Las Vegas - April 2006

This weekend went to Las Vegas to see Sting perform in concert.

I found the concert on Ticketmaster, which was actually a benefit for TigerJam IX. It was held at Mandalay Bay casino, one of the nicer on The Strip.

Rather than staying in one of the smoke & gambling filled casino hotels, we opted for the Fairfield Inn Las Vegas Airport (3850 South Paradise Road), using Marriott Rewards points.

Getting to Vegas is a pretty easy drive:

• 101 South
• 134 East
• 210 East
• 15 North

I checked the traffic on Yahoo Maps Beta, which was very useful. We could have flown, but taking turns driving the 288.5 miles while listening to podcasts on our iPod went by quick. The only downside was the huge traffic jam on the way back since route 15 is fewer lanes coming out of Vegas. Once we got closer to Los Angeles, traffic opened up with more lanes.


There was some construction going on, but Vegas is still Vegas. Big hotels with kitchy themes, great food and entertainment and LOTS of people. People come from all around the world- I just hope this isn't their only impression of the US. In a funny but cute moment, an older British coupled stopped us to ask "Do you know where The Strip is?" "You're on it!" we replied happily.

Here's a self portrait we took in front of New York, New York casino.

Anna Nalick opened for Sting, and was really excited to be there. Then Samuel L. Jackson came out and introduced Tiger Woods who introduced Sting. He did alot of his older songs- not just solo stuff like Fields of Gold, but classics from The Police, like Synchronicity II, Walking on the Moon, King of Pain (mixed with a little Soul Cages).

The one song I thought he wouldn't play, he actually opened with- Message in a Bottle. After taking a break before the encore, he did Desert Rose and one of our favorites, Fragile.

He may be in his 50's, but he still sounded like he did years ago. And each song was done a little different that usual, either by combining with another in the opening, or by changing the counter melody slightly. We both really enjoyed it.

The day after the concert we walked all over town, visiting our favorite casinos. We don't gamble, so we're mostly interested in scenery and people watching. We like the interiors of The Venetian, New York New York (with a 9/11 tribute out front), Aladdin and especially Bellagio.

We also took a look inside the new Wynn casino, which has several screens running Scala's software. Casino Royale also has Scala but is not quite as ritzy. :)

One of our favorites is the buffet brunch at the Sahara. Sahara is at the far end of the strip and is definitely showing its age. But we just love the food at the buffet.

At Bellagio, we posed in the arboretum next to this snail that Fran thought was sooo cute. :)