Sensorio, Blossom Trail and Las Vegas - Las Vegas

Las Vegas
Monday, February 24 to Friday, Saturday, 29

It has become somewhat of a tradition for us to go to Las Vegas for my birthday, and this year everything fell into place and here we are.

Since we only had a five hour drive from Tehachapi to Las Vegas, we took our time getting on the road, but still made it to Las Vegas by 1:30.  Our arrival was complicated by a large construction project going on closing some of the access roads to Harrah's where we are staying.  Caesar's Entertainment (CET) owns quite a few properties on the Strip including Harrah's and the neighboring Linq Hotel, and they are building a new convention center behind the hotels.  Despite the confusion, we found our way to the valet, left our car and headed in to check in.

Our room wasn't ready yet so we killed some time in the casino before heading to the Fulton Street Food Hall for lunch.  By the time we finished lunch, our room was ready and we headed up to settle in.  It was a typical Harrah's room, not very big, but comfortable and we did have a nice view of the Strip including the Mirage Volcano.  I am not going to give a blow by blow description of our stay, but just hit on some of our activities and the highlights in no particular order.

The Monorail and Getting Around

We like to visit as many properties on the Strip as we can during our Las Vegas visits so we usually buy monorail tickets to facilitate that, but the one trouble of that for this trip was the monorail access.  One of the reasons we like to stay at Harrah's is the easy access to the monorail, but due to the construction, the access from the hotel was blocked off and instead we had to walk next door to the Linq, all the way to the back of the hotel and into the parking garage, up to the fourth floor and then take a long walk out to the monorail station.  It was a long walk, but hopefully by the time of our next visit, everything will be back to normal.

Speaking of walking, it always seems like we do a lot of walking when we visit Las Vegas, but I never actually measured it, but this time I did.  I activated my step counter and even though I thought we did a lot of walking, I was surprised by the results.  We walked an average of five miles every day with lowest being four miles and the highest being around six miles, no wonder our legs were tired.

Outside Caesar's Palace

We were just starting the long walk through the Forum Shops into the Caesar's Palace casino.

The Crowds

We shouldn't be surprised anymore, but we always are at how crowded it was.  I thought that on a Monday in February with everyone worried about the coronavirus, maybe there would be fewer people, but nope, lots of people everywhere and it stayed that way throughout the week and of courses, noticeably picked up on Friday night.

Downtown

We hadn't been to downtown Las Vegas for a few years so we thought we'd take a trek down there during our visit.  We didn't want to navigate the traffic and parking so we decided to leave the car at the Valet and take a cab.

Because of the size of the hotels and grounds on the Strip, even walking to the next hotel can take a bit of time, but downtown everything is packed together and you can walk from casino to casino quickly.  We had the cab drop us off at the Golden Nugget and started our visit there.  Downtown Las Vegas is like old time Las Vegas and many of the hotels have been there for a very long time.  There has been changes with some hotels changing hands and some going through renovations, but basically everything was the same.

We visited five or six casinos and gambled a little at each one just to get a feel for things, but to be honest, we were a little disappointed.  It's probably because we're getting older, but the casinos seemed dark and smoky and very noisy.  We didn't do too well gambling until our last stop at the Fremont.  Val and I sat down at a machine together and won enough to break even for our downtown visit.

Several years ago they have closed off Fremont Street in the heart of the downtown hotels and turned it into a pedestrian walkway with street entertainers, artists, and vendors which makes for an interesting experience as you walk from hotel to hotel.  If you like people watching, this is a great place to do it.  

We did have a harrowing ride back to the Strip as our cab driver seemed to be practicing for a race, but even though we were a bit disappointed in our visit, we still had a good time, but will probably wait a few more years before returning again.

The Linq Promenade

As I have mentioned in previous posts about Las Vegas, one of our favorite spots is the Linq Promenade which lies between the Linq and Flamingo Hotels.  It was once an alleyway between the two hotels, but has been changed into a pedestrian promenade with restaurants, bars, shops, entertainment and now even a zipline.  It is anchored at the back by the world's largest observation wheel called the High Roller that is worth going on at least once.  The Promenade is always full of people enjoying themselves and just has a vibrant feel to it.

