Loving Las Vegas

So what can I say?  When I was downsized from Booz Allen, and in my final year of the MSW program, Wayne and I went to iMac/iWorld in San Francisco.  However, prior to that, we decided to jump back to Las Vegas for the first time since 2007 (so, 6 years later).  We decided that we would approach the city from the surface view only - taking nothing for real, and expecting nothing.

To our surprise, we really enjoyed ourselves!  Great food, inexpensive prices, NY shows.  Really a wonderful time.  I have an earlier blog post regarding that trip earlier in your reading material :)

When I started law school, the pressure was super intense.  Not just on me, but also on Wayne.  He started having those school related dreams where you've skipped class the entire semester, and then were headed into the final.

Not good.

The first real respite we had was Thanksgiving in Las Vegas.  We did it on a whim, and had a wonderful time.  Then it was back for first semester finals.  We spent the holidays in Palau (diving, what else) that year, but Palau is a little far for a three day weekend.

Thus was born our red eye flight in/red eye flight out of Las Vegas.  We were flummoxed by the casino resorts.  Smoke, lights, bells and whistles.  Too much.  Then we were advised to go to the Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas to eat at the Wicked Spoon buffet.  Immediately we were hooked - you can almost completely avoid the casino floor, and the noise is fairly contained.  The second floor can get a bit jammed, but you can circumvent the noise in several manners.

We love Las Vegas, and although they often get the front desk wrong, we really enjoy the Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas.

With that in mind, on October 24th, Wayne and I joined Mom and Dad on our first ever Southwest flight and went from SAN to LAS.

I originally had fabulous ideas about going to a dinner theater the first night, but to be honest, I slept so poorly in the Home Away vacation rental, I had no energy.  So we checked in, and went to the Todd English P.U.B. for lunch.  While at lunch (they have the most magnificent brown butter lobster roll), our waitress informed us that Todd English is parting ways with MGM, and the restaurant is about to be renamed "The Pub."  Sad day.  Ah, well, we shall see what happens.

We all agreed that there was no room for dinner, and met up in Mom and Dad's hotel room to watch the sun set and see the colors of Las Vegas.  And have a little scotch.

The next morning we met at The Henry for breakfast before heading off to the Valley of Fire.  The Valley of Fire is famous for its 40,000 acres of bright red Aztec sandstone outcrops nestled in gray and tan limestone, and it contains ancient, petrified trees and petroglyphs dating back more than 2,000 years.  There are a number of hiking trails (not accessible in the summer unless you are part camel and withstand the heat), and because of the play of light off of the sandstone, it is our favorite park for photography.

We took Mom & Dad down Mouse's Tank Trail, which contains petroglyphs.  Mouse’s Tank is named for a Southern Paiute Indian renegade (“Little Mouse”) who used Valley of Fire as a hideout in the 1890’s after he was accused of killing two prospectors and other crimes in the area.  

And then it was back to the Cosmopolitan for lunch at China Poblano - a Chinese/Mexican tapas restaurant that is quite good!

Dinner was with an old friend of Dad's, Bruce Homis, with whom he used to officiate basketball and umpire.  Much as I expected, Bruce did not remember me, but that's ok.  He and Dad reminisced and enjoyed themselves (we ate at the Italian American Club), and we met Bruce's lovely lady, Judy.

From there, home to the Cosmopolitan again for the final scotch and a trip to slumberland.  We all left our respective ways the following morning after breakfast at The Henry again, and all arrived at our houses at relatively the same time.  

We still love Las Vegas.

Thank you to my family for helping me to share 50 - the 40s were fantastic, the 50s can only get better!

Aloha

Ungil Beches Er Rak!

I had the rare treat of sleeping in until 5:30 this morning - yippee!!  We went down to breakfast still at our normal early hour, and enjoyed our last breakfast at the Sea Passion.  Although our two stays here have been good, I don’t think we will be coming back, but I would still recommend it as a reasonable location close to the dive centers (Sam’s and Neco).

It’s no secret that we haven’t been happy with Sam’s Tours’ front office this trip.  Dermot’s reorganization and streamlining has made it a less friendly, attentive and discerning operation.  New divers are mixed in with experienced divers, repeat visitors are made to go through dive checks again, the billing system is highly flawed, and the staff at the desk seem to say “No, it is impossible to do that” rather than “Let’s see what we can do.”  If I hadn’t recruited other divers, we wouldn’t have made it to Peleliu (and the gentleman working the front desk actually told me no, we couldn’t go to Peleliu because there was no way he could get permits at 3 in the afternoon).  We signed up, but never got to go on a night dive.  We had five different divemasters and four different boats.  Not that we are complaining about the divemasters, we appreciated them.  The tanks are poorly cared for - so many leaky valve stems and valves, chewed up yoke adapters.  The front office doesn’t have a spreadsheet controlling what gear goes on which boat - we even had to use creative replacements for camera buckets!  And the poor Hammerhead has seen better days, and needs some serious repair.  It just seemed like the front office didn’t care.  And neither do Sam or Dermott.  I am going to have to write to the Traveling Diver’s Chapbook about this visit.  And I don’t think that I can go back there again. 

