NEW YEARS IN LAS VEGAS 2019

ROAD TRIPPING TO LAS VEGAS OVER THE HOLIDAYS

Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukah and New Year. We are living out of suitcases this week going from hotel to hotel to our bedroom at our house (the only room not under construction) to our neighbor’s house and back to another hotel.  At least I am getting the hotel rooms for free as a result of all my gambling. When you gamble at the casinos they want you to stay and gamble more so they are always offering free rooms. You just have to find the balance of not losing too much money but getting the most of the freebies from the casinos. I think I’m pretty good managing my money while receiving lots of free rooms, gifts, free play, and even food and store credits. I mostly play video poker where the odds are pretty much in the player’s favor. I only get half credit playing video poker at the casinos compared to playing on a normal slot machine.

 We started remodeling our kitchen, living room and den on November 25, 2019.  The day before David and I left for a Mexican Rivera cruise on the Norwegian Joy. Stay tuned for my upcoming post on our crazy fabulous experiences in Cabo San Lucas, Mazatlán and Puerto Vallarta. The problem right now (quality problem) is our home one big mess. We still have use of the bedrooms but for a while, we could not turn on the heat due to all the construction dust. The hotel rooms even the suites are getting old after a while there really is no place like home. I keep telling myself that this well worth it and I will have my dream kitchen and great room.  This is the first time I’ve attempted to live in my home during remodeling. I highly do not recommend doing this as it can also be very unhealthy from all the dust. David actually got sick with a really bad cough from staying in the house with all the dust and of course I didn’t think about the dust flying everywhere when I turned on the heater. Yikes. Think next time Felicia. Oops.  The good news he is all better. I want to give a shout out to our neighbor Suzanne who let us stay at her home on a minute’s notice. What a sweetheart. I hope you are lucky to have nice neighbors like Suzanne.

 Our holiday week began with a trip down Candy Lane in Cathedral City. I was very impressed with this block of houses with all the lights and decorations. The neighbors on this street really go all out with their Christmas lights. I saw at one of the houses that this Candy Lane has been a tradition of Minerva Street neighbors since 1989. I highly recommend driving down or even walking the block if you are in the area during the holidays. You will get a lot of Holiday Spirit and a few ahhs and oohhs while there. https://coachellavalley.com/candy_cane_lane_in_cathedral_city/

We are fortunate enough to spend Christmas day at our friend’s Roz’s house. Roz is my 92 years old friend and has the personality and energy of a teenager. I want to be like her when I grow up. I tease her and call her my recycled teenager. She had the Christmas dinner catered by Bristol farms and I just had to heat up the turkey, mashed potatoes, butternut squash, sweet yams.  It was really easy and fun and not to mention delicious. My two best girlfriends Kim and Joni joined us in the festivities. It was really a nice way to spend our Christmas Day with friends and good food.

 A REVIEW OF AGUA CALIENTE RESORT CASINO AND SPA

We then went back to our warm hotel room at Agua Caliente Resort and Casino. While checking in I asked for an upgrade to a jacuzzi suite and got it. The room is fantastic with its own living room, desk area, view of the mountains, jacuzzi tub, rainforest shower with 7 jets coming from 3 walls of the shower. There is even a television in the bathroom to watch while soaking in the tub. This is definitely a 4-star hotel. The rooms at Agua Caliente are kept up very well unlike a lot of other hotels that we have stayed at. I also really like the furnishings as they are modern for a hotel and comfortable. In the bedroom are two big chairs to sit in if you want to read or just watch television. The Living room also has its own bar and there are some snacks that you can pay for in the room when that midnight urge to snack hits. It always hits me. I wish I could stop eating after 8 pm at night. This hotel room is definitely one of my top three favorites next to Harrah’s Laughlin Suite or Harrah’s Rincon Suites. I read an interesting fact this week that there are 69 Indian casinos in California and only 3 of them are completely non-smoking. I believe that all the casinos do have non-smoking gaming areas. Most of the casino hotels also still have smoking rooms. Yes, you can still find a hotel room in California where smoking is allowed. They do however have signs that say no Marijuana smoking in the room. Like people really pay attention to that sign!

