Goodbye Seat Belt Extensions...

Hello world!

Yep, you heard right.  I flew without needing the seat belt extention.  I'm extremely psyched about this.

I also input everything on my fitday food journal and found I ate over my calories, but still moderate (generally under 2500 calories), and I more than made up for it in steps.  On Monday I clocked in 22,000 steps in one day. 

By Tuesday night I was really feeling it.  My back and legs are putting up quite the protest, I think I may have overdone it.

I did not make up for deprivation at the restaurants in gambling, shopping or drinking like I feared I might.  Truth is, I didn't deprive myself of much of anything.  The first buffet we hit was the Paris buffet (it came with the room offer).  They didn't have a big section of fresh fruits and veggies, but I think I still did okay.  I tried a bunch of different foods in small portions, generally no larger than 1/2 cup (most times 1/4 cup).  At Paris I did indulge in Brie, but only one piece. 

The next buffet we did was at Harrah's, which probably was our favorite buffet of our entire trip.  There I employed my eat a big salad first theory and it really worked.  By the time I went for my main entree, I was no where near as hungry and the portions were a lot smaller.  Here I didn't indulge at all, I even got to eat a sugar free piece of coconut cream pie.  They had a big section of sugar free desserts.  They also had a dreamy mahi mahi that was so tender and delicious had I not had that salad at the start I may have eaten more than one piece.

The next buffet we did was an all night buffet at the Boardwalk, I had an omelet with the works.  This one was breakfast only with no real fruit or anything to speak of so it was a little naughtier than I had hoped for.

The next buffet was at the Hilton, which again had a really good selection of sugar free desserts (I ate a piece of chocolate cake here).  I even tried an oyster (it was all about trying new foods this trip).  Again I had a salad first, only this time I put some shrimp cocktail on the salad plate too.  While Steven was eating most of the barnyard, I was trying to wolf down the ocean.

The last buffet we did was at the Riviera and here I did go off the diet a bit.  Those breakfast buffets were killers - and since this also was an all night buffet that was the main food offered.

As for drinking, I did drink generally 2 Coronas a day.  I never overdid it like the Great Champagne Incident of 2002, so I'm pretty pleased about that.

And gambling was very moderate overall.  Our gambling budget was very small so I ended up on the nickel slots which were very good to me - surprisingly.  I ended up winning $190 on three slots, one of which was a penny slot.  This was our last day there and a very nice way to top things off.

The trip definitely had its ups and downs.  Our bus broke down in Bullhead City Arizona, right in the turning lane that would have put us at the bus station.  We ended up stranded there for about three more hours while they found a new bus.  Then when we got to the hotel they needed a credit card to secure each of the day for their services - we'd get it back only when we checked out.  This tied up some of our capital.

Because we got in three hours later, we didn't make it out of the Paris at all until close to midnight.  This meant after the walking, sightseeing and minor gambling we did we didn't get back to the room until 5am.  This set off our schedule to do anything we had the coupons to do for the rest of the trip.  The next day we didn't get up until close to 1pm.  Las Vegas was hit by a major thunderstorm that flooded the streets and even started coming down in Bally's Hotel through the light fixtures in their lobby. We even got video of some of the ceiling coming down.

This is where we discovered the monorail they now have that goes from the MGM Grand (on the far south end of the strip) to the Sahara (at the far north end of the strip).  We met an interesting bunch of folks this way - I'll tell you about one on another entry.

The rain also seriously compromised our renewal because it knocked out the power at the chapel we were going to use.  At first they weren't going to let us get our deposit back when we didn't want to go to the second chapel they used, but then we found a compromise where they came to us and did it right there in front of Paris on the strip itself.  At first I was a little nervous to do that and be the center of attention, but it ended up being really cool.  The reverend was a really nice lady who conducted a lovely service, and right when Steven was reciting his vows I could see the fountains at Bellagio going off - which wastotally cool.

We did draw a crowd of tourists who took pictures of us themselves, and ended up clapping when we were done.  That was very neat.  I am currently processing the photos from the renewal so by beginning of next week I should be able to post them here.

One of the neater things that happened to us, coming in as my second favorite thing that happened while we were there, we were stopped by a couple of filmmakers who were shooting a documentary and asked if we would answer a question for them.  We did and they filmed our responses, and I'm fairly sure I'll be included in the final film because they really liked what I had to say.   I'll get into this more at length later also. 

So all in all it was a very enjoyable trip.  We got to see and do things we hadn't done there before, and I feel that I didn't over do or over indulge in any aspect presented by being in Las Vegas.  In fact, I weighed in today and quite frankly I hadn't gained one ounce, literally, during the trip. 

This is very good news.

Above are a few photos, we ended up not taking as many as I usually take. 

Anyway I'm going to go try and recouperate some more before I work my tushy off the next four days to make up for the three I missed.