still a bit spirited, so he mainly stayed with his dad or mom.   Or with Uncle Matt.

This year, we went to the North Carolina Farmer’s Market.  The place was HUGE!  I can’t tell you how many stands they had.  But in addition to the many produce stands, there were flowers/plants, crafts (we didn’t see) and a restaurant.  We didn’t get to see it all, cause the kids were bored, but we did get good homemade ice cream!  I had blueberry!  Yum.  I thought how much it would be nice to have a farmer’s market like that here … but then, I remembered that we have the Strip District.  It’s different.  In NC, its more like a park, or a fair, whereas, the Strip is City shops with tables outside.

Our trip was way too quick and I honestly didn’t get many pictures.   So I am going to post one of all four of them that I stole from my sister’s website.

Left to right:  Ginger, Maddie, CoCo, and Owen

They also added a canine to their family.  However, he isn’t small or a pup.  His name is Kalua, aka Buddha or Bu.

For the Fourth of July, Ben and Sydney usually come home to PA and we get to see them.   On the third, there was a big picnic at my father-in-law’s house.  It was nice to see everyone.  We saw people we haven’t seen in a while … Matt’s cousin’s Liz and Steph and aunts and uncles.  Ben and Sydney are getting so big and they are very very smart and sweet!  It’s nice to be able to hold smart conversations with them.

Here is Sydney with Rylie:

And Katelyn, who is getting so big and has decided to just go ahead and like people, meeting Rylie:

The Monday after, that would be the 5th, Jacob, Ben, Sydney, Joey, Nicholas, and Kate, along with their moms and their grandparents and Uncle Matt and Aunt Jenn went to the Carnegie Science Center.  We were there for 5.5 hours and I was really ready to go home.  The new SportsWorks was pretty cool though.  And we had the entire place to ourselves for a long while. However, I forgot my camera and I only have this picture to show taken on my cool iPhone 4, which still needs a zoom:

That would be Uncle Matt on the bicycle in the air.  I did it too.  It was too short … as soon as you gained confidence, and knew you weren’t going to topple (it starts out going backwards) it was time to return.  But after my Hawaiian adventures, it was hardly intimidating.

Till next time!

Matt and I have been travelling together for awhile.  When we go to Vegas, we know exactly what we want to do and we do it.  This time, there were six other people we had to consider.

I won’t give a play by play, but some of the highlights this trip was actually the food.  I know, you are surprised.  A foodie liking the food.  But seriously?  There was some spectacular food this trip! We stepped out of our comfort zone, and were surprised.

First, the Planet Hollywood buffet was really surprisingly good.  We got there for breakfast, which is mostly what I ate, but since we were at the lunch crossover time, we also got to sample a small amount of lunch food.  I really liked this.

Second place of note:  Bon Ami Gabi at Paris Las Vegas.  Matt and I never considered eating in a French restaurant, but the others wanted to, and Bon Ami is a steakhouse, so other than small portions, what do we have to lose?  I thought it was pretty funny when the menu was delivered in French.  I think that was the wine menu only.  Pretty much everyone chose a steak of some sort, except for me, the lone vegetarian, who is unable to get her brain around eating eggs these days.  I ended up with a tomato/feta/basil salad, which was supposed to be an entree, but was more of a side, and a side of very extremely yummy macaroni and cheese that turned out to be entree sized.  The mac & cheese had breadcrumbs on the top.  So good.  I was satisfied even though I really ALSO wanted the greens salad that J ordered.

The other place of note, was 9, a steakhouseas well.  This was a high-end restaurant and probably the highest end I’ve ever eaten in.  I chose to eat a green salad (when I asked the waiter how big it was, he said “not that big”, but he was wrong), which was $12!  My sides were $11 each.  I got pierogies (how fun!) and green beans.  And yes, I got a large portion of greens beans.  I couldn’t eat them all!  But they were tasty.   We didn’t get there until 8:00 p.m.  and by the time we left, it was hopping in there and reminded me of a place that you think of when you think of New York City.  Interesting.

Matt and I, but not the others, ate at a place in downtown, that had a 40′s vibe and it was really good there.  All three of these restaurants had awesome bread as well, and each one had a different type.  Seriously.  Give me a GOOD salad that is comprised of more than just iceburg lettuce and brown tomato and cucumber, and some really really good crusty bread and butter, and I am content! 

I did get to eat at Stripburger, my favorite place.  Their veggie burgers are homemade and oh so good.  I would have been disappointed if I hadn’t gotten that opportunity.

We stayed at Planet Hollywood, the old Aladdin hotel.  PH really jazzed it up, but I was still surprised that the room was tiny.  Especially for the price.  The rooms at the Excalibur, which can often be gotten for under $100 per night, were bigger.  However, the theming was cool.  We had the “Mommy Dearest” room with actual props from the movie in there.

