Today we departed Vegas.  Had plans to hit a bookstore once we returned to Anaheim, but we were all too damned tired.  Ended up napping a couple of hours.  My stomach was bothering me, so I remained behind while the others went out to dinner.

This morning was reserved for a six hour trip to the Grand Canyon. I’ve never been there, so we were both really looking forward to it. We were picked up at the Tropicana and transported to an airstrip. From there we flew in a twenty seater commuter to the Hualapai reservation on the edge of the West Rim. That’s where they’re building the sky bridge out over the edge of the canyon. It’s far from completed, though they say it’ll be done by next year.

Our reservation was also for a helicopter ride to the canyon floor and a pontoon boat trip up the Colorado. Actually, I wouldn’t suggest it unless you show up in your own car. We barely had time to enjoy ourselves at the various stops on the transport bus through the reservation. Eagle Point was the spot for the future sky bridge. They had five examples of Indian dwellings there and we didn’t have time to go on the tour they provided. We did get a couple of good shots of the dancers they had out front.

From there we went to Guano Point for lunch. The cornbread was great! Unfortunately, again we were pressed for time and had to rush through lunch to get to our bus. We returned to the airport for the helicopter ride.

The helicopter was spectacular! My wife has never ridden in one before and it was a treat for her. It was also about fifteen degrees hotter at the floor of the canyon. At one point, it was 114 degrees while we were down there. From the landing area was a hot, difficult climb down to the river. Amazingly, the water was under 60 degrees! Wow! Cruised up and down, took pictures, and learned about the area and the Indians there. Then we had to climb back UP the trail to the landing area. Lost one lady; she nearly collapsed from heat stroke on the way. Needless to say, we let her take our helicopter back!

Eventually, we returned to the airstrip, caught our commuter back to Vegas and arrived at our hotel.

Tonight we attended the Tournament of Kings dinner theater at Excalibur. YAY! We sat in the King of Dragons section this time! (Last time we were there, we sat in the yellow section and wished we’d had tickets for the bad guys! LOL! Are you detecting a pattern about me and bad guys / gals, yet?) It was too bad our Dragon Knight didn’t win! I think the main king’s son was a wuss! Of course, I’m biased.)

More of the same as far as going our separate ways in the morning. Today I hit the Tropicana for a third deck of cards and then went to the Bodies and Titanic exhibit.

Bodies has a bit of on ick factor, but it was interesting. I really enjoyed the displays for the circulatory system. They inject a polymer of some sort into the veins and then remove the surrounding tissue, leaving behind beauty and elegance. Illustrations in books don’t do it justice!

The Titanic exhibit held a replica of the grand staircase and the promenade. That was fun. I almost expected to see Kate on the upper stair coming down to dinner with Leonardo.

Our friends came up with tickets to Mystere (thank you, thank you, thank you again!) They’ve never attended a true Cirque show before and it blew them away. (Our personal tally is now five.) It was an excellent production, as always. Prior to the show we ate at Dishes buffet at Treasure Island. VERY GOOD! I highly recommend it if you’re in town. Excellent choice of food. It costs a little more, but I think it’s well worth the price.

A funny thing happened on the way to the Forum . . . LOL! (Never thought I’d ever have a chance to say that!) We had time to kill after the show, and my friend and I went to the Forum shopping center. By now I’d scoured every gift shop, pharmacy, and casino shopping area for a note pad. NADA! Nobody writes in Vegas! Equally important, nobody READS! I haven’t seen a bookstore in DAYS! There wasn’t even one in the Forum. What up wit DAT??

Today we went to the Star Trek Experience. That was fun! WOOT! (Damn, I’m a fan geek.) My friend and I had made jokes about spending all day there. Come to find out, we did! We picked up the Captain’s tickets which included a back stage tour of the place, both rides, a photo on the bridge of the Enterprise, a photo in a Borg cube, and lunch at Quark’s. It was a hoot!

Tonight’s show was Zumanity, a Cirque de Soleil production. My wife and I have been to three Cirque shows in the past. Zumanity was the worst of the lot, but that’s really not saying much. It’s risque and wild with lots of sex jokes and play. The comedic portions were absolutely hilarious and more than worth the admission price! (I’m also SOOOOOOO glad I wasn’t in the front row!)