The High Roller observation wheel sits at the back end of the promenade and dominates the skyline.

We made several trips there to stroll around, but mostly to eat.  One of our favorite places to eat is the Flour and Barley Brick Oven Pizza.  The pizzas are great and as you might guess from the name, the pizza crust is particularly good.  We had a great time eating outside and watching the crowds wandering by.

The Flour and Barley Brick Oven Pizza.  The car is part of a promotion, the Linq Promenade is for pedestrians only.

Here I am waiting for my pizza.

And Val too.

One day we decided to have a late lunch / early dinner and decided to eat at the Chayo Mexican Kitchen and Tequila Bar, which is part of the Linq Hotel, but opens up out on the Linq Promenade.  We had a great meal and once again sat outside and watched the crowds wander by.

My last entry about the Linq Promenade is one of our favorite things there - Ghiardelli's Ice Cream and Chocolate Shop.  I'm not much of an ice cream eater, but something we do every trip is have a hot fudge sundae there and I have to say, I really enjoy it.  This trip we outdid ourselves and had one for dessert on our first night there and one on our last night there.  The say "what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas" and we hope that includes calories.

My Birthday

I saved the best for last and that was Wednesday the 26th when I turned 72.  Last year I spent my birthday in Brazil and while this was certainly not as exotic as that, it will be equally memorable.

We started the day by taking the monorail down to the MGM Grand where we visit every trip as we like their casino.  I do like the casino, but I never win there, but surprisingly I actually won there and Val and I broke even for our time spent there (breaking even is a win as we expect to lose).

After the MGM Grand it was back to Harrah's, but we stopped in the Linq casino to gamble a little and Val and I sat down at a dollar slot machine, and each put in a twenty and won a nice little jackpot to split.  The day was getting better as I had mostly lost gambling up until this day, but the best was yet to come.

One of Val's favorite slot machines are Buffalo Machines.  There are various forms of these, but the night before we had watched someone win $1,500 on a free spin bonus where he had gotten 73 free spins at 4 times each win.  I usually don't play the Buffalo slots because I don't usually win at them, but before we left the Linq, Val wanted to play one so I agreed.

We decided to play one like we saw the guy win on the night before, and picked out one that had a high number of free spins (they keep building up like a progressive until someone wins the bonus).  Anyway, we each put in a twenty and started without much success.  We were betting $4 a spin so it went pretty fast and we were soon down to $10, but surprise of surprises we got the bonus!!

You can win one of three free spin bonuses, one at 2X the win, one at 3X the win and the best one which 4X the win.  After winning the bonus we got our next surprise as we actually got the 4X bonus with 73 free spins.  Off we went and the money kept building and building and we kept getting additional spins (when certain tokens show up, the number of free spins are increased).

We ended up with 93 free spins and a won $2,772; a large jackpot and it's my birthday, amazing!!  The other amazing thing was that we had just won $2,250 in Lake Tahoe in January; we usually go years between any significant jackpots so it was incredible to win our second one in two months.

As we went through our free spins we got win after win.  Those are pennies by the way so the amount you see on the screen is $124.54.

Here we are at spin 85 of 93.

We took turns getting our picture taken with our big win.

Val's turn.

After getting paid by the attendant, we returned to Harrah's to get ready for dinner as my birthday wasn't over yet.  One of our favorite restaurants in Las Vegas is Gordon Ramsay Steak at the Paris Hotel and that's where I had chosen to have my birthday dinner.  We took the monorail down to the Paris Hotel and gambled a bit until it was time for our dinner reservation.  We started dinner with pan seared scallops followed by an American Wagyu Rib Cap Steak with roasted Brussels sprouts and mac & cheese as sides.  For dessert we had one of Gordon Ramsay's signature dishes, toffee pudding.  It was all very delicious and certainly lived up to our expectations.

