Santi and Cara May 2004 – Cara’s Tour of Las Vegas

Las Vegas is a sight to behold with the many themed casino/hotels. Santi and Liese had been there before, I think in 2002, but when she and Cara were in the states in May of 2004, she wanted Cara to see what the attraction is. Yes, you can see all of the lights and colors of Las Vegas on TV but you can’t experience it from photos or TV.

Santi and Cara flew into Las Vegas and I met them at the airport. Their flight was delayed because of technical difficulties with the landing gear! There were many of us standing around waiting for that flight to land and finally someone spilled the beans that there was an extremely dangerous situation on the flight! With the landing gear not working properly no one was sure how they would manage to land. Can you imagine being up in that plane at the time? I think Santi and Cara kissed the ground once the situation was resolved and they were able to land an hour and a half to 2 hours late! This was still at a time when they were flying all over the country and didn’t have their own van yet.

They came during the Memorial Day holiday when they didn’t have trunk shows planned and they had a few days. Las Vegas was packed and it took some time to drive down the Strip, especially at night when the families would take the kids out to see all of the lights! The light shows in Las Vegas are better than most holiday light shows!

I think this was when Santi got me hooked on Star Bucks. You all know she’s a Star Bucks fiend right? She hasn’t passed a Star Bucks coffee shop that I know of unless she was flying! She now has Peter addicted as well! I told them both when we were in Phoenix last year (2008) that we spent more in Star Bucks than gas on that trip. Santi’s drink is a Venti Latte while Peter and I both go for the Mocha Latte when we stop. Santi loves her coffee hot, hot, hot which is how Star Bucks serves the lattes! For those who aren’t familiar with it a latte is expresso with steamed milk in it. The mocha latte’s are the same thing except it has chocolate in it as well.

I tell you this so you’ll know what I mean when I tell you that for those couple of days we spent a lot of time at Star Bucks. You have to keep in mind that Santi and I are close in age and then there is Cara! Cara who is energetic and young! We walked down one end of the Strip one day and up the other side the next day! That’s a long walk when you’re in and out of the casino/hotels along the way! There were many times that Santi and I just sat and waited as Cara jogged through the entertainment areas of the hotels to see all she could see! I told Santi she was just trying to kill us!

You don’t have to gamble to be entertained in Las Vegas, aside from the casino/hotels there is also Hoover Dam that Cara and Santi wanted to see. We ran for 3 days and that’s no story! Las Vegas is known as the town that never sleeps and this trip was no exception to that motto!

There are so many things about that trip I’ll never forget. First was meeting Cara for the first time! I had heard so much about her but never had the opportunity to meet her and now finally I got my chance. I wasn’t disappointed. At dinner one night Cara and I talked about the misconceptions of South Africa and we laughed because I had some of the same misconceptions as so many of our other ladies. First, South Africa is a country on the southern tip of the continent of Africa. I don’t know how many countries occupy the continent of Africa but it’s a lot and so many of them have split into smaller countries over the years and then there are the countries that have changed their name. Many of the countries on the continent are not as politically stable as South Africa is.

I think the confusing part for us is that the continent is Africa while the country that Santi and her family are from is South Africa. Another difference between here and there is that America occupies a good part of our own continent and we have states to mark different geo-political areas, where Africa is composed of countries. South Africa has states of it’s own although there aren’t the 50 that we have here and if I took a few minutes I could probably Google South Africa and give you that information but if you would like more historical/geographical information, just go to www.google.com and type in the search box “South Africa” and you will get several links to look at.

South Africa has cities just like we do. Their inner cities look much the same as ours do. Farm lands look like the farms here but it’s safe to say that Kansas alone grows more corn then the country of South Africa does! But then you need to look at the differences in the sizes of the state of Arkansas and the country of South Africa! As Cara is trying to explain the area they live in I found out things that I couldn’t get from Google links because they were from a personal point of view and not what the books tell us. Unlike many countries in Africa, South Africa doesn’t have armed soldiers sitting on every street corner. Other than monkeys that run wild like our own squirrels here on the West Coast their wild life is confined to the rural areas. Granted, their wild life is different than ours is, we have deer they have impala! We have elk and they have kudu… The more things change, the more they stay the same! OK so they have lions, leopard and cheetahs, we have bobcats, mountain lions and cougars! I’m not finding much that would equate with ellies but I’m working on it! I think the buffalo is more like a wildebeest… nope, I can’t find anything like it here!

I guess what I’m trying to say here is that city life is city life! Middleburg isn’t a large city like LA, Chicago or New York is (oh we’ll get to New York and what Santi did to me there… patience). Rural life is much like our own here. Crime rates are high in some of our cities while they are in South Africa as well. I could go on and on about the crime rates etc and to be honest, if I hadn’t known Santi and her family I don’t know that I ever would have traveled there. I keep thinking there is enough to see in our own country that I could spend time seeing J

Anyway, back to Las Vegas… One attraction that I did want to see was the Star Trek attraction at the Hilton hotel. My brother and I are both fans, as is Cara by the way, and Brian, (my brother and I) had promised each other that we would see it together for the first time. I kind of cheated on this one, I was in Las Vegas and playing tour guide so I kind of had to LOL. We had lunch on the day they arrived at the Bajorian coffee shop and we wandered around the Star Trek “universe” there for a while. During the time that we were there, we met a “Borg”. The Borg are an alien civilization who are part man and part cyborgs, thus the name! They want to take over the universe because they believe that their mechanical and logical ways are the only way to save the universe from themselves… too much information? Well, the Borg want to conquer the visitors to the Star Trek “universe” as well. Their trademark line is, “resistance is futile”, meaning that in confrontations with them, they usually win. Santi got into an argument with this actor in character, thinking she could get him to come out of his character and smile, but she was not able to! We did have a great time there and I don’t think I’ll ever forget it!

The other place I’ll remember is Circus Circus. It was built as one of the first “family” casino/hotels. There is an upper level filled with carnival type games to occupy the kids and let me tell you, you can spend more money there on the games, playing for cheap stuffed animals and other prizes than you can downstairs gambling! We played up there for several hours. Santi really got into the “horse race”. OK you have a ball that you roll up the board and it falls into numbered holes and those numbers determine how many spaces your horse moves on the “race track”. She was actually good at getting the ball into the holes with the most moves by the horse! I don’t know how many “toys” she walked out of there with that night but she had a few!

I think some of my favorite memories are of my “vacations” with Santi and her family. I’ll be adding more of these vacation blogs as I go along. My hope is that you get to know them and how they view our country as we go along.