Wow, a vacation that was far too short for our own good! After taking the red-eye flight back last night, we arrived home all safe and sound. We’ll attempt to recap, in photo format, a little about our trip. Much of it has nothing to do with hot sauce or spicy food, but was still tons of fun anyway. Here’s our tale…

(WARNING: LOTS OF PICTURES IN THIS POST!)

The cool thing about this trip was our first chance to see one of the Vegas shows we’d always heard so much about, but could never afford the time or money to see one for ourselves. As a lifelong Monty Python fan, Joe pushed to see Spamalot…which we did.

The show was nothing short of completely amazing. Starring John O’Hurley (aka J. Peterman from “Seinfeld”), it featured a cast of remarkable talent. Based loosely on the movie Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail, it featured elements from other Python movies and satirical stuff from other sources as well. Absolutely freaking hilarious…and worthy every penny we paid to see it.

Taken outside the “Coffee Shop” at Treasure Island, this place featured one side that was like a coffee shop/diner and the other which was a place called Pho, featuring Vietnamese food. Both had very average-caliber food and very sub-par service. Having to sit near some crazy, possibly schizophrenic, Asian lady who was making a big fuss because her food order didn’t arrive in less than 30 seconds while we were trying to eat our dinner at Pho kinda set the tone for the next few days.

No trip to Vegas would be complete without making the effort to get out to The Palms to have a meal at Garduño’s. One of our all-time fave places to eat since we ate there back in Albuquerque a few years ago, we go there for some fabulous chile and tequila-infused libations.

Not sure if anyone thought we were a little nuts for taking pictures of our food, but here was a snapshot of Joe’s lunch. The chile rojo was not quite as spicy as the last time we had it, but was still amazing nonetheless.

In trying to finish this meal, we continued to maintain a time-honored tradition of not being able to finish one of these entrees because there’s so much to eat. Needed a doggie-bag, but we had no real way to save the leftovers.

Linda initially wanted to try something different than a chile dish, so she opted for the pescados tacos. Despite how good it looked, the fish had a bit of an off taste to it than was vaguely reminiscent of freezer-burn, so she sent it back in favor of the chile verde. We almost never send anything back when out to eat, but we didn’t want our last memory of eating at Garduño’s to be a bad one. Their chile verde fixed that up quick! Awesome! (Of course we did pay $74 for lunch, but $50 worth of margaritas will do that to you….)

A really neat stop while on our way back to our hotel was at the M&M World shop right there on the Strip. We had no idea that there was so much M&M-related stuff available. Not just candy anymore! We stayed away from most of the chocolate, but did pick up a few gifts from the store shelves.

Yes, we will take our pictures with anything unusual. This life-sized chicken was outside a magic shop in the shopping center of the Venetian hotel. Where was the giant bottle of Nando’s Peri-Peri when we needed it???

Also at the Venetian, we stopped outside Madame Tussaud’s wax museum. While we really weren’t tempted to go inside, Joe almost had to show the onlookers his mad basketball skillz against Michael Jordan…until he realized that he was a wax figure. Boy, would that have been embarrassing.

One of the better meals we had while staying at TI was at the Kahunaville Bar & Restaurant. Most of the food served at the TI restaurants were mediocre, but this (and Canter’s deli) was a noteworthy exception. It made us wish we had found the time and energy to visit the bar at night for a little party atmosphere.

Sure, there are certainly better breakfasts out there…and even better breakfast burritos. However, on a trip where we struggled to find an above-average caliber meal, this one fit the bill. Quite a good choice…and even a little spicy.

Yeah, so she was part of the ship outside TI where they did the Sirens of TI show. That didn’t stop Joe from making a tasteless gesture towards those mammaries. It’s just a darn shame we didn’t get to see the Sirens, show. It was so windy during our trip that we don’t think they were ever able to do their live show during the days we were there. For real thrills, we just had take a gander at the cocktail waitresses at the Venetian. Yowza!

While Linda stuck mainly to the slot machines, Joe finally tried his skills and luck out at a little Texas Hold ‘Em poker. Mostly at TI, he also tried a little at the Riviera, Tropicana, and the Palms casinos. The 2-4 games were more to Joe’s liking, and he did quite well at those tables. If it weren’t for getting fleeced at the no-limit tables, it would have been an amazing winning trip for gambling. Let’s just say that Joe picked a bad time to go “all-in” during a tournament against an 8-5-3 flop while holding a pair of 9’s….

Lastly, Joe got to live his dream of really placing a bet for the Cubs to win the world series. At 5-to-1 odds, the $60 he would win would likely be the last thing on his mind if it happens this year. Go Cubbies!

Hope you all enjoyed the pictures. We’ll be back on topic starting tomorrow with our hot and spicy-themed writing. Stay tuned!

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