After dinner, it was back to Harrah's and we finished up our night in the casino where we kept up our winning ways.  Nothing like we won earlier in the day, but enough to make it enjoyable.  What a wonderful birthday I had, we won a big jackpot, had a fabulous dinner and best of all, I spent it with Val.  It certainly took the edge off of turning 72 (can I really be that old???).

Wrapup

We had a great time in Las Vegas, and although I have put the spotlight on our wins, we also had the usual losses, but did go home with the money we came with and that's a win for us as we gamble for fun and while the occasional big wins make it worthwhile, we don't really expect to win.  Our room was comped, and our host Martha comped us all of our food so except for a few incidentals, we had a free week.  The hotel can afford to be generous as they know in the long run that we will end up losing, and they don't build those big fancy hotels by giving away money in the casinos.  😃

We had an easy drive home and arrived around 6:00 on Saturday evening.  It felt good to be home as it had been a hectic week.  We had a great time with Doug, Janis, Becky and Mandy seeing the Sensorio and the Blossom Trail.  We also had a great time in Las Vegas.  My birthday week turned out to be a great one.

That's it for now, our next trip will be our train trip back to Michigan so until then, we'll see you on down the road.

Sensorio, Blossom Trail and Las Vegas - The Blossom Trail

The Blossom Trail
Sunday, February 23

When we making our final plans for the weekend that my brother's family would be coming to visit us, I realized that the next week would be my birthday week so an idea was hatched.  Val and I usually plan a trip to Las Vegas for my birthday so I had the idea to combine our trip to Las Vegas and my brother's drive home with a trip to the Central Valley of California and follow the Blossom Trail.

The Blossom Trail is a route laid out through the nut and fruit orchards of the area south of Fresno that bloom every year typically starting around the middle of February and lasting until mid March.  Val and I had done it once before as a surprise weekend after my retirement that included a surprise visit from my best friend, Jack.  Here is a link to that original post.

We were all up early on Sunday morning as we had a long day ahead and wanted to get a good start.  It didn't go quite as planned as we lingered over breakfast talking, but we finally got on the road by 9:30 and had a two hour drive to the start of the Blossom Trail.

The Blossom Trail loop runs by many of the blooming orchards and also some of the small towns of the San Joaquin Valley south of Fresno.  We picked up the route in Kingsburg and started our drive through the orchards.  The first thing we noticed was that we were probably about a week early as many of the trees, particularly those with pink and red blossoms, weren't quite ready to bloom.  That's always the chance you take as it is just like looking for fall color, it's all dependent on the weather.

Even though we were early, there were still many orchards in bloom and we spent several hours driving the loop, stopping often to take pictures.

After finally calling it a day by mid-afternoon, we all said our good-byes and Doug, Janis, Becky and Mandy started their three hour drive home, and Val and I started our two hour drive to Tehachapi. We had a fun weekend with my brother's family and really enjoyed our visit to Sensorio and the Blossom Trail.

It's about a seven hour drive for Val and I from our home to Las Vegas so it's pretty doable in one day, but we prefer split it up, and spend the night in Tehachapi for two reasons.  First off, we have a much shorter drive to Las Vegas from Tehachapi and end up in Las Vegas by early or mid-afternoon giving us an extra half day there, but mostly because there is a BBQ place in Tehachapi that we both love to eat at.

We arrived in Tehachapi just before 6:00 and immediately made our way to The Red House BBQ Restaurant for a great dinner of barbecued ribs.  After we had eaten our fill, we returned to the hotel and relaxed until it was time to call it a night.  It was a great weekend with my brother and his family, but now we are looking forward to five days in Las Vegas.

Sensorio, Blossom Trail and Las Vegas - Sensorio

In my last blog post on our trip to Lake Tahoe, I said I wouldn't be writing about our trip to Las Vegas, but it turned out there was a bit more to it than a trip to Las Vegas so here I am.