After two nights at Agua Caliente, we then packed up and unpacked at Fantasy Springs hotel and casino https://www.fantasyspringsresort.com/. We had a regular room at Fantasy Springs as we do not gamble there that often. I will say the room was very clean and efficient. Their rooms are smaller and not as updated or modern as Agua Caliente’s rooms. 

Yesterday we spent 8 hours in the car.  I do not recommend this at all. Make sure if you are going to spend this much time in the car that you have a list of great podcasts to listen too. I think sometimes David and I just do things without thinking and suffer the consequences after the fact. Our 8 hours in the car started in Palm Desert with a drive to Irvine to take my parents out to lunch for my dad’s 78th birthday. We had a nice lunch at Prego and it made my parents happy.

After lunch, we drove to South Los Angeles to check in on the transitional houses we run for Uncle Dave’s Housing. https://uncledaveshousing.com/ There were no fights, drugs, knives or guns present at the houses. I’m serious! It is not unusual or uncommon to have some type of drama on a daily basis with over 140 guys living at one of our five facilities. Everything seemed in good order and the managers were all in good spirits so off to the next stop we went. I sound just like the song!

Next was dinner at El Chollo on Western in Los Angeles with David’s son Zac “Kid Yamaka”  http://www.kidyamaka.com/ and his wife Sarafina. Our second family meal of the day.  It was really good to see them as they currently live in Dallas where Zac works for a non-profit that teaches kids how to box at Ring of Hope. Ring of Hope teaches kids in South Dallas how to box. It basically gets the kids off the streets in a tough area and teaches them self esteem while they get physical exercise. 

Finally, we started the five-hour drive on Highway 15 to Las Vegas in the car and not on Betty Boop (our 2016 Harley Davidson Road Glide). Wow, there really are some crazy drivers on this two-lane road. Why is everybody in a hurry? Or do drivers just like to drive fast and dangerously? It is almost scary sometimes. Please be careful driving of the 15 highway East through the desert.

Bally’s Las Vegas Hotel and Casino

We arrived in Las Vegas around 1 am. Our reservations at Bally’s.  https://www.caesars.com/ballys-las-vegas. I have learned to open my mouth as it never hurts when checking in at hotels. I always ask if a suite or upgrade is available. Make sure you have a big smile on your face and compliment the front desk host.  It worked this time. Yeah, we are living in a suite for our New Year’s vacation in Las Vegas. Everything in Las Vegas is huge especially the hallways that our suite was located at the end of. At least I’ll get my exercise every time we leave the room.

A Gambler’s Truth? 

I’m going to be an honest gambler. Is there such a thing? I think all gamblers lie at least a little bit. There’s definitely no rigorous honesty with a gambler. My truth is I’m losing and I’m not happy about it. Gambling is not fun when you are losing. It is just NOT fun to lose money. Sometimes I wonder why I even gamble at all. However, there are lots of perks to this lifestyle of freebies from the casinos.

I’m sitting here in our hotel suite writing this post about my week during Christmas and New Year. I am missing home but I just keep reminding myself that it still is a mess and I have to live in the bedroom or on the patio with my fire pit for heat. Of course, I did put my Keurig for coffee out on the patio (the most important thing in the morning). 

Tonight we are going to wander over to Bellagio’s Conservancy to see their Holiday decorations which they spend millions on. Tomorrow night we got free tickets to see Hotel Heartbreak which is a tribute to Elvis Presley.

The city of Las Vegas closes down the strip to all cars and it becomes wall to wall people on the strip. At midnight six or seven of the hotels set off the same firework show at the same time for a magnificent spectacular way to bring in the New Year.  I think after the firework show we will start our drive home to Palm Desert and spend New Year’s Day with our friends. I want to wish everyone reading this post a happy, healthy, and prosperous New Year. Thank you for subscribing to my blog and I promise to share more of my travel adventures on the Harley Davidson Motorcycle (as soon as it hits above 50 degrees). 

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