Vegas, Sunday evening*

*I am continuing with my ploy to pre-date my posts, making it seem as if I am publishing this on Sunday evening. This is false, but in 100 years, who's gonna care?

I forgot to mention last night that my gambling winnings went from the plus side to the minus side. As of Sunday evening, I'm down $55. My typical gambling budget is $200, but I never like to actually lose that much. Still, I feel that I can gamble for a few more hours yet without exceeding my budget, which is reassuring.

Today, I didn't take many pictures. The day began with my wandering the mall shops in the Palazzo and Venetian, hoping to duck into the Cole Haan store to buy a pair of rock star sunglasses that I had found there Friday night. Alas, it was barely 9:30am, and the shops didn't open until 10. This is about what the shopping mall looks like when nothing is open yet:


While I waited, I cruised over to the Canyon Ranch Grill, which is the restaurant in The Palazzo's Canyon Ranch SpaClub. (I used their gym on Saturday morning, at a rate of $35/day.) This is the kind of restaurant that has calorie, fat, and fiber content listed alongside each item on the menu. It sounds stuffy and stupid, but their menu rocked. For breakfast I had the "Healthy Elvis," a toasted peanut butter and banana sandwich, which had a bowl of fresh fruit on the side. All for just 370 calories and $7.

We don't really know what happened to Sunday. We lounged by the pool all day, but the day sped by in a hurry. I think Sunday is the day that we all begin to wind down. It's day 3, we're still enjoying ourselves, but we're getting tired. So it's a lay-low kind of day. I bet on a horse and lost. I completed my tan. I drank enough vodka/cranberries to keep my bladder healthy for years to come.

Oh, and I had a grass-fed beef cheeseburger for lunch, again from the Canyon Ranch Grill. Most Americans have probably never eaten grass-fed beef. To me, it tasted a lot like über-lean regular beef (corn-fed or grain-fed) or buffalo, but without losing the juice. So here we have a lean-tasting hamburger that is still moist and juicy, not dry, which often happens with the leaner meats. The burger came with artichoke fries, which, while unmistakable for regular fries, were delicious with ketchup. I love eating like this.

We made dinner reservations at The Range Steakhouse at Harrah's. Harrah's is a definite step up from The Four Queens, being on the strip between hotels such as The Venetian and Paris, but it's still somewhat second string in the Las Vegas class structure. Still, The Range beat Hugo's Cellar by a long shot in terms of ambience because it was on the second floor, overlooking the strip and across the street from the Forum Shops at Caesar's Palace.

Plus, Elvis dines there:


I had the Surf 'n Turf with a side order of Mac 'n Cheese (really) and the food was grand. Plus, our two waiters, "23" and "25", were delicious as well. This was another one of those $100 dinners like the night before, but since I missed my Hugo's reservation in 2007, I figure it all evens out.

I detest this photo of myself, but this is 25 and me:


Neither one of us looks good. But we're both scrumpcheez.

Vegas, Saturday evening*

*I will now defraud my readers by setting the "publish" date on this post to Saturday, September 20. That's when these photos were taken, that's the day I'm chronicling, and that's the day I should have written this. So that's it, and that's that.

Most of our daytime activity in Las Vegas occurs poolside. The pool at the Palazzo is nice, in comparison to the pool at Mandalay Bay (where we usually stay) for several reasons:

1) The Palazzo's pool is generally less crowded, so we don't need to reserve our chairs by 8am. (Seriously, last year on at least one occasion we stood in line to enter Mandalay Bay's pool area when it opened, just to snag seats.)

2) The Palazzo has seating in the pool. (This was very popular with my friends. I, uh, I like to be dry, OK? So I always chose a chair just by where they were sitting, but on the pool deck.)


3) The Palazzo pool boys and girls come around and distribute ice cold washcloths during the heat of the day.

4) They also provide cucumbers for our eyes. Or, for our bellies. Either way, cucumbers are nice.

5) The food available near the Palazzo pool is much better, you aren't required to present your room key card to gain entry, and the overall setup is much easier-to-navigate.

However, Mandalay Bay is still perfectly acceptable, and meets our pool standards (which are high).

Here is a photo of part of the pool that we spent most of our time in, with the Wynn and Encore in the background:


There are a couple more pools behind that one.