Bruce Murin: Field of Lights at Sensorio
Saturday, February 22

In May of 2019, the Bruce Murin: Field of Lights at Sensorio opened in the rolling hills east of Paso Robles, California.  The Field of Lights is 58,000 solar-powered fiber optic lights covering 15 acres.  Even though we live nearby, we had never visited the display even though everyone we knew who had gone said it was quite spectacular.  It was originally scheduled to close in December, but due to its popularity was extended to June of 2020.

When my brother and his family visited us at Christmas, they asked if we had seen it as they had read an article about it in the Los Angeles Times.  When we said no, they asked if we were interested and we said yes so we made plans for them to visit in February to celebrate my birthday and visit the Sensorio.

My brother Doug, his wife Janis and my nieces Becky and Mandy arrived mid-afternoon on Saturday, which allowed us time to visit for a while before we left for our visit to the Sensorio.  Our friends who had been before said the best time to get there was just before sunset so Doug had bought tickets for 5:30 which was just before the 5:45 sunset.


We arrived just after 5:30 and to our surprise, we found a large crowd there and we actually had to wait in line to get in.  Despite being open since last May, it still remains popular.  It was a cold evening (at least for our part of the world) and we were glad we dressed warmly.  We walked into a plaza area where they had a couple of food trucks and tables set up if you wanted food, but we thought it was too cold to sit outside and eat.  They also have a VIP patio where you can sit and look at the lights as you eat a dinner included in the VIP tickets, but we didn't think it was worth it to us.

We started following the path that led through the lights, but the lights were not on yet as it was just starting to get dark.  Despite the cold, it was a beautiful evening with the rolling hills and oak trees silhouetted against the deep blue evening sky that was just starting to turn orange as the sun went down.

This is kind of a plaza area where you enter.  There were food trucks, places to sit and even a band playing music.

The sky was darkening as the sun went down, but the lights weren't on yet as we started down the pathway through the display.

The lights weren't on yet, but you can see the thousands of translucent bulbs
 and how much area they cover.

As it got darker, the lights started to come on, dimly at first and then with more and more intensity and colors.  The lights constantly, slowly changed colors forming random patterns and color combinations.  As it got darker and you couldn't actually see the ground, it looked like a river of flowing and changing lights.

At last as the sun set, the lights began to come on.  The light display constantly changed with the colors looking like a wave as the night grew darker.

This area is way out in the country and very dark at night, and even though the pathways are lit enough to see where you are walking, you can't see anybody's face so at times we had a hard time figuring out where anyone was.  We walked all the way around the 15 acres and really enjoyed the light display.  Pictures don't really do it justice as they don't convey the immensity of it and constant change of colors.  All in all, a great evening and well worth the visit.

We finished up around 7:30 and we were all hungry so on our way back to the house, we stopped and had a great Mexican dinner with Doug and Janis treating us in honor of my birthday (my birthday is actually the 26th, but close enough).  Thank you Doug and Janis.

After having our dinner, we returned to the house and I had another treat waiting; a birthday cake that Val had made that was delicious.  By the time we had our fill of cake, we were all thoroughly stuffed.  We spent the rest of the evening talking, but we didn't stay up too late as we wanted to get an early start tomorrow to head over to the Blossom Trail.

Hell's Kitchen, Jackpots and a Blizzard: Our Trip to Lake Tahoe

Lake Tahoe
Saturday, January 11 to Friday, January 17, 2020

Happy New Year!!!

Every year in January, Val and I get away for a week and take a trip to Lake Tahoe in Northern California.  It gives us a chance to unwind and relax after the hectic Christmas season, do some gambling and enjoy some good food.  I usually don't write a blog post about it, but this year there were a few things that were a bit out of the ordinary for us that I decided were worthy of writing about.

Including gas and meal stops, it is about a seven hour drive to South Lake Tahoe from our home.  The last part of the trip is on highway 50 through the Sierras, which can be treacherous in the winter due to ice and snow.  Because of that, we always leave a day early to both avoid having to drive through the mountain passes late in the day or at night, and also gives us a longer first day in Lake Tahoe.  We usually spend the night just east of Sacramento in the town of El Dorado that has a hotel we like adjoining a shopping area that has several restaurants that we also like.  That leaves us with only a two hour drive to Lake Tahoe (assuming the weather is OK) and we are usually there before noon.

