We woke up this morning on the 35th floor of the Rio Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. Looking at my watch, I thought it was 10:30 AM. I thought that was great, that we were already attuned to Pacific time! Then Susie pointed out to me that it was 7:30 not 10:30. I guess I blearily looked at my watch upside down, or something. Oh well, since we went to bed a little after 11 last night, it still was fine.

We putzed around this morning for a couple of hours, and then got our act in gear. The first order of business today was to get some errands done. First, we were off to CVS on Eastern Avenue. I had a couple of prescriptions that I was running out of, and Vegas was the first place we’d seen CVS Drug Stores on our trip. I had 3 prescriptions that needed to be refilled, but unfortunately they didn’t have enough of one of them to fill them today, so we have to go back tomorrow and pick them up.

After CVS, it was time to take care of the Sonata. We have driven over 5,000 miles since we’d had it serviced by Mike at C&S Automotive on Long Island, so we headed over to Terrible’s Quick Oil Change, just down the road from CVS. They changed the oil and filter, checked everything else, and sent us on our way, charging us $41.

The reason we know about all these things that are on Eastern Avenue, just off Interstate 215, is that 12+ years ago, we bought a house in Las Vegas in the neighborhood. We picked out the lot, the model of house to be built on the lot, and then went to the design center to pick out appliances, paint colors, counter types, and cabinet finishes. The house took 3 months to build, and when it was finished, we slept in it exactly 3 nights, on a king sized Aero bed we shipped out to our real-estate broker/family friend. After those 3 nights, the house was rented, with the tenant paying all our costs. About a year after we bought it, the market in Las Vegas took off! It took 6 months to get the tenant out, and not too long after, we sold the house for a substantial profit. The reason we bought our house in Ocean City 11+ years ago was because of that substantial profit! We haven’t owned the house since the fall of 2004, but every time we go to Las Vegas, we stop by and take a look at 10423 Gwynns Falls Road.

By the time we finished checking out the house, it was lunch time, and we just so happen to know that there is an IN-N-OUT Burger on Eastern Avenue, so of course, we had to have IN-N OUT meal 2 of our trip.

Tasks out of the way, it was time for some fun, so off we went to one of our favorite casinos, Green Valley Ranch in Henderson. No big wins, but we had some fun!

Once we got the car back from the valet, rather than head back to the Rio, we decided to head over to one of our other favorite casinos, Red Rock Casino in Summerlin.

We were very disappointed because a Video Poker machine that we have played for years, and that we’d only ever found at Red Rock, and that there were only 2 of at Red Rock, was gone!! Oh no!!! We walked the entire casino looking to see if they had been moved, but found nothing! Damn! So, we played some other machines and again no big wins. We had a couple of martini’s at the Lucky Bar, but they didn’t bring us luck!

Then we had a nice Italian Dinner at Salute Restaurant, and afterwords headed back to the Rio.

It’s close to 11 PM here (almost 2 AM back at home), and once this blog is posted, it’s time for bed for us!

See you tomorrow!