Alcohol & Hot Dogs Don't Mix

Our waiter at breakfast, Joshua, is so friendly I thought he might pull up a chair and join us. I have what appears to be a bucket of oatmeal. There really is such a thing as too much fiber.

After, we take the monorail to the Luxor and Mandalay Bay. The shark exhibit at Mandalay Bay is about $18 per person. The lion exhibit at our hotel is free. My lions can take your freaking sharks anytime. We head to the Luxor, where Eric is greatly disappointed to find that Ra is now LAX. Vegas is full of change, except when you leave.

Then there's no change left in your pockets.

I want to check out New York New York because the frozen cocktails last night led to my inherent inability to remember being there less than 24 hours ago. Dana decides to head back for some hot hot pool action. As Eric and I wander the casino floor toward the roller coaster, where Deja Vu hits. Damn it. I don't want to ride the same overpriced roller coaster twice ... so we head out to walk the strip.

We go in a few kitchy little shops. I see this little figuring of a man blowing bubbles -- with his butt. I think it may be the coolest thing I've seen in Vegas.  Check out the video:

We discover that if Eric and I lived in sin, we'd have gotten a great discount to go see the Blue Man Group. A female M&M manhandles me at the M&M store. Then our search for a clean bathroom for me leads us to Gameworks. Eric's logic being that it must be clean since no girls would ever go there. Now the men's restroom -- that's another story.

For some reason we decide, of all the places to eat in Vegas, that we'll order Kobe beef hot dogs at Gameworks. Alcohol plus Gamework's unmentionable meat products equals disaster. Thankfully, I only eat half of mine. Sadly, I give the other half to Eric. By later in the evening, he's shivering uncontrollably under the covers, holding his tummy. Poor guy.

Grandma and her brother -- whom she has not seen in almost 25 years -- have a lovely reunion. She didn't recognize him at first. I walk toward a man standing with a younger woman, convinced he must be related to her since they look so much alike. She's still not sure ... until he takes his hat off. Then there's big hugs and introductions. I've never met my Great Uncle Art before, nor his daughter -- my cousin -- Penny. I like them immediately.

They take off to catch up while I go to try and catch up with Dana poolside. Either her phone or mine is acting as a black hole for text messages, so I can't find her. I lay in the sun for a while and then head back up to the room. Later, we drive around trying to find the original Vegas sign, but it proved difficult. Though I will say that en route I see the funniest damn billboard ever:

Really? How many male readers think having surgery anywhere near your "junk" is easy? I'm dumbfounded, but it reminds me of another crazy billboard I saw on the way in to town for a company called Ticket Busters. Their phone number was 666-6666. I wonder if you have to sell your soul to the devil get out of a DUI in Sin City. Thankfully, I haven't been drinking. 

Yet.

Tonight ... dinner at Tom Colicchio's Craftsteak.