The drive from El Dorado to South Lake Tahoe was easy as the weather was good and the road was free of snow.  Traffic was light going in our direction, but quite heavy going in the other direction (west) as it was Sunday and a lot of people were returning home after a ski weekend.  As we crossed the last pass before heading down to the Lake, we were very glad we weren't going the other direction as we came upon and overturned vehicle in the westbound lane and westbound traffic had come to a complete stop.  It didn't appear that anyone was injured, but it had just happened so there was no traffic control and westbound traffic was backed up for miles almost all the way to South Lake Tahoe.  Thank goodness we were heading east!

We always stay at Harrah's Hotel and Casino which is just across the California / Nevada stateline in Stateline, Nevada.  We arrived just after noon and were pleased to find our room was ready so were settled in and having lunch before 2:00.  After lunch we spent some time in the casino without much luck before returning to our room to relax a bit before dinner.

Twilight time from our window with the Sierras and Lake Tahoe in the background.

We had a dinner at TaCo which is a kind of sports bar like place that serves Mexican food where the food is surprisingly good.  After dinner we had the first big surprise of the trip.

Jackpot

We returned to the casino with for a little gambling before calling it a night and decided to try our luck at the Megabucks slot machine.  If you're not familiar with Megabucks they are slot machines that are linked throughout Nevada with a common progressive jackpot that gets quite large over time until some lucky person wins and then it is reset $10,000,000.  The jackpot is currently at $14,000,000 so a very tidy sum.

Every trip Val and I each put in a twenty dollar bill and try for the big jackpot.  The odds are tremendously against us, but we figure that somebody has to win so why not us.  The machine we were playing was a $1 machine with a maximum bet of $3 (you have to bet max in order to win the big megabucks jackpot).  In order to win you need the 3X, 4X and 5X megabucks symbols to line up consecutively.

We played for a bit and won a little and our $40 investment was up to $46, nothing to get to excited about .  On our next spin the 3X symbol showed up in the first column and we both froze, could it be?  No, unfortunately a red seven came up next and our hopes for $14,000,000 was dashed, but to our great surprise, in the last column a 5X symbol came up - we had just won 15 times $150 (three red sevens times fifteen) for $2,250!!  That was very exciting for us as we had never won much of anything on a megabucks machine before and even though $2,250 is far short of the big jackpot, it was a big win for us, 

Our big win.

A win this large is a hand pay so soon a couple of attendants showed up and took our information for tax purposes and then counted out $2,250 in cash.  After all of that we still had $46 of credit in the machine so we decided to just play that down and see what happens.  Well, a few spins of the reels later and we hit a $600 jackpot, another big shock.  We tried a few more spins and decided to cash out with another $600 to bring our total on the megabucks machine to $2,850, what a way to start the trip!!!

Hell's Kitchen

I am not going to go into much detail for the entire trip, just the highlights so now onto food.  We are big fans of celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay's restaurants, so when we are in Las Vegas we usually go to Gordon Ramsay Steak at the Paris Hotel. We were shocked to see that a Gordon Ramsay Hell's Kitchen Restaurant had just opened up at Harvey's Hotel in Lake Tahoe, just across the street from Harrah's and also part of Caesars Entertainment.  I believe this is only the third Hell's Kitchen Restaurant he has opened up, so it was a big surprise to find one at Lake Tahoe.  The other two are in Las Vegas and Dubai.

We decided we definitely wanted to eat there, but found it had only been open a week and they were booked for the next three months, but there were a few openings at odd times so we ended up getting a reservation for 3:45 on Tuesday, a little late for lunch and early dinner, but we planned accordingly and were good and hungry when our time arrived.  I read an article in a Reno newspaper that said when they started taking reservations they got 8,000 in the first 48 hours, no wonder we had a tough time getting our reservation.