The best thing about Saturday in Las Vegas is that Saturday is the night we typically have reservations at Hugo's Cellar. This is one of those places where you say that dining is an experience. The maître d' starts off by giving each lady entering the restaurant one red rose. Once seated, drink orders are taken, and this was the first restaurant where I was ever given a chilled decanter with my martini (in 2004):


Then, salads are prepared for each of us individually, to our specifications, at the table. (Mine went something like, "Tomatoes? - Yes. - Red onions? - Yes. - Pine nuts? - Yes. - Bleu cheese? - Yes. - Baby shrimp? - Yes. - Anchovies? - Yes. - Artichoke? - No. - Croutons? - No. - Fresh grated cheese? - Yes. - Fresh ground pepper? - Yes." Even before the days when I started eating salads, I loved the salad at Hugo's.

My salad (with flash overexposure correction, sorry):


The menu is 100% steak/meat/seafood. I ordered the no-longer-completely-taboo chilean sea bass topped with "sauce nantua," described in the menu as "crab meat topped with luscious shrimp sauce," which, if you're wondering, has nothing to do with cocktail sauce. This was Scrumpcheez, our new word coined in Vegas 2008.


The thing about Hugo's Cellar is that it is literally underground, below the casino level at the Four Queens hotel. The Four Queens is in downtown Las Vegas, which is, well, the other end of town, the seedier, gaudier, less "classy" end ("class" being a relative term in Vegas). Casino tables are cheaper, everything is older (translating to lots of stuff, such as, lower ceilings in the smoky casinos), and the atmosphere is just plain different. Here is the Four Queens:


If it looks like there is a ceiling over the outdoor walkway, well, there is. But just around the corner we found actual sky, and we also found the Las Vegas Fire Department:


By the time dinner is over we're all stuffed, giddy and drunk. This is us, after our cab dropped us off back at The Palazzo, and I had somehow acquired all the roses:

Vegas, Friday evening

Our suite at the Palazzo, messy but swanky:


Venetian interior (view from my dinner table):



Wine with dinner:


Dinner (a seafood stew - YUM):


At dinner:


Venetian performers:


Just me:


Other than that, I turned $100 into $150 playing Pai Gow Poker. Overall, a bright and successful first day in Las Vegas!

Apples for elephants

Last Saturday, my dad and I volunteered at The Elephant Sanctuary.

The Elephant Sanctuary is one of my major charitable organizations of choice. Charity Navigator gives it four stars, and I've personally visited the facility in Hohenwald, Tennessee, twice, and I can vouch for the sincerity and dedication of its volunteers and staff.

Although, I can't technically vouch for the fact that they have elephants. You see, they don't really like the public to get too close. Normally, they don't like the public to see the elephants at all. Because the purpose of the elephants is not to perform for the public, or even to give humans any enjoyment at all. Not technically. The purpose of the Sanctuary is to give the elephants a place to live out their lives, simply being ... elephants. It's the place where zoo and circus retirees go to finally be the animals they were born to be.

Yes, there are Asian and African elephants living on 2,700 acres in Tennessee. 23 have lived there so far. A lot of the people I talked to in Tennessee weren't the least bit aware of that.

Though I can't personally vouch for them, I'm pretty certain they're there. The Sanctuary has an elecam, you see, and every day there is at least an elephant or two in plain view. (During daylight hours, folks.) And I've seen recognizable staff members on the elecam with the elephants, people I've also seen in person at the Sanctuary. So I'm willing to bet large parts of my body that the elephants really do exist.

And if they don't exist, then I sure can't imagine what they're going to do with all these apples we picked for them on Saturday!

Four of us picked all those apples. Normally, the Elephant Sanctuary has one volunteer day per month, and up to a dozen people volunteer. My dad and I applied to be volunteers for September many months ago, but all of the Sanctuary's volunteer positions were filled through the end of the year. Luckily, I thought to contact the Sanctuary last Thursday to see if they had any last-minute cancellations, and they did, so we were able to get two volunteer slots! Which turned out to be fortuitous, because every other volunteer who signed up for that day was stuck in an airport somewhere because of Hurricane Ike. So it was the two alternate volunteers (my dad and I), the volunteer leader (who works at the Sanctuary full time) and a volunteer who was scheduled to work in the office who joined us as well. They said this was the first time they had 100% no-shows. Darn that Ike.

Here are some more pictures of us with those apples. But don't strain your eyes looking for elephants, because you won't find any.






That last photo is of me.

