We seldom get our own time to escape the immediate world of parenthood to vacation…perhaps once a year at most. When we do, it’s great to get away to a place like Las Vegas so that we can pack maximum fun stuff into a short period of time. As a follow-up trip to considering a timeshare deal (you’ve probably seen it on late-night TV), we went back for some free accomodations off the Las Vegas strip. Great that it was free, but it’s not like we were staying in a deluxe resort or anything. Kinda like a Vegas version of a Ramada Inn, really. Being off the strip also ups your cost of getting around, especially if you don’t rent a car. Above you can see the daytime view out our balcony window. Pretty decent scenery we must admit, which was made even better by the fact it hadn’t gotten overly hot there in the desert yet this year.

One of the great finds we had there was at the new Planet Hollywood casino, where there are the Miracle Mile Shops (essentially a mall) attached to the casino where they have their theater, stores, and restaurants located. We spent a fair amount of time in the Miracle Mile, and here you see Linda enjoying a yard of margaritas, courtesy of La Salsa Cantina. Melon-flavored and delectable, even this tall monster didn’t last long after an afternoon of shopping and walking around.

La Salsa Cantina is a franchise of Mexican food restaurants that serves some suprisingly good food. You never know what you’re going to get from these franchise places…will it be good or just pseudo-Mexican fare like Chi-Chi’s. Fortunately, it was the former option and we both enjoyed the Baja fish tacos. While mildly spiced (esp. for us chileheads), there were a selection of hot sauces available to make them spicy enough to our taste. Mmmmm, fish tacos!!

Siegfried and Roy are still on the shelf, so we found our own lion to have Linda put her head in its mouth. This started a wall of people doing the same thing, and Joe spent like 15 minutes taking pictures of various tourists doing the same thing, with their cameras. If he would have charged them a dollar for each, that could have been a drink at our next stop!

Now that’s a wall of tequila! Actually it was a huge hanging bar display of it located at the La Salsa Cantina located in the Forum Shops. We stopped there to enjoy a round of tequila shots with one of Linda’s friends. Too bad the service was so bad, or we would have stayed there for dinner as well. David and I each enjoyed a shot of blanco tequila before moving on to another fine eating establishment for more.

Getting back to one of our favorite stomping ground at Treasure Island, we opted for a fine dinner at the Isla Mexican Kitchen and Tequila Bar…which is TI’s version of sit-down Mexican dining. The food there was so good that it made the food at La Salsa look like Taco Bell in comparison. Not just that, but their tequila bar offer some of the finest selections to be found in Vegas. A little pricey like most of the stuff on the Strip, we still each opted for a shot after dinner. Linda had her fave, Espolon reposado, while Joe tried a new one to him, called Aha Yeto anejo. Linda’s friend David (far left) is Australian, and we were lucky enough to meet up with him on this trip while he was in town for a business trip. David is also a chilehead, and grows his own peppers near his home in Australia. In fact, he gifted us with a jar of his own homemade hot sauce. Perhaps we’ll write about that sometime soon…stay tuned!!

There was a lot more that we did for which we don’t even have pictures. If you can, you must go see Toxic Audio during your stay in Vegas. Located at the V Theater in the Planet Hollywood area, it is one of the coolest, hippest, most entertaining musical performances we’ve ever seen. We left the show completely thrilled with the performance. At the same venue, we also saw the inestimable Gordie Brown. Gordie is an Award-winning impressionist, comedian, and musician who puts on a great show. Pay the extra few bucks and sit in the VIP seats up front if you go. Despite all the glitz and and casino goodness, you always have the inherent desert beauty of Las Vegas. Especially when it ain’t too hot yet!

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