With only an hour of sleep on the plane and an hour of sleep when I first got to the room, that tallied to 2 hours total in the last 36. So no surprise, I crashed and had a hard time getting myself up on Monday morning. Gathering the gals just before noon, we decided to brave the world away from the Strip and ended up at IHOP as the first place we drove by. Hardly a glamorous Vegas destination, International House of Pancakes in Las Vegas is still a hearty, full breakfast. The facilities were clean, the waitress was polite, the food was good. Totally different experience than eating at one in Brighton, MA where the cops patrol day and night and you're lucky if your food doesn't talk back to you. Monday afternoon I decided we could walk around the north end of the Strip. I knew what I was getting the girls into but even so, it was not my most inspired decision of the week. The north end of the Strip is run down, a little less glam, and a lot less appealing on the whole. Besides being something of a gambling ghetto, there were huge tracts of land around Circus Circus that had always been undeveloped. Some of that has changed. The Hilton has a residential property next to the Sky Las Vegas, both towers. There is a huge construction project on the east side of the street between the Sahara and the Riviera. It's more condos or timeshares or whatever. Nothing promising and just dust and fenced in construction vehicles right now. So now, in addition to a handful of spaced out, run down casinos, they are building residentials towers in between casino properties. There is going to be virtually no reason to go down there ever again (and for that matter, what's the appeal of living at Sky? You aren't near anything that people think of as "the Strip," no view unless you count the giant circus clown marquee at the front entrance of Circus Circus with the utility power station between his legs. Okay, so maybe you have Las Vegas Boulevard address.)

Will the residential towers infuse the corner with some appeal? Will it feel safer? Cleaner? I doubt it. I think Sahara at Las Vegas Boulevard is always going to be the neglected abused pet dog of the Las Vegas Strip.

The Sahara casino itself hasn't changed in a decade. At one point, it underwent one major infusion which included the installation of a roller coaster, and a revamp of the valet pull-up. But somehow, it just seems as worn down and tired as it always has. We pulled up and parked with the intention to walk some along the Strip. But I forgotten how vacant that whole area is.

Anyway, after an uneventful but not particularly pleasant twenty-minute walk to Circus Circus, we gave the plan a quick rethink and backtracked immediately to the car. (Taking a photo op with some camels in a display that seemed suspiciously like the Three Wise Men and then cutting through the limo garage to avoid walking through the casino again.) Headed to...where else...the mall! The Fashion Show Mall got a major facelift about 6 years ago and it is truly a grand creation (if you can say such a thing about a mall.) It's an enormous place, full up of high end boutiques and expensive department stores. The floors are spotless Italian tile and the store fronts all have a Disney-store deco. There's even a runway on the floor mid-mall sponsored by Macy's that is, in fact, a runway show on the weekends. But we missed it. Food court is a mix of chains you've never heard of, and Subway. There's also an outlet stop for 1/2 price same-day theater tickets. They never sell anything you're dying to see (or you have to stand in line when they first open to get those seats) but for the unpicky, it's a good deal.

Back to the MGM for work time. We started with the opening event. It was a Q&A with some Oracle senior developer. It was too technical and as far as I could tell, the first four questions were exactly the same. Since we were on time, we had the distinct pleasure of sitting in the arena for 30 minutes watching a promo for the MGM Grand that ran every five minutes on the dot. The entire thing was stupefying.

Dinner was off-Strip at a Mexican restaurant. Mexican on the west coast (I know, Nevada's not coastal, don't argue) is nothing like Mexican on the east coast. So much better when they can actually find Mexico on a map.

One last tourist destination for the evening. That would be the Bellagio. The Bellagio is really a stunning casino. There is a floral garden which is redesigned seasonally (and unfortunately, was closed) plus an exquisite casino floor, a lake with a fountain show out front. Plenty of photo opportunities. We took advantage, saw two fountain shows (water shows set to music from classical to Sinatra.) We stopped at the Big Six game. It's a wheel marked with numbers. Each number is assigned a payout depending on how many times it appears on the wheel. You bet on which number will come up next, then the wheel is spun and it stops on a number. After our small win, the dealer clearly thought she deserved a small tip. Try smiling.