Las Vegas- city of sin and too much sun!

After a short drive (2 hours is short compared to all the other legs of our trip so far) we arrived to the stifling heat of Las Vegas. Seriously, could we have gone anyplace hotter? Once again we were told this just happened to be the hottest week they have had all summer with it averaging 113-115 degrees every day we were here. What is it about our timing and the heat waves we keep running in to? I think we're following it across the country. It turns out the month of June was the warmest on record world wide according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Organization. I think it's continued on into July with how hot we've been.
All we did when we arrived was sit and decompress on the couch at Darrel and Angela's house. I don't know how my brother lives here but he assures us that it's only bad for a little bit and then it's nice the rest of the year.
After a quick dinner Jeff and I left for the strip and Angela was nice enough to put our kids to bed for us. We had bought tickets to see Lance Burton, Master Magician, at the Monte Carlo Casino. We got there early and found our seats. I think we were both a bit tired because we didn't go walk around, just waited for the show.



Lance Burton is a very good entertainer and a fun magician. I think with magic shows I could do without the dancing magic girls in skimpy outfits but as far as shows go, his is the most family friendly on the strip. He did some really fun things with kids from the audience like making one disappear along with a car. He had one guy come up and Lance stood behind him and acted like his hands to make him a real magician. The guy stood there in a cape and top hat while Lance did all these fancy magic tricks.
After the show it was only 8:30 so we decided to walk around the strip. We saw the M&M store first and went inside to find what they call "4 Floors of Fun." It was really 4 floors of everything imaginable with M&M's all over it. Too bad I wasn't in the market for an M&M cereal bowl or toothbrush holder because they had some on sale.


I realize how sheltered I've been living in Hillsboro for so long and not seeing up close all the bad things that are going on out there in the world. Just walking on the street there are moving billboards advertising scantily clad women. Jeff was offered pamphlets on the street corners with pictures of naked call girls. Can you believe it, handing out pornography on a street corner?! Angela told me they are called smut peddlers and the law is they can't hand it to you if you have children with you, as if that's enough! You couldn't even look down to avoid the people handing them out because there were so many dropped on the ground.
We ended up taking a tram to the Mandalay Bay Casino because I wanted to see what the Shark Reef Aquarium was like in case we wanted to bring our kids. We walked into that Casino and the first thing we saw was a dancing girl on a platform on top of the slot machines. I couldn't believe this was just out in the open and not in some back room you had to seek out.
It was about 100 degrees at 10:30pm and we were both sweltering. We stopped for a shake and fruit and yogurt parfait from the McDonald's in the Luxor Casino and made our way back to the car. Jeff thought Vegas casinos would be a lot classier but Angela said those were at the other end of the strip which we didn't see.