They have a dwarf in the act. Good gods, the man ROCKS! He’s part of an aerial act that’s out of this world. (His partner is a tall, cool blonde who reminds me very much of Jeri Ryan (Seven of Nine on Voyager,) an added bonus.)

Since we had early tickets, my friend and I wandered down the strip looking for a loose slot machine. Didn’t find it! LOL! Instead we saw a Bellagio fountain show and the Sirens of Treasure Island show. Then we hopped the tram back to MGM and our hotel. It’s expensive ($5 / ride) but faster than the strip trolley.

After little sleep, we got our butts out of bed and went to the pick up point for the time share sales pitch. That tied us up for about four hours. It was a really nice home resort and a pretty good deal. We’ve turned time shares down in the past, and so far this was the best we’ve come across. sigh

In return we received our vouchers for the future Excalibur visit. Additionally, we had dinner vouchers for the Luxor hotel, and tickets for Fantasy at the Luxor.

We all went our separate ways in the afternoon. I picked up another deck of cards at the Tropicana. Also got a lion’s portion of my shopping done. Only have a few odds and ends to go before everyone’s covered.

Dinner was at the Pharoah’s Feast. The buffet was pretty nice. Mid range prices. Lots of choices. Then we went to Fantasy.

Yowza!

I’ve never been to a full on Vegas showgirl act. It was very nice. The singer (I think her name was Rebecca Jordan) was gorgeous and had a great voice.

I’ve seen more breasts in the last two nights than I’ve seen in my entire life!

Got to Vegas in one piece. A HOT piece, but our altogethers are altogether.

Checked into the hotel and promptly went for a walk while our friends took a nap.

Skimmed through MGM Grand and touched on the lion habitat there. Last time we were through here, they had part of the casino torn up to build this. It was cool to see the result and watch the lions playing.

On our way to Excalibur we got sidetracked by a timeshare place. We decided what the hel and set ourselves up for an appointment the following morning. The pay off was two show tickets, $50 off of dinner, and two nights / three days at the Excalibur in the future.

After that we wandered through Excalibur before heading back to our hotel. On our way, we got a free slot play at the Tropicana. Only one a deck of cards and coupons, but that’s one less gift I have to bring home to the guys at work!

Late that night we went to Bite at the Stratosphere. The story line is a 400 year old vampire is searching for his soulmate, dead these last hundred years. The entire tale is told via classical rock music. It was kind of cheesy, but fun. Loved the music, too! LOL!

Went to visit Mom yesterday in Quartzsite. It was great to see her again. I haven’t visited her for four or five years, I think. I’d like to see her more often but she’s in a remote area of Arizona and I don’t have a car. Fortunately, my buddy volunteered her services as chauffeur, so we were able to get together. (Not to mention she had a chance to see incriminating photos of my youth.)

Today we slept in and then went to the La Brea Tar Pits. That was cool. Haven’t been there before. Picked up a few odds and ends for the guys at work from the gift shop. My shopping list is now half complete. There are a few specialty items I have to pick up while in Vegas.

Tomorrow we leave for Vegas. Woot! Here’s hoping we win the Super Lotto here in California. But if not, we’ll gladly accept a million dollar slot machine pay off! LOL! Here’s hoping!

Well, we finally made it! WOOT! Only about nine hours late! Caught a couple of cat naps on the train in the wee hours. (Apparently, our train hit a car at one point, but no one was hurt. One of the MANY reasons we were so far behind schedule.)

Dunno what we have planned today other than a nap . . . heh.

10pmish

Surprised the hel out of my friend. Mission successful.

We’ve been planning to visit the pirate dinner show for months. Bought advance tickets and everything. Keeping her in the dark hasn’t been easy for her grrlfriend, but it worked. The show was fun. We were in the yellow section and had a bad guy for our side. The whole thing rocked, and my friend came out with a coconut carved like a pirate.

Well we’re STILL on the train. Should be arriving at Salinas soon. We’re officially 8 hours late. I’m REALLY hoping my friend checks the Amtrak website before heading into LA to pick us up!

