After the late night we woke up fairly late and went down to the casino floor to Cafe Hollywood for breakfast. We had a nice waiter who mentioned something we had heard in Hawaii — that Las Vegas was the ninth Hawaiian island due to all of the folks that retire here for the lower cost of living. We both had hot tea, Michelle had French toast, eggs, and bacon and I had eggs, chicken fried steak and gravy, hashbrowns, and toast. Both were excellent. We then went upstairs to our room to get ready for the day’s adventure.
We set out about noon for Artistic Iron up north in the Fremont Street Art District. Along the way we passed the Circus Circus casino with its creepy sign. How is that place still in business?! Clowns! We also passed under a really neat Las Vegas sign (no, not the Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas one!). Artistic Iron had a ton of really cool metal sculptures in front ranging from gigantic dinosaurs to aliens to small plants. We went inside and the sheer amount of metal sculpture for sale from $10 to $1000s was staggering. They ship, but not cheaply, so Michelle and I knew we had to be wise. We made a note of the things we liked and asked if we could keep our noble steed in their parking lot while we went to lunch at the nearby Cornish Pasty Co. at 1pm.
The food was decent. The highlight was probably the appetizer of bread and butter, which was delicious. I also got an appetizer of Scotch Egg but it wasn’t super great — the egg wasn’t completely hard boiled (a big no-no for me) and the sausage wasn’t nice and crisp and crumbly like we get at the Carolina Renaissance Faire or that amazing Broken Barrel in Stanfield, Oregon. As for the pasty, those are basically a complete meal wrapped in a pastry. They go as far back as the 13th century and miners would carry them into the mines for their lunch. As their hands were usually grimy they’d hold onto the pasty via a built-in handle that would later be tossed. Michelle got the Cuban pasty (ham, pork, mustard, cheese, pickles, etc.) and I had the Cottage Pie pasty which was the typical Shephard’s Pie (carrots, peas, mashed potatoes, cheddar cheese, meat) but with beef instead of lamb.
We walked back through the blistering heat to Artistic Iron and checked out the large sculptures in front, including a Samurai on a horse with a cool dragon atop its helmet and a massive T-Rex. We then went back in and decided on a few pieces — three small desert plants, an alien, and a single blue rose. They all fit in a box so shipping wouldn’t be outrageous. We left about 2:30pm and headed down Frank Sinatra Boulevard, a street between I-15 and Las Vegas Boulevard. Not only was it faster (as there was a wreck on I-15) but we got to see the backside of the casinos which was kind of cool.
South of the strip we hopped back onto Las Vegas Boulevard at 3pm and visited the Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas sign. There was a fair crowd in front of it in line waiting for pictures so I just took my picture above their heads. The sign was also next to the “parking lot” for all the rich folks’ jets so I enjoyed seeing those! We then drove the very short distance (a few hundred feet) north to the Pinball Hall of Fame.
We visited the Pinball Hall of Fame back in 2013 and greatly enjoyed it. At the time it was off of Tropicana but has since moved to a much nicer (and more prominent) location. I think there were more tables on display too. There’s no admission fee, just the quarters needed to play each table (which varied from a quarter to a dollar, with most around the fifty to seventy-five cent range). Sadly as in 2013 there were a fair number of tables that were out of order, including my favorite — Williams’ Tales of the Arabian Nights. There were still plenty playable, however. After Michelle and I each bought a shirt (no magnets available, sadly) we started playing. Michelle played some Shrek, Munsters, and Star Wars. I played a range of machines from the quite old 50s, 60s, and 70s (including Genie) all the way up to the fairly new (a couple of years old at most) Rush table, which I greatly enjoyed. If they weren’t such a pain to maintain I’d love to have a table! Oh well. I think my favorite period are the older ones. There’s just something magical about them as you can hear the electronics hum as you use the paddles and everything has a nice kachunk about it. Also those old machines have mechanical scoring so hearing the digits rotate is a treat. Some of the tables I played were old enough that they had a second plunger below the normal one that had to be pressed in to load the ball. So cool.
The art of the pinball machines is so amazing, particularly the older ones. I also love how you can see cultural interests expressed through the theme of the pinballs — from 50s with Western through 60s with “groovy” and lots of space themed to 70s and disco and fantasy and even into the 80s when movie licenses started really getting into the business. Very cool. In addition to the pinball tables I also played some arcade machines — Tutankhamun, Burger Time, Dig Dug, and Frogger. Great fun! It being 4:45pm and with a busy evening ahead we reluctantly headed for the exit. We tried to give about $10 of quarters that we hadn’t used to a family coming in for free to be nice and they were like “we’re good”. Oooookay, whatever.
After some not-so-fun traffic on Las Vegas Boulevard and a failed detour near the MGM Grand we made it back to the room around 5:30pm. We rested a few minutes then headed downstairs for our 6pm reservation at P.F. Changs. After the previous night’s failure to get dessert we decided to focus on a few appetizers and ensuring that Michelle got dessert (their dessert menu wasn’t to my taste — meaning it was coffee free, haha). We had tempura fried green beans, lettuce wraps, and pork spring rolls for appetizers and Michelle had the banana rolls with coconut and pineapple ice cream, which she greatly enjoyed.
We finished our dinner around 7pm and headed back to the room for about thirty minutes then returned to the casino floor and to the nearby Bakkt Theater to see Miranda Lambert’s Velvet Rodeo residency. Michelle got a really neat shirt and we took our seats which were aisle with nobody in front (and, as it turned out, to our side). The show started with no opening band around 8:15pm with her song “Acting Up”. The stage was neat and had multiple levels as well as a huge screen that showed images for each song. There was also a walkway into the audience with a small round stage where she could sing with spotlights. There were also some pyrotechnics and despite being well over a hundred feet back we could feel the heat. There was only a short intermission in which the band played so she could change costumes and otherwise it was a string of her hits (“Vice”, “The House That Built Me”, “Tin Man”, “Not Your Mama’s Broken Heart”, “Not Ready To Go Home”, “Wild Palomino”, “Little Red Wagon”, “All Kinds”, “Bluebird”, etc.) for about an hour and a half, wrapping up right at 9:45pm with an explosion of confetti. We had a great time!
Back on the casino floor we noticed it was far more lively (it being a Friday night) than we had seen it previously. I stopped and got a Frappucino from Starbucks and we headed back to the room and went to bed.