We also had an awesome view!

We could see the fountain show.  I did see a few daytime ones, but unfortunately, didn’t get a good night picture of the fountain.  Below is Paris at night.

I also learned that the Bellagio changes its atrium each season.  Every time I have visited, it has been the same.  I guess that is summer?  It is the one with the ferris wheel.  This time, they had a garden theme and here is my favorite picture of that:

And on our last day, while waiting for our flight, we went in search of The Cupcakery, cause we heard it was good. It is located right at the new City Center tram station in the Monte Carlo.  Here are the cupcakes we selected:

Matt got chocolate with peanut butter fudge icing (and it really was fudge) and I had strawberry.  I couldn’t eat it all, it was too sweet and the cake really wasn’t all that great.  It tasted like it had been sitting for awhile.  I hope they didn’t sell me a day-old cupcake.  I would think there are plenty of homeless who would eat them at night.

It was definitely a fun trip, made better by the six new friends we made.  I can’t wait to do it again!

MONDAY:

We went on the Kilohana Plantation Hike.  This is the same plantation that we went to the day before for breakfast and shopping.   The hikes starts with a train ride, the same train ride that the people who only want the train ride go on, then we get off to hike, have lunch, and pick fruit in the orchard and then get picked up by the train back to the plantation.

Our group consisted of mostly people older and less fit than us, except for one who was most likely younger than Matt.  She had a “personality” disorder.  At first, I found her annoying, but then as I realized that she wasn’t just weird, but wired differently, I warmed up to her.  What can I say, it was morning, I wasn’t fully functional myself and had late realization.

So we board the train.  The first stop, the one that started the hike was fun.  We got to feed the wild pigs and the goats.  Of course, the goats being goats tried to hog all the food.  There were itty bitty baby pigs there.  The smallest ran into the grass though, and we didn’t get a picture of them.  Matt took pictures and I did the feeding.   During the hike, the learned that there are 350,000 wild pigs on the island, compared to the 65,000 human residents.  And that is why there are no more peacocks on the hike.

The hike was long, but slow.  And interesting. We saw a lot of different flowers and learned about the parasitic banyon tree.  We saw a 100 year old mango tree.  It had long since stopped producing fruit, and a banyon took over, but for a mango tree to still be standing after 100 years is really something.

After the hike, we had an okay lunch.  I had a salad and chips.  The salad had the little purple flowers that supposedly tasted like mushrooms on it, but I didn’t taste that with all the other veggies mixed in.  Then we headed for the orchard. On our way, a horse came over to talk to us.  I thought about my niece Maddie  right then and how happy she would have been over the horse coming over to her.

The orchards …. ahh… the guide cut up a delicious pineapple for us to share.  Never had a better tasting pineapple ever! I tried some new fruits … lychee (pronounced LEE-chee), and I can’t describe it except that its juicy and sweet.  Oh so yummy.  I had a longanberry … several of them, they look similar to the lychee, taste like a canteloupe.  And a star fruit, which I have seen here in grocery stores and never bought, cause I didn’t know what to do with it.  Turns out, you slice it like you would slice a cucumber or zucchini into rounds.  Its flavor is reminiscient of a kiwi.

The highlight of this excursion was Hobo Gray, a friendly cat who hangs out by the train station.  The train driver told us that she was abandoned there six months ago and they have been taking care of her.  She was limping, and he promised that if she wasn’t feeling better the next day, she would go to the vet.  He seemed very concerned about her.  Hobo let us pet her.  We were there before anyone else, so we got to her before it all got to be too much for her.   That was our only cat fix of the whole trip.  All the other cats seem to be true ferals and run from us.

After the hike, we went to the beach.  It was hard to believe that our trip was almost over and we wanted as much beach time as we could get!

TUESDAY:

We didn’t do very much on Tuesday.  A lot of reading and hanging out at the condo, outside.   The event we had planned was water tubing.  This was run by the same company that we went ziplining with on Friday.   So it was the same deal, get there, get gear, take a long truck drive, tube, eat, go back.  The actual tubing was okay.  I think it was definitely geared to families, as it was mellow.  I would have liked some waterfalls or bigger dips or something (nothing that would cause us to fall out of our tubes though), just a bit of a thrill.  It was relatively relaxing, or as much as it can be in an organized group.  The stream was 2.5 miles long, which sounds short, and it was.   The lazy river at Sandcastle (for those who know it) … that is about what this was, plus tunnels and a guide or two.   I would have liked a bit more Raging Rapids (at Kennywood) for the experience.    I thought the lunch was better than the zipline one, but the people who worked this event were not as friendly or nice as the zipliners.

