Halloween in Vegas? Must be time to go home.

When I emailed family our itinerary for this trip, my sister-in-law Shelby commented "Halloween in Vegas...should be interesting."  What?  Ugh.  That thought had never occurred to either of us when we were planning.  Maybe because we don't have kids, we don't think much about Halloween until a few days before when we need to buy candy for all the little monsters in our neighborhood?  Regardless of our lack of awareness, Halloween would be our last night in Vegas.  Many of you, I know, would have been delighted with this prospect.  Not being fans of crowds, drunk people, costumes, and/or crowds of drunk people in costumes, we were less than thrilled.  It's official, we're old and unfun - and we're really ok with that.  It is 7 pm, and we've been safely tucked in our hotel room for a good 25 minutes, with no plans to leave until we have to head to the airport in the morning.  

We had a nice last day here in Vegas, though we were minimally productive.  I was up by 6 am, and read until Andrew managed to drag himself in to a conscious state at almost 9.  The only objectives for today were to find a magnet for Andrew's collection, and to spend the last of our free $10 in the casino, so we were in no hurry.  

About a block from our hotel is a place billing itself as "The World's Largest Gift Shop".  Intriguing.  A cab driver recently told us that, if you can afford a billboard, you can call yourself whatever you want and most will believe it.  I think that is pretty sound logic, actually.  While this place was, in fact, large; I am suspicious that there is no other gift shop larger in the entire world.  What I will give them, is that they undoubtably have the largest collection of junk that no one needs.  All of it with "Vegas" stamped on it somewhere.  We found Andrew's magnet and, luckily, talked him down from a sudden and pressing need for a scorpion-trapped-in-a-hunk-of-acrylic paperweight.  Whew!

We then had a burger before hitting the casino for the last time.  We don't spend much time in casinos, but I have found a particular game that I like and that I tend to win on (regardless of what casino I'm in).  Now, keep in mind that these are penny slots, so I'm not going to be able to retire any time soon.   However, I did get to play for several hours AND I ended up $10 in the black.  Win-win!  The game is "Invaders from the Planet Moolah".  When you're next in a casino, look for it and see if it's lucky for you, too!

  

We had dinner tonight at a little Mediterranean place downtown, and then took the car back to the rental company.  We actually could have returned it in the morning but we didn't rent it from the airport and, with a 7 am flight, it was just easier to take it back today.  

So, that's it for this one.  We will get a cab to the airport about 4:30 am, and will get back to MSP around noon.  This was such an amazing trip and we saw some truly beautiful sights.  We also really enjoyed the physical challenges of this particular holiday.  Finally, we agree that we really need to spend more time in our beautiful national parks. 

Thank for reading.  See you in March, in Utila.