But things haven’t been too boring for me. I’ve just finished a complete read through of the Iditarod tale. I’ll start rewrites when I get home. Haven’t added much more . . . maybe six or seven scenes (four at the end to better finish the tale.) But the ongoing issues that Lainey, Scotch and the Fullers have to deal with are going to be sprinkled through out the manuscript. (It’ll never be as angst ridden as you might like, jtd, but it’s a tad spicier. LOL!)

(I wrote journal entries on my iBook throughout our vacation, but didn’t have internet access. I’m now posting them here with their time and date stamps.)

Still on the train. I’m writing on my iBook to keep things fresh in my mind, and I’ll be posting them at the time and date stamp I’ve written them.

We’re about 4 hours behind schedule. I love the train, but this is one thing I’m not too keen on. A couple of years ago, we went to New Orleans from Los Angeles on Amtrak. We arrived eight hours late. Fortunately our hotel was already paid for, so they didn’t sell our rooms. It’s no different now. Every time a freight train has to pass, we end up pulling aside for ten, twenty, forty minutes until it passes. That’s what slows us up. Freight has priority over passengers.

I have a sneaky suspicion that my friends are counting the hours before our arrival. Here’s hoping they took my advice and are checking the Amtrak website. LOL! Their going to be mighty surprised if they don’t!

I’ve finished reading Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card. Now I have a full day of train riding to get through, so I’m pulling out a copy of Iditarod to edit.

Iditarod will be a much different story. I only wanted to write about the race when I penned it. Reading over the email responses I’ve received (yes, I saved those! Thanks to everyone for writing!), the only major complaint are that the characters have no growth or development. That’s going to change. Lainey’s alcohol problem will be much more dominant, and Scotch has her own dark history to contend with, one that her family is fully cognizant of and somewhat helpless to assist her with.

(insert ominous music here.)

Finally indexed the ‘Online Reading’ tab with all the stuff I have on the website. I split the short stories up into a couple of categories . . . Slow Movin’s stories are listed separately, and those one-shot PWPs written for listed novels are now placed together.

I’m not in the mood to reprogram each and every novel so that it looks like the style.css I have. Tiopa Ki Lakota is especially difficult with the multitude of different language italics and such. Any future novels will be made as WordPress Pages so that they’ll have the same style as the rest of the site, though.

The wife’s home from Seattle. Got a bag of fruit rolls for the trip on Tuesday and we’re finishing the last of the chores in preparation of a long absence. Funny that I’ve been off work for two days, yet I wanna get on the train NOW!

Found this on Lee Goldberg’s blog (link below.) I would LOVE to see this Trek universe! Too damned bad the idea’s been dropped. It would be killer!

I highly suggest you hit Bryce Zabel’s blog to get the story. But really read the treatment .pdf! If you’re a Trek fan, you’ll love it!

A Writer’s Life: Star Trek Rebooted
Friday, June 16, 2006

Star Trek Rebooted

What would STAR TREK be like if J. Michael Straczynski (BABYLON 5) and Bryce Zabel (DARK SKIES, MANTIS) got their hands on the franchise? My friend Bryce has posted on his blog an unsolicited STAR TREK treatment that he and Joe wrote back in 2004. You can read it here.

Not that there’s a lot there, but some . . . I’m going to take a closer look at the CSS for the gallery. Maybe I can get it closer to the color I want, and change the header, too.

Vacuuming is complete. Still need to clean the bathroom, sweep and mop. The wife will be home this afternoon . . .

...was in my post office box this afternoon! Castle Walls! Woot!! What a way to start vacation!

Fact is, I’m an introvert. (Surprise, huh? I know a few of you had NOOOOOO idea!) Today I’m indulging.

The wife headed north to visit her sister. She won’t be back until Saturday. I’m on short hours at work. Today I got a call to not even come in; our PM shift was cancelled from lack of business.

Bummer . . .

Now I won’t have any interruptions to cleaning my clutterbug’s end table, her folding tray where the iBook sits, her desk, the table in her room . . .

cackle

Already finished the first two. I can actually see her desktop now and am dismantling her eMac. She rarely uses it since she got her iBook, so we’re packing it (and her desk) into her room. The table in there will go out on the balcony to hold plants and cats.