WEDNESDAY:

Was essentially our last full day here in the sense of having the condo.  We mostly did nothing in the morning, although I do think that this was the day I was reading on the lanai, and saw a turtle, and then another.   I called in to Matt and there were at least six or seven swimming around together.  It was cool.  Matt ran in to the condo to get the camera and started snapping pictures and actually got several that shows the turtles.  That was this year’s theme for the trip, turtles. 

Afternoon on the beach, where the “waves” were the roughest all week, but no critters joined us in our swimming.  We stopped at the grocery store to get something for dinner and breakfast the next morning, and packed and read some books.

THURSDAY:

Got up and cleaned up the condo, showered and finished packing.  Sigh.  I can’t believe 10 days went by so fast.  When it got there, it seemed like we had so much time, and then whoosh! it was all over … but we still had some vacationing to do!

We “checked out” of the condo at 10:30 and headed west to Port Allen Airport where we went Powered Hang Gliding.  Let me tell you all … this was frightening!  I’m quoting Matt here, but its like riding a motorcycle in the air.  There is nothing around you.   Yes, we are seatbelted in, but that wasn’t good enough.

I admit that I was this close to making him land and stop.  But what stopped me?  I didn’t want to be only the fourth person to make them do that.  According to their website, only 3 in 18,000 people have done that. I am sure that there have been more students since us, but that three still stands.

It wasn’t the turbulence, it was just the being in the air with no outer protection.   About half way through though, I started to relax and enjoy it.   Matt got the option to steer his plane, I didn’t.  I was offered, it was a “lesson” after all, but I was too scared.  Matt got to go into the canyon and I stayed over the water, that in itself another story, as I can’t swim.  But we were totally safe, because we were 6,000 feet in the air, and at that point, the air holds you in and if the engine failed, we had a long time to glide down and steer to a safe place.  But it didn’t feel that way at first!

Would I do it again?  Probably.  But no time soon.  It’s very cost prohibitive.

Then we went to lunch at Joe’s on the Green, and discovered too late that it was good for lunch as well as breakfast.  Oh well.  We did some souvenir shopping and then …. we had nothing left to do and our flight wasn’t until 10:50.

So we went to the beach and sat in a pavillion and read our books.  The couple who had gone hang gliding right before us were there too and they saw us and we talked to them for awhile.   Eventually, after the sun started to go down (and I got some awesome sunset pictures), we headed out the direction of the airport.   We still had time so we decided to kill some of it at Border’s, then grabbed a quick dinner and headed to the airport at just about the perfect time for that.

In Lihue … well, they never were equipped for security and security is outside … the check in counters are sort of inside …. they are under a canopy, but its still open.  Its weird, but you have to go behind security to check in and check your bags.  First, checked bags have to be inspected by the USDA for plants and produce.  Then you get your boarding pass, get your checked bag tags, take your bags to the TSA bag area and then you get into general security line.  Anyway, the set up is a bit confusing.  And then when you get to the gate, they check your carry on for contraband.  We watched one guy get harrassed over his case of papayas, that I am pretty sure he bought in the airport, cause he was behind me in the main security line.

The trip home was uneventual.  Didn’t sleep as much as I would have liked, but got some sleep in.  The flight out of Phoenix to Pittsburgh was delayed 45 minutes, but we landed only 15 minutes behind schedule.  My best sleep was during that delay.  The plane moved, its like a car, and I was out.  When I woke up, I was surprised we were still on the ground.  I even slept through the pilot announcements. 

We are working to get over our jet lag.  Saturday, we were not up that late, around 11, but Sunday, I was up at 1:30!  Oy!  I hope to be back to somewhat normal in a few days.  Its hard.

In Summary:

Poipu is a nice place to stay.  There are grocery stores and restaurants and Lihue is only 15 miles away.  Our condo, while not deluxe accomodations (our room at the Palazzo in Vegas was much nicer for instance), had everything we wanted and you cannot get closer to the water than these.   It did not really have a beach, as we thought.  Just a small sandy area that was shared with another big resort.   We didn’t spend time there because it was so small and lots of people.  But the turtle sightings were awesome as was listening to the ocean waves all day and night.   The place wasn’t air conditioned and the trade winds didn’t cool the bed and bathrooms like promised.  It was actually hot.

We may stay at the North Shore the next time, where we stayed the first time.  I don’t think we’ll find a condo or house so close to the ocean however.

Don’t think these beaches are like the ones on the mainland shore.  The fact that these are volcanos make the beaches very rocky.   If you surf, or body board or body surf, or snorkel, its great.  If you just splash in the ocean, its great.  But its not like the beaches in North Carolina where you can go out to your neck, still have sand beneath your feet and ride waves inland.   If you try that in Kauai, you’ll break your head.

I highly recommend “The Ultimate Kauai Guidebook” by Andrew Doughty.  He didn’t steer us wrong at all.

This was, by far, one of the best, if not the best vacation ever.