A mere 161 miles from the scenic beauty, peace and tranquility of Zion National Park lies something completely different. La$ Vega$. A place where decadence and sin take center stage. Where the mantra of "what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas" is the theme, and frequently applies to folks' hard-earned money being gladly taken in so many elegant casinos.
Although we're not real gamblers, we were excited to spend four nights in Las Vegas for several reasons. There's plenty to see and do, from the various shows to great places to eat and of course the allure of striking it rich on just a small investment. Additionally, there is plenty of entertainment to be had simply walking the Vegas strip or downtown Freemont Street area. Back in the nineties there was an attempt to rebrand itself as "family friendly". That idea didn't last long, and now it's a full tilt 24/7 playground for adults, and we know overserved and unsupervised adults can be quite entertaining.
But the real reason Beth and I were excited to get to Las Vegas was that it kicked off the start of our family Christmas celebration. A celebration that would last for two weeks!
After checking into the hotel, we headed straight to the airport to pick up Ben. He was able to work remotely, so he would be with us in Las Vegas and California when we expanded the celebration to include Sarah, Joey, James and Emma. What a wonderful couple of weeks it turned out to be!
While in Vegas we enjoyed seeing four different shows, all of which were very good. First up was the very elaborate LOVE at the Mirage. This is a Cirque de Soleil show set to music from the Beatles. Beth and I liked this one the best. We also enjoyed Mat Franco (magician who won America's Got Talent and Ben's favorite) at the Linq Hotel, Nathan Burton (Magician) at Planet Hollywood and Terry Fator (Ventriloquist and also an America's Got Talent winner) at New York, New York.
One of the other highlights of our time in Vegas was a trip to the boneyard. The boneyard, also known as the Neon Museum, is super interesting and well worth a visit. It's called the boneyard because that's a name given to old signs that are no longer being used. Thankfully in Las Vegas many of these elaborate signs from various casinos, restaurants and other businesses have been preserved. There are nightly docent led tours at the museum where the history of the city is told in signs from the past. We really enjoyed the tour and give it three Tucker thumbs up. If you're in Vegas, it's well worth visiting.
As fate would have it, while we were in Vegas the Florida Gators football team also happened to be there to play Oregon State in the Las Vegas Bowl. It wasn't the best of years for my Gators. As a matter of fact, it was pretty lousy. We lost to all our big rivals (Georgia, Tennessee, LSU and FSU) and even committed the unforgivable sin of losing to Vanderbilt. But, oh well! They were there, we were there (Ben's a big Gator fan as well), so we went to the game. We were joined by one of Ben's high school friends, and one of his buddies. Ben's friend, Daniel, is in the military and stationed at one of the bases just outside of Vegas. The game was mostly a one-sided affair and unfortunately, we weren't on the good side. We still had fun, enjoyed seeing Daniel again and also seeing the Las Vegas Raiders spiffy stadium.
We left Las Vegas on Sunday morning, just as the sun was rising and the last of the all-night partiers were making their way back to their hotels. It was close to a 600 mile drive. Thankfully it was uneventful, and an easy drive from Vegas to Sarah's house, just north of San Francisco. It had been almost six months since we had seen our California family and we were super excited.
We arrived at their house and were there just long enough for some good hugs and stretching our legs before heading out for our first activity, the Pengrove Christmas Parade. Pengrove is a small community of less than three thousand residents. When it comes to Christmas parades, what they lack in size they more than make up for in spirit and enthusiasm. The streets along the parade route were packed shoulder to shoulder and several people deep, waving and cheering as brightly decorated floats of all sizes and shapes passed by for well over an hour. Most of the floats in the parade were tractors and trucks elaborately decorated with Christmas lights, Santa Clauses and even a few Grinches!
After the parade we made our way to our rental home in Sonoma. We feel so fortunate to have found this property a couple of years back. It's a cozy and comfortable place that we enjoy so much that this is our third time here.
Since arriving, it's been mostly family time, which is really what it's all about. We've loved keeping the kids as well as frequent get togethers with all the family. On Christmas Day we enjoyed watching James and Emma marvel at all the presents under the tree, laughing while sharing great food and fellowship and simply being together.
Christmas day is now a few days in the rearview mirror. We're going to be in California for several more weeks. We'll be ringing in the New Year here, which is really nice for a number of reasons. One of which is that we can watch the ball drop in NYC and head to bed shortly after 9:00. We'll also be celebrating a young ladies third birthday on the 31st (as well as an old guy who's hitting Medicare age).
Ben had a flight scheduled for Wednesday (Dec. 28) on Southwest Airlines to go to Texas for a few days before heading back to Pennsylvania. His flight was one of the thousands that was cancelled. Fortunately thanks to Beth's great work, she was able to find him a seat on another airline (Alaska Air) so he left on Tuesday afternoon.
It's been a whirlwind of festive holiday fun, creating memories that will last a lifetime. Hoping you had a very Merry Christmas and wishing you a Happy and Healthy 2023!