As I said, it had only been open a week and service was still a little rough around the edges, but still very, very good as we have come to expect from Gordon Ramsay restaurants.  The food also met the high standards we expected and we had a great meal.  We started our meal with an appetizer of pan seared scallops which were excellent.  For our main course we both had a filet mignon with a side of roasted brussel sprouts.  The filet mignon was also excellent and we both thought the brussel sprouts were even better than the ones we were served at Gordon Ramsay Steak in Las Vegas.  For dessert we passed up the signature Sticky Toffee Pudding (which is very good) in favor of a Chocolate Moose Cake that didn't disappoint, a delicious end to a great dinner.

We had a great time and the quality of the food and service was excellent especially considering it had only been open for a week.  If you are ever in the South Lake Tahoe area, I would highly recommend Hell's Kitchen.  It is casual while still being elegant, and while somewhat expensive, it's very much worth the cost.

1917

A few blocks from the hotel is an area called Heavenly Village.  It is where skiers can catch the gondola to the top of the mountain during winter, or for sightseeing in the warmer months.  There are also shops and a movie theater so one afternoon we decided to walk over and take in a movie.  It was a cold walk as the wind was blowing and it was in the low thirties, but we had brought our winter coats so we were fine.  We decided to see the movie "1917" as it had been nominated for 10 Academy Awards including for best director and movie.  I am not a big fan of war movies, but "1917" certainly lived up to its billing, it was really good.


The Blizzard


Thursday was our last day before returning home Friday and snow was predicted.  Around noon it started to snow and continued to snow hard throughout the afternoon.  It was a real blizzard and you could barely see across the street.  For those of us who live in Southern California, that was something we rarely get to see and we were fascinated.  The snow kept falling into the night and we became a little concerned about our drive through the Sierras to get home, but they were predicting sunny skies in the morning so we hoped the weather forecast was correct.

Val's Last Hurrah and the Trip Home

We had $100 in "free play" given to us by the hotel to use before we left so we saved it for our last night.  Val chose a dollar machine in the high limit area so we sat down to try our luck.  At $5 a spin our money (or rather the hotel's money) would go fast, but amazingly we started to win right away.  I am a conservative gambler and when we got up to $400 I wanted to cash out, but Val, who is a true gambler wanted to keep going.  When we got down to $320 I said no more and we cashed out.  That was $160 a piece that I was very happy about, but while I was off cashing in the ticket, Val put another $40 in the machine and was winning more money.  She kept winning and her total went to almost $700.  She played it down to $600 and decided to call it quits and cashed out.  Since I had already cashed out, there was no splitting this win, it was all hers.  Oh well, being the conservative one, I'd probably do the same thing again.

After a $415 bonus win, Val had won over $600 while I sat and watched.

After Val's big win, we called it a night and went to our room to get ready to depart the next day.  When we got up the weather had cleared, but there was a lot of snow on the ground.

After the blizzard there was a lot more snow than the day we arrived.

We took our time leaving as we wanted to let the road clear, and were on the road around 10:00.  Our rooms were already comped so there was no cost there, but before checking out I talked to a host and asked him if our play warranted covering any of our food (we charge everything to our room) and surprisingly, all of our meals were comped including our meal at Hell's Kitchen.  Not only did we win quite a bit of money, our visit didn't cost us anything.  In truth though, this was unusual as we certainly have paid with our casino losses, and over the long haul, the casino never loses.

It was only 21 degrees F when we hit the road, and it was slow going through town as the roads were slippery and at one point traffic stopped while a tow truck removed a car that had spun out.  There was chain control going up into the Sierras, but since we had 4-wheel drive we were able to pass through without putting on chains.  It was a very slow drive all through the mountains (35 mph) until we got to the Placerville area, which is on the western side of the Sierras.  We didn't get home until 6:00 PM and we were tired, but happy as it had been a great trip.

What's Next

Our next trip will be my birthday trip to Las Vegas in February, but unless something unusual happens, there will be no blog post.  After that we have a trip to Michigan planned to see my relatives.  Then we have a long cruise planned for the fall where we will circumnavigate the continent of Africa.  That's all for now so we'll see you on down the road.