Woke up this morning feeling a little rough, but our plan for the day was quite relaxed. We worked on the blog for a while, figured out the picture (which is really annoying) and had some excellent sausage and cheese on fresh biscuits; all made in the toaster oven.
We set out around 10 am. Our plan for the day was to buy some tickets for a show, and walk to Fremont Street. We packed a backpac and set out. Our hotel is about a 5 minute walk from MGM, but there always seems to be crazy people along this strip. They come in all sorts, homeless people talking to themselves, supposed war vet in a wheel chair with seriously swollen feet, or most noteworthy, the kind that walk with you, have seriously raspy smokers voice, whom try to give you advice on how to win big at the casinos. We love em all, but today was above average for panhandlers, card tappers, aggressive sales people and buskers. It gets a little annoying and, to us, detracts from the enjoyment of the area.
The last time we were in Vegas, we attended a timeshare presentation and got some really cool stuff: $100 casino bucks, a helicopter ride and bogo show tickets to Jubilee. So we fished out some of the offers for our time again this trip. First offer for 2 hours of our life was for $30 off tickets of our choice. We were trying to get Blue Man Group which cost between $70-$120. Our second offer wasn't much better, so we looked at Tix4Tonight, a discount sales office that sells surplus tickets. After talking about the price/times for a couple minutes, we were approached by another timeshare person. Offer was for $20 for tickets in section A ($120) or C ($70); assigned on a first come bases day of issue. Worst case, our time was for $100; sold. Without too much details, it wasn't bad and we are interested in some sort of program, but not this one. Good for someone that either was to invest time into 're-selling' their weeks, or, someone that wants a full week in Vegas or other major USA city (some international).
After 'wasting' about 2 hours of our time, we had our Blue Man tickets in hand. We choose Thursday night (Tuesday today), thus we continued on our planned walking tour of the strip. We made stops in many of the hotels along the way, most notable was Venetian. We considered the gondola ride, but for $45, seemed a bit contrived. Instead, we continued our trek to downtown; meeting two sets of Canadian along the way. The first set was from Sarnia, here for a week and at about 2pm were excellently pickled. They were a fun group and we walked together for a while. The second group simple wanted to know if it was legal to have open alcohol on the stripe; everyone does it, must be OK (I had a 24oz beer in hand, must have been the reason they asked).
We stopped at a Mexican taco place that Tim had found on Yelp, called Tacos El Gordo. They were cheap, sort of, and very authentic. That posed two problems for me. First they were very spicy. Second, authentic means the cheaper parts of pig and cow, and we are not talking ground beef; more like entrails. Tim at least enjoyed them.
The next 40 or so minutes of our walk was pretty uneventful. The mid-section of the strip, from the Wynn until Fremont is a tale of 2 worlds. Both the fanciest condos and unfinished abandoned buildings dot the strip in this seemingly unpopular area. In the heyday, I suppose Circus Circus could draw a crowd, but now it is an island with only buses and cab to get you to the real reasons to be here.
After crossing through some areas best not travelled at night, walking by many wedding chapels – including The Little White Chapel - we arrived to the Gold and Silver Pawn Shop. Although there are many pawn shops in this area, this one was made famous from the television show Pawn Stars. Clearly it was popular, outfitted with line-up areas, but we were able to go direct in. I would love to have seen one of the guys working, but nope; not only were there no famous people, the store is just high end crap. Couldn't even find something interesting to buy.
We made it to Fremont street and picked the first bar offering half price appetizers and happy hour beer specials. The view was awesome and the beer was very cold. We ordered a plate of nachos, which were huge, but weird as they used house made potato chips. I guess they missed the name of the dish – NACHOS!
Fremont is an interesting place, but not unlike the newer strip; extremely touristy. We spent about an hour watching the various performances, half naked girls dancing on bars and freak shows. Our favourite part of Fremont was the dancing DJ's, both of which clearly had classical dance training. They were stunning and I especially enjoyed the country music.
There was this lady that was dancing, mirroring the moves of the DJ Dancer. She was annoyed not to have a spare set of wings.
We took the bus, $6 each, back to the strip. It was comfortable, air conditioned and clean; definitely better than walking the 10km (6mile) walk back along the parts of the strip that didn’t feel safe during the day. We chatted up some french Canadian's from Sorel, Quebec.
We walked around the strip for a while, tried to see an illusionist show (sold out, oups we took too long on Fremont) and played a couple slots. After a couple hours chilling, we called it a night. We were definitely tired and our Fitbits showed the evidence; 30k steps!
