Dorothy Piotrowski’s blog

We packed up our stuff and headed over to Darren and Allison’s house for lunch. You see Allison had to cook up a turkey since it was taking up too much room in the freezer. We had awesome hot turkey sandwiches. We were lucky that we were able to hang out with them for a little bit before having to say our goodbyes. We did promise that we would stay twice as long next time.

Our flight was at 4:25pm and we needed to get to Freed’s Bakery to pick up some cake slices to take home. We left their house at 2:00pm and didn’t get to Freed’s until just before 3:00pm. The traffic is so bad in Las Vegas that to go anywhere in the city is a minimum of one hour. We picked up four slices of cake and cookies and then drove as quick as possible to the McCarran Rent-A-Car Center.

We got to the check-in counter (3:45pm) where they said that our bags might not make it since we were checking in late. We ran like heck to security and then to our gate which seemed to be the furthest away.

The flight was fine since we had chips, Fritos, cookies and ”Entourage“.  We landed in Buffalo around 11:15pm and made our way to the freezing cold picked up a taxi and ended our evening once again at the Red Roof Inn.

While snooping around TripAdvisor, we saw that one of the top things to do was to visit the The Boneyard at the Neon Museum.  The Boneyard is where old Las Vegas signs go when they are not needed anymore.

We arrived just before noon and we spent the next couple of hours walking around the three acre site looking at and listening to the history of the signs.

We went back to the hotel to have a nap.  We decided with Darren and Allison that we would meet up with them at the Waverly’s Steakhouse which is at the Cannery Casino & Hotel.  We had an awesome meal.

After dinner, we jumped into the car and made our way to see “Jersey Boys” at The Palazzo.  We have see the show before in Toronto and it was just as great.  The “Jersey Boys” theatre is beautiful.  The night ended with leftover birthday cake back at Darren and Allison’s house.

We didn’t have any real plans today.  We just knew that we were going to see Darren at work. 

After another yummy lunch at Chipotle, we picked up Allison and Robin and drove down the Strip since Robin hasn’t really seen the Strip during his visit.  It took us about 45 minutes to drive down the Strip.  I can’t believe how much it has changed since my first visit in 1999.  Lots of new buildings going up, and old ones going down.  We stopped at the Luxor so that Robin could pick up a Criss Angel hat.

We had to make a quick stop at Freed’s Bakery to pick up Darren’s birthday cake before meeting up with him at the Olive Garden for his birthday dinner.  Darren had just flown back from singing at a funeral in Orange County, California.

After dinner, Darren and Allison headed off to the Stratosphere while Karen and I dropped Robin off at the airport.  Since we were so close to the Las Vegas Outlet Center , we stopped there to see if there were any bargains.

We had about an hour before seeing Darren’s show, so we decided to drive back up the Strip to admire all of the lights.  After stopping at Bonanza (the largest souvenir shop), we got to the Stratosphere just as the first show was letting out.  We hung out in the lounge with Darren until he had to go back to work.  As I’ve said before, I think it’s so cool when I see him on a Las Vegas stage singing.  It’s a long way from the streets of Orillia.  The show was great as usual, and now includes Darren, Tim McGraw, Rod Stewart, Christina Aguilera and Michael Jackson. 

After the show, we went back to the house to enjoy Darren’s birthday cake.  (Chocolate with Bavarian cream filling and buttercream icing … yummy!).

We wanted to do a bit of shopping today so we decided to take a small road trip to Primm to the Fashion Outlets of Las Vegas.  Primm is about an hour from Las Vegas and it’s right on the border of Nevada and California.  The mall has a Bath & Body Works Outlet.  This means that the prices are phenomenal.  There are many things at 50%, 75% and even 90% off.  Needless to say, we each walked out with a bag of stuff.  We did hit a few other stores before heading back to Las Vegas.  On the way to Darren and Allison’s house, we stopped at Glass Art Studio to see what kind of glass fusion supplies they had.

Allison said we should come to the house for dinner where she prepared us a great meal.  You never go hungry at their place.  After dinner, Darren went to work while the rest of us went to see the Country Superstars Tribute show at the Fitz Casino & Hotel which is downtown.  We walked around Fremont Street after the show before going back to the house.

Sleep … It’s something we were greatly deprived of.  But I think we’re almost caught up.  Once we finally got moving, we went downstairs to have The Hampton Inn’s great hot breakfast.

Karen picked up a brochure in the lobby and saw that Valley of Fire State Park wasn’t too far away from us.  We decided to head there today, to enjoy the beautiful weather (70 degrees, and no winter coat or boots).  Before picking up Allison, we went and had lunch at Chipotle, which is a great fast food restaurant that Liz introduced us to in Washington.

It only took us about 40 minutes to get to Valley of Fire, which is northeast of Las Vegas.   We did the loop through the park, and stopped to take lots of photos.  We couldn’t believe how quiet it is there.  The scenery is awesome.  It reminds me of Sedona with lots of huge red rocks. 

We were going to meet the Darren and Robin at the buffet at Red Rock Casino but the line up was too long.  Fortunately for us, there was a  Cheesecake Factory nearby where we ended up for dinner.  The food there is always fabulous.

The boys went to work while the girls did a little shopping, and then went home.  Karen and I headed back to the hotel for a quick nap before heading back to the house for an evening of Wii.  We all really need to work on that Tiger Wood’s golf game!