Bellagio Visit

Tuesday morning I started the day by writing my January casino entertainment column for the Booth newspapers. It takes about two hours to compile the concert lineup and write it.

Then I had to make a quick trip to the Suncoast to cash a fb ticket for my friend Terry, who just missed a $1,000 winner when the Az-SF game failed to total more than 44 points. Anyway he backed it up with a $150 under bet, so I needed to go get his cash.

Helen was on the phone with Anna when I left the apt around 9:30. After getting T's money, I found a blackjack table and played for about 45 minutes. It was a really nice run with several nice double downs and splits. Playing $10-20 per hand, I walked away up $240. But I wasn't the biggest winner at the table. A guy sitting at third base was playing $50 to $200 per hand and had a HUGE stack of black ($100) and green ($25) chips when I left. Hope he walked with a nice profit and didn't give it back!

I was home by 11 or so and made Helen and I a lunch of turkey, cheese and lettuce sandwiches in pita bread.

It was such a nice day - 60 and sunny - that we decided to take a ride down to the Strip. It was Helen's first visit to the Strip since we arrived in LV. She's been relaxing at home for most of the time.

We decided to check out Bellagio and its Christmas decorations. We parked in the B's parking deck and took an elevator that delivered us right outside the Conservatory, which was BEAUTIFULLY decorated with all types of floral plants. Huge reindeer were made of brown nuts (someone said pecans), while polar bears were made of white flowers (maybe carnations) and hundreds of poinsettias were stunning. Oversized Xmas packages and candy were on display, along with towering Nutcrackers. Like everything at the B, it's really impressive!!

We stayed at the B for about an hour or so, checking out the casino decorations. After walking a while, we took a break at a 25-cent blackjack machine. I put in $20 and cashed out with $20.50 - a profit of 50 Cents! That's a 2.5 percent return on my money...not outstanding, but about the same as a bank CD, I think!

After returning home, we watched a little TV and thought about dinner. We decided on lasagna (Thank You Stouffers) along with a side salad. The evening was spent with our TV friends from "The Office" - a two-hour chucklefest from 8-10 on TBS. A quiet night, but today I'm sure our adventure will continue...