With all of that in mind, we walked up to the Carolines Resort to check out the rooms.  The manager was quite friendly, and we went up to see one of the cabins.  They are lovely, all with lanai views of the water below.  There are only 8, so the service is very personalized.  I expect that we will be staying there in June this year when we return.           

From there we walked to Fish ‘n Fins - a little over an hour away from the resort.  We walked in and the shop was as busy as Sam’s, but it took only a few minutes before someone came up to us to ask if we were being helped.  And it turned out to be one of the owners - Tova.  She took us around and showed us the operation.  We were both very impressed with the tour.  Despite the December crowd, the mechanics were efficient, not chaotic.  Divers are on the same boat for their entire trip, and the boats are booked by skill level rather than haphazard choice.  The other owner, Navot, is a Naval engineer, and he custom designed the boats.  Each row is set up to enter the water separately rather than jockeying for position on one of two or three entry points.  Each set set has an area to set up the tanks, and its own dry box.  The seats are cushioned!  

Gear rinsing is set up by equipment type and clearly labeled, and the gear is very close to the boats.  The dining area seems clean, and the bento boxes are made in their own cafe.  We spoke with a number of the divers who have used FnF, and they all rave.

Oh, and did I mention, they have a cat?  I’m sold!  We’re booking a try-out visit in June, and asking to tour their live-aboard boat.

From there we walked to Red Rooster Cafe for lunch.   A diver we met yesterday gave rave reviews to their New York pizza, but, eh, hard to do NY pizza outside of NY.  It was passable, but no real rush to eat there again.  :)

We cabbed it back and enjoyed nap time!  After packing gear, logging dives, and starting the difficult photo selection, we headed back to the Taj for our last meal in Palau.  Robert (owner) was very kind to us - gave us the meal gratis, and then arranged to have us driven back to the hotel to get ready to return home.  He has done very well with the Taj, expanding it with a bar, and having a creative menu that is also authentic.  If you ever are here in Palau, you must come and eat at the Taj!

Back for a little rest before the long flights home.  I already miss Palau!

Our last diving day (this trip)

I can’t believe that we have made it to our last day in Palau - it seems unbelievable.  I remember when booking thinking that 9 diving days was a long amount of time, after all, it is 27 dives.  But it flew by, just like it always does.

We started out early at Blue Corner.  The trick is to leave the dock before 8 am, and you are virtually guaranteed to be the first dive boat there.  And we were.  There was more current this morning than our other early start, and not quite as many sharks, but still enough to make us happy.  I always enjoy seeing the big grey reef sharks being escorted off the property by jacks.  It is amusing to watch!  We circled the entire corner this morning, and just really enjoyed having it to ourselves.  When we surfaced, we were surrounded by many boats!  Nice to have it all without them to start the morning.

Our second dive was at New Drop Off after a biting rainstorm.  I wound up having to pull out the “magic coat” early in order to save my skin from what felt like slicing rain.  The currents were moving on this dive, and the channel section had quite a bit of an eddy pulling divers down.  Not us, though.  I was surprised to see the number of divers at the corner here on this dive, as I hadn’t taken into account that the other boats nearby had dropped their divers off here as well.  It was ok, we saw quite a lot of life, to include one Napoleon wrasse who (like the first time we saw him on this trip) looked to have seen better days.

Our last dive this trip took us back to German Channel.  How could we resist the urge to try for four for four?  We didn’t resist.

And we went four for four.

We made it down to the cleaning station and were getting ready to settle in when Joedyn pointed out the manta getting cleaned.  All four of us (Wayne, me, Benjamin and Sandra) got down on our knees and bellies to watch the 12 foot beauty being cleaned.  It was so graceful and beautiful to watch.

After a bit we swam along to the swarm of fish, but there was really no plankton, so the mantas were not at the bait ball.  We went back to another cleaning station, and we got to see a second manta, this one about 8 feet, getting cleaned as well.  It was as good a last dive for the year as we could possibly want!

We finished up the day with a stop in the milky way, a waterway famed to make you 10 years younger.  The first (and last) time I was in its waters was about 10 years ago, so we figured it was time for a renewal.  Stef the dive guide free dived down to bring back the sulfur mud in the water.  We slathered ourselves in the mud, and after it dried, went for a bit of a dive and swim to wash it off.  Let’s see how it works this time!  I put it liberally in my hair, hoping to fade away the grey and blond and to bring it back to red.  Wishful thinking, I know.

We got back, cleaned up our gear (to include a shampooing with “sink the stink” since our BCs and gear smelled like fishy fish), had the traditional New Year’s sashimi and beers with Sandra and Benjamin, and headed back to the hotel.

Dinner was as Palm Bay Bistro, and en route we picked up a passable bottle of sparkling wine (I really didn’t want to walk 5 miles round trip to get a good one and then to dinner).  After we finished our meal, we headed to the hotel, where the disco music entertained us as we chilled our bottle and got ready to settle down for the night.