If you are interested in helping fund the retirement of these long-lived, wonderful animals, (and the acquisition and retirement of many more to come), there are many ways to do it. Click on any of the links below for more information.

Acres for Elephants - Donate a Square Elephant (the space required for an elephant to stand at rest), a Sleepy Square Elephant (the space necessary for an elephant to lie down and take a nap - an area approximately 9 feet x 14 feet), a Dumbo (an area about the size of a house at 1,440 square feet), a Jumbo (larger than the Dumbo at about 1/4 acre), or a Mammoth (a full, one acre).

Wish List - Make an "in-kind" donation - the Sanctuary needs everything from air conditioners to safety glasses to jars of molasses.

New Asian Barn - The Sanctuary's new Asian barn is finished, but it still needs supplies.

Feed an Elephant for a Day - A full-grown Asian elephant eats approximately 150-200 pounds of food each day!

Become a Friend of the Sanctuary and receive their newsletter, "Trunklines," for a year.

Or make a VIP Pledge - Donate just $10,000 (specifically, $2,000 a year over five years) and receive the VIP Behind-the-Scenes tour. This is your opportunity to visit with Sanctuary staff and have the privilege of seeing how this operation really works by viewing their state-of-the-art facilities. This is an exclusive opportunity to be in the middle of everything without disrupting the elephants' daily lives. (But, as always, no elephant viewing is guaranteed. I just might have to go down and work there if I want to ever see a Tennessee elephant.)

Another vacay, another storm

How to make a hurricane

1. Have Jen S. go on vacation
2. Preferably, in the direction of the Gulf of Mexico
3. Voila, hurricane in the gulf!

As with my trip to visit with Gustav in Louisiana, the worst we're getting here in Nashville is a little rain today so far. (Yesterday and the day before were beautiful and sunny.) I'm hanging around the hotel this afternoon because I have some work and stuff to do, and because we're going out tonight to see Boz Scaggs at the Ryman Auditorium. I'm a little old to have enough energy to sightsee all day and then go honky tonkin' at night.

When I can get my pics uploaded, I'll blog about my day at The Elephant Sanctuary, as promised!

Getting away from Gustav

To kick off my travel season, for Labor Day weekend my cousin and I flew to Shreveport, Louisiana, to house- and pet-sit for my aunt while she went on vacation. This is the second time we've made this trip together to lounge in the sun by the pool, grill on the patio, and take care of some cats and dogs while we're there.

And this is the second time that our flight to Shreveport was significantly delayed. I'm now 0-for-2 in making it to Louisiana on time. The first time I honestly don't remember why we got stuck in Dallas, but we ended up staying there overnight. This time, we got stuck in Chicago because of weather in Dallas, but luckily our flights were early enough in the day that we did make it to Shreveport before the next morning.

Ironically, the weather that delayed us was in Dallas, and it was unrelated to Hurricane Gustav which, as you may recall, was making its way toward Louisiana. To kill time at O'Hare airport I did a lot of Tweeting and e-mailing about our status, and overwhelmingly, the replies I received were along the lines of, "You're traveling in the wrong direction!" I thanked my friends for their concern, but tried to reassure everyone that Shreveport is a city that people evacuate to, not from. The worst we'd get hit with would be rain, which is a small price to pay to ensure my aunt's pets get fed, watered, and medicated for the long weekend!

And so we eventually got to Dallas, and then hopped a little flight to Shreveport, where I sat across the aisle from a woman from Best Friends Animal Society, one of the two major organizations I claim as "my charities". (The other being The Elephant Sanctuary in Hohenwald, Tennessee, where I once spent a day painting elephant fences.) I believe she was getting into position in northern Louisiana to swoop down to New Orleans after Gustav did its future damage. And rescue animals, they did!

So we spent Saturday and Sunday lounging in the sun by the pool, grilling on the patio, and, oh, did I already go over all of that? Well, here are my favorite scenes from the weekend:








There, by the grace of god, go some amazing great danes. The two black/white ones are Maggie and Jerry Lee, and the brown lady is Zoey.

In the end, my aunt did end up coming home one day early because her husband's work is affected by heavy rain, and he needed to prepare for it before it hit. Subsequently, we came home a day early, both because our services were no longer needed, and because there would be less chance of being caught in a rain delay on Monday than Tuesday. Having an extra day off after a vacation is never a bad thing, and we didn't want to needlessly risk missing any additional work on Wednesday or even Thursday.

