Day Seven...

We skipped our normal "breakfast" at the El Cortez this morning when we got up. Instead, we decided to go to the Hard Rock Cafe for lunch. We ate VEGETABLES! I had a caesar salad that was simply amazing, and a hickory bacon burger that was simply ok. Jimmie seemed to enjoy his oriental chicken salad, 'cause he literally cleaned his plate. We walked across the parking lot to the casino and wandered around there for a little bit. It was great seeing all of the memorabilia. There were two large display windows that had nothing but dolls of past and present stars, their lunch kits, chewing gum, shampoo, etc. The felts on the gaming tables looked kind of funky too. There weren't any other casinos in the area, so we decided to hop in the car and head on over to the Venetian.
The Venetian was quite elegant and obviously catered to an upscale clientele. Case in point: When we walked in, we were approached by this lady that worked for the casino. She offered us free show tickets and buffet dinners, all we had to do was take a two hour tour of another hotel. Sure, we could do that. She asked us repeatedly if we were single. It was getting to the point where I was going to say that no, we were actually a couple. We were all ready to sign on the dotted line when the "one minor stipulation" reared its ugly head. She asked if we made 120000 a year. Yes, one hundred and twenty thoooooousand. Now, I can see how she might have been confused by my appearance. My faded black shorts and 7 year old sandals were obviously a clever disguise to hide my vast disposable wealth. Jimmie actually looked the part with his new leather jacket and spiffy sunglasses tucked into his shirt collar. We should have lied and got a free show.
There were gondola rides with singing gondoliers. The acoustics of where the "canal" was made it quite good. The canal ran from outside at the front of the hotel to the inside where the shops were. The decorations around the hotel and casino were quite beautiful. Hopefully the pictures turn out good enough to post to a website when we get back.
We wandered around the place looking for the lounge that Inez said the band was going to be playing in. According to the directory, there were two lounges in the place. We went to the smaller of the two, the Venus Lounge, first because Inez said that the place was small. Turns out that wasn't it. As we're walking to the larger of the venues, we pass a bar called La Scena (or something similar) that has a stage. It was even smaller than I had imagined. The dance floor was maybe a quarter of the size of the Coral Reef's and there was barely any room to move on the stage with everyone up there. They changed their music lineup a bit to accommodate the different crowd. More softer, more Latin. At least in the set that we listened to. They did rock out a couple of times though (dedicating yet another song to us, her Canadian friends). At the end of their last set, they had to break all their gear down and store it. There was a another band coming up after them. It's got to be a supreme pain in the ass to have to break down and set up every day at the same venue for an entire week. Jimmie talked to Inez after the show for a bit and she said that the Venetian doesn't allow the band to fraternize with the customers. Totally sucks. The band finished packing up their stuff and the other band set theirs up. Their female singer looked fairly hot too. A tanned blonde with large boobs. I wanted to hear what they sounded like (and watch the girl). As I watched them set up though, it appeared that everything about her was fake. Fake boobs, the tan looked spray on, bleached hair. Nice dress but the shoes she was wearing didn't go with it. They set up a fan on stage and I thought that it'd be for blowing her long golden hair around to make her look sexier. No, it was for cooling down the sweaty lead singer. They were ok, but the lead singer guy seemed to be trying too hard, throwing attempts at comedy in with the songs. Blondie was using over-expressive facial expressions, like she was acting in play for kids. At this point, she really reminded me of a girl I used to work with back in Kitchener, Kathy Preissler (rhymes with Chrysler). Just as plastic-looking, only Kathy's boobs were real. The other members of the band could have been cardboard cutouts they had so little personality. Ok. We did only give them about 5 songs to impress us. Maybe they got better after that. We'll never know.
We wandered around the Venetian some more, stopping at a bar called China Bar so that Jimmie could get a Guinness on tap. It was lacking. It didn't have the "gulp lines" on the glass as you drank it, felt watered down, the head was minimal, and there was no cascade effect. I don't drink and even I know that isn't right. After he finished his pint, we found our way to the street and continued our journey up the Strip.
The next casino up the Strip was Casino Royale (with cheese). Not much to say about this one. In fact, beyond me getting my dollar coin from them, I can't remember a single thing. If you've been reading all of the journal entries so far (congratulations btw - some people can't be bothered to sit each day and read for a few minutes), you'll know that I usually have some details about the places I've been. Casino Royale... nothing.
We stepped into Harrah's and walked through it. They had an outdoor lounge that had a live band in it. Their music ranged from Eminem to House of Pain. They were able to pull off decent covers. The speakers for the lounge ran all the way outside to the front of the casino. We cut through a back alley to try to get to the Imperial Palace. The first way we tried smelled like hot dogs - that was nice. Unfortunately, there wasn't a pedestrian exit that way. We went the other way and it too smelled like hot dogs... many hours after you've eaten them. This town sure does have some foul smells.
The Imperial Palace was kind of neat. We walked into it just as the Legends Alive concert was letting out and were almost trampled by the herd. We saw some of the performers waiting to sign autographs right beside where we were standing. The Ray Charles looked great although he "looked" too much. He flipped through the Souvenir Program (if I never hear those two words again I'll be happy) to get to his picture to sign it. The real Ray would have scribbled on your arm or the table beside the book and said, "next!" The Beatles were sub-beatle, a little too much makeup. I guess you could call them the Fib Four. We walked through the casino (after we finally figured out how to get there) and saw the advertised "Dealertainers". These were blackjack dealers that were dressed like famous people. There was a Dolly Parton, an Elvis (young and gold jacket - not fat and bejewelled bodysuit), and a couple others that aren't coming to mind now (or I couldn't figure out who they were supposed to be).
By now, my dogs were barking. It felt like my feet were going to fall off at the ankles and my lower back was threatening to go on strike. A brief sit-down in the Keno pit at the Imperial Palace helped (my back cracked from top to bottom when I sat down), but didn't end the intermittent back spasms I was getting. We just had one more casino to go before we called it a night and walked back to the car parked at the Venetian. We were going to go into O'Shea's casino so that Jimmie could have a Guinness done right. He was riding the wave of disappointment from the other two he'd had from the previous bars so didn't end up ordering one. I got my dollar coin and we left. The felts on these tables looked fairly neat too. They had a mossy green look.
The walk back to the Venetian didn't take as long as I had anticipated. Before we knew it, we were back in the car and driving back to the El Cortez. We finished out our day with a hearty breakfast, successfully killing yet another bottle of tabasco in the process. This one was hard though... it was three quarters full when we started. :) When we got back to the room, Jimmie wasn't tired. The triple espresso he had when we were at the Venetian was still affecting him (the piece of New York style cheesecake I had there was awesome - huge too, easily twice the size of other places), and he flipped through the channels on the TV in our room, finally stopping on A Man Called Trinity (or one of the sequels). We ended up watching that for almost an hour before I heard him drop off a couple of times. An early night... asleep by 4ish.