On the next day, my last day in Las Vegas, when I went to get out of bed that morning, I literally almost fell over when I stood up! I could not put my weight on my left foot at all! It was scary and so excruciatingly painful, that I thought for awhile that I wasn't going to be going anywhere that day! I thought it was from all the walking I was doing, but strangely it was only my left foot. The best way I can describe it is that it felt as if there was a rusty nail stuck in my heel! I proceeded to get ready, as I had to check out of the room, but all I could think about was how the hell was I going to make it through the day with my really sore foot! However, the more I was up and on it, the more the pain eased up, thank goodness! Put on my most comfortable walking shoes and off I went for the day.
I wanted to go up to the Venetian, so I decided to try out the new Monorail. It seemed like an ideal and fast way to get from one end of the Strip to the other, and I saw that I could catch it at the MGM Grand, 'just across the street' from my hotel, The Tropicana. Well, I say 'just across the street', with tongue in cheek, because to get from my room to the Monorail entrance at the MGM Grand was one giant ordeal, and especially since I was limping! You can't just 'cross the street' in Vegas! You have to trek up and over an overpass that crosses the Strip and then walk waaaaaaay to the back side of the MGM Grand to get to the Monorail. In 97 degree plus heat, I think I now know why they call it the Strip ..... because after you walk down it for more than 2 minutes, you are so sweaty and hot and worn out, that you feel like STRIPPING! Anyway, I finally made it to the Monorail where I bought my $3 ticket. Now, the Monorail is both good and bad...
GOOD: Because it gets you to where you are going really fast (55 mph)..
BAD: Because it gets you to NOT quite where you are going! It lets you off waaaay in the back of the casinos on a street that is off the Strip! So in the end, you end up walking your feet off again! Moral to the Las Vegas Story: You cannot see Las Vegas without walking A LOT!!
Even if you take a local bus down the Strip, you have to work out which bus and which Casino you want to go to. I took one bus one day and wanted to get off at the Mirage, and found out that it went whizzing right past the Mirage and stopped quite a few LONG blocks down from the Mirage! Again, MORE walking! Oh, and forget trying to hail a cab on the Strip! It's now illegal for cabs to stop anywhere on the Strip to pick up anyone! To get a cab, you have to go a Hotel/Casino's entrance or to a side street! I used to like the Pedicabs that took you from where you hailed them to exactly where you wanted to go, but unfortunately, they took away the Pedicabs, as they were deemed 'dangerous'.. In actuality, the reason was that they were taking the fares away from the taxi companies!
I re-visited the Venetian, where I was still on a quest to find the same pair of sunglasses that I bought a couple of years ago in Vegas. As I mentioned, the original ones are now broken, and I want to find another pair like them so bad, but alas, no luck. But instead, I bought a few other goodies and a pair of really comfortable gold sandals! There was one shop in the Venetian where I could have bought almost every pair of shoes in there! And the jewelry and clothes!! Achhhhh! Oh, to be as rich as Paris Hilton!!! I wanted so bad to revisit the new expanded Caesars Hotel/Casino and Forum Shops, but there was no time to tackle that as Caesars now takes up more than 4 huge city blocks! It's humongous!!
Then I returned to my hotel and spent the last few hours at the pool. Total LUXURY!! Soaked up the sun and sipped a few more Mango and Melon Daiquiris, and boy, did that pool feel refreshingly fantastic after getting so hot and sweaty walking down the Strip! Flew home as the sun was going down and had a pleasant flight back. Felt quite smug and smart that I brought along my own small flask of Bourbon, so that on the plane, all I had to do was to ask for a free 7-Up in order to have my cocktail without paying $5.00! Anyway, It was a fantastic weekend, and I was still floating over the fact that we got to be special guests of S&R and got to meet and talk Roy Horn. But one of the best parts of going to Vegas was coming HOME to my little cat, Nefer, my very own little White Lion! She had been taken care of by my neighbors while I was gone, and it was so good to come home to her and see her again! As soon as I put the key in the lock to open the front door, there she was waiting for me like a little puppy dog, only in place of a wagging tail, was a loud rumbling purr!