And our flights home went off without a hitch: I am now 2-for-2 in making it out of Louisiana on time. We got home safely, everything in Shreveport was tended to, and Hurricane Gustav wasn't the storm of the century as previously billed. Gustav, I know you did a lot of damage and respect your power, but we thank you for not being worse than you were.

RAGBRAI or bust!

Today was my grandfather's funeral, and it was a wonderful day. The other grandchildren and I had the honor of sharing pallbearer duties. My aunt and uncle did a spectacular job of displaying photographs of Papa's life. And these kinds of family gatherings always offer opportunities to reconnect with loved ones.

Now it's time to move on, and I truly believe Papa would say, "Now go have fun with your friends." So after the services I picked up a rental car and threw my bike in the back. Before dawn tomorrow, I'm driving to Ames, Iowa to meet with the rest of my RAGBRAI team. So get ready Iowa, here comes the fun!

RAGBRAI OR BUST!

Where in the world is Jen going? (RAGBRAI 2008)

I won't be blogging most of next week because I'll be in Iowa, riding my bike most of the way across the state from the west to the east. This has become an annual trip for me (it's my third year) and I do it because: 1) it's fun with friends; 2) it gets me in shape; and 3) it gets me on my bike. I have a couple nice bikes, and I might not ever ride them if I didn't have to train for, and then ride, RAGBRAI.

The route changes every year, so we get to taste different Iowa towns from year to year. The total distance of the 2008 route is 471 miles, and it's said to be hillier than recent years. RAGBRAI 2008 will be a challenge for me!

The ride goes for seven days straight, camping at night (mostly in school fields and private yards). Day 1 is tomorrow, Sunday, July 20. Here are maps of each day's ride, so you can follow along at home! (Click the image for a larger PDF.)



My team members, the Converters, have already arrived in Missouri Valley, set up camp, and have been drinking beer for a number of hours. I will be meeting up with them on Tuesday, July 22 in Ames. Sadly, my grandfather passed away yesterday and I will be staying home through Monday for funeral services, so I can say goodbye to the wonderful man I knew as "Papa". Papa will be the subject of another post for another day and should have come first, but the fact is that this post had the good fortune of having already been written earlier in the week, scheduled to appear tomorrow morning. But since I won't be starting the ride tomorrow morning, I thought it appropriate to edit the post and go ahead and send it on its way into the Great Internets.

The good thing about arriving on Day 3 is that I'll miss the Karras Loop decision on Day 2. Each year on one of the days of the ride, an optional loop called the Karras Loop is added, which brings that day's total distance to about 100 miles. In my two years' participation I've had yet to take part in the optional century, but I really wanted to do it this year (against my better judgment). Without the Karras Loop, Day 2 is already 83 miles, but trust me, there is a big difference between 83 and 100 miles. Something happens to most riders around mile 75, and pushing it to 100 takes its toll. Especially when it's only Day 2, and you have 5 more days of pedaling ahead of you. (Plus, there is no rider support on the Karras Loop, so you need to have a level of confidence that you can make it without guaranteed food, water, or bike maintenance. This is precisely the kind of thing I would definitely do early in the day, early in the week, if I were feeling good.)

Anyway, how about those maps? I wonder if the Tour de France riders get anything that snazzy! (The Des Moines Register provided us with the maps, and I put them all together in the one-sheet printout for my team members. It folds up to become pocket-sized. I sent the maps along with the rest of the Chicago contingent, who drove out to Iowa this morning at 7am.)

Your what hurts?

For you, my body parts, three haikus.

My raw, red knee-pits:
I know that I used sunscreen
Why did you shed it?

My upper buttocks:
We hiked downhill and back up
Chi-town has no hills.

My perty tummy,
Burnin', rumblin'; di'gnosis:
"Food, the volume of."

Aloha from Lahaina, Maui, Hawaii

I took an unexpected blogging break the past few days as I was getting ready to go on vacation. I really got a good roll of the dice in this life because a person close to me has umpteen gazillion air/hotel miles/points that she gives to me every year or two so we can vaycay together. (Is that an accepted term these days, "vaycay?" You know, "vaycay" ... "to go on vacation." I vaycay, you vaycay, we vaycay.)

If I can figure out how to upload photos using my Mac (Do I have an SFTP app? Who knows!) I'll show you what you're missing ... later. Now it's time for breakfast and BEACH!