Our Adventure

Candace and I felt like going on a little adventure yesterday.

First, we went down to the Bellagio so we could see the flower arrangement they had on display for December. It was very nice. I’m always amazed at what they can do in there with flowers and plants.

Second, we thought that we would ride the Las Vegas Monorail. It’s been here in Las Vegas for a few years and I had yet to take a ride on it. My thoughts? No wonder it has been failing ever since it was built. To walk from Las Vegas Blvd to the monorail station it too 1,200 steps. We had to go thru all of Bally’s Casino, their in-casino mall, by their pool up plenty of escalators and we were finally on the monorail. When we got there, it cost us $5 each way. There was a group of four tourists next to us and I over heard one say, “We could have just pooled together our money to get a taxi and it would have been cheaper. And, we wouldn’t have had to walk this far.”

As usual, you can blame the poor design on greed. The Strip casinos didn’t want a useful monorail below or above Las Vegas Blvd because then tourists wouldn’t walk up and down the street, entering their casinos, and wasting money on gambling.

The actual monorail was fun though. It was clean and gave a fun view of the Wynn Golf Course which was beautiful.

We rode the monorail to the Las Vegas Convention Center so that we could watch the United States Table Tennis National Championships. That was great fun. I was amazed at how many people were very into the sport. That athletes were increibly talented and all of the styles were so different. It was especially fun to watch the elite players strut around the floor just eating up the attention. There were tables filled with blades, paddles, shoes and every other type of gear you’d need to be a pro player.

There were hundred of tables there in the convention hall. (pictured below) Each table had different age groups and talent levels making their way thru their brackets. In the center were two tables surrounded with bleachers. This is where the marquee matchups took place. While we were there, we watched the Women’s Doubles Championships and it was great.