Las Vegas is Going to the Dogs and Other Tales

What happens in Vegas really can’t stay in Vegas these days because so much is changing – and for the good!  We are here for our traditional ‘watching football’ during Bowl Game week we thought we’d highlight some of what we've seen. . .

Going to the Dogs

One of the first things we noticed was the number of ‘traveling dogs’ – not those poor homeless types that wander foreign streets pulling at tourist heartstrings - but the pampered pooches who are staying in 5-star comfort.

We first noticed the influx of four-footed visitors when we shared an elevator in our Vdara Hotel with a French Bulldog and his doting ‘parents’ the other morning and have since counted nearly a dozen canine companions.

Greening of The Strip

Four days ago the newest addition to The Strip, debuting on New Year’s Eve, opened.  Some smart designer had a vision for the service alley between the Flamingo Resort and The Quad (once the Imperial Resort). 


Linq is the name of this new brick paved, tree-lined area that will be home to 30 open air retail, dining and entertainment outlets. It is estimated that some 20.4 million visitors walked past the old alleyway in a given year, making the transformation of this area into usable urban outdoor space a brilliant move by Caesars Entertainment.

And Linq is aptly named because it ‘linqs’ The Strip to the Vegas High Roller, reputedly the worlds largest observation wheel which will be opening later this year.









Just Down the Road

  

MGM has torn up the sidewalk and front facades of its properties, New York – New York and the Monte Carlo and is also building an outdoor promenade that will house more open-air establishments.

 
Travel Weekly, an industry publication, says the tourists coming to this city are spending an increasing amount of time away from slot machines and casino tables.  Only 72% of the visitors gambled in 2012 as compared to 85% in 2008.

As I said in the opening, there is a lot happening in Vegas that really shouldn’t stay here!




Happy New Year to you all. And thanks for stopping by today ~ the time you spend with us is appreciated. We are now on Instagram so hope you'll visit us there as well. . .we are posting views of Vegas this week! Linking this one up with Noel Morata's Travel Photo Discovery!

A Taste of the World

A certain number of people have only one question when we announce an upcoming far-distant destination:

 “But, what will you eat there?”

Following any trip, the question is usually, “But, was the food . . .good?”

Today, with 2013 only days from being history, I am serving up a helping of some of the mouth-watering foods that have given us a taste of the world in which we’ve traveled during its run.

Some of our happiest travel memories are those that involve food, like that time in:

Honolulu, Hawaii. . .

. . .where their traditional and inexpensive ‘plate lunch’ (total cost for the meal below about $20 US). This meal, served in a Styrofoam box is one of our favorite local eats.  Using our laps for a table we dined on Katsu chicken sitting on a bed of steamed rice and veggies (that's a bit of pork to the left), as we sat on our Waikiki Beach facing hotel room balcony last January.

The View with our Hawaiian plate lunch:

Chora Sfakia, southern coast of Crete, Greece:

“Sfakian pie”  is one of the specialty menu items at Delfini’s Restaurant.  It is made at the time of ordering so that anticipation builds during that 20 minute wait for the fragrant pie stuffed with lamb and four Cretan cheeses to arrive at the table.  We ordered it with a side of “Horta” – those wild greens that grow on the rough and tumble hillsides surrounding the town and look much like spinach – but taste better! 

This may well be one of our favorite meals on earth! Confession: my mouth waters each time I look at these photos. (Cost: our three-course meal, including the pie,was about $22US total including wine.)

The View of Chora Sfakia’s waterfront that we had while we ate Sfakian Pie:

Amsterdam, Netherlands

Stamppot, a Dutch favorite (and one of ours as well)  is made of mashed potatoes, mixed with vegetable (carrots in the photo below) and served with rookworst, a smoked sausage and a 'pond' of gravy tops the potato mound. We could have eaten ourselves silly at every meal during our three-night stay en route from Greece to Seattle. (It’s a good thing we walked ourselves silly each day to counter those calories!)

The setting:  While we didn’t have a 'view table' at this little pub across from our hotel, what made this meal memorable was that table full of people in this photo because it turned out they were a touring musical group and they broke into song and entertained us all!

Russell township, Bay of Islands, New Zealand

The steaming hot Seafood Chowder with local fresh fish, bacon and shellfish came flowing over the sides of its compact cob loaf at the Duke of Marlborough Hotel – a place that began in 1827 as a grog shop – on the waterfront in picture-perfect Russell.

While we both exclaimed there was ‘too much to eat’ we barely managed to leave a polite tidbit of bread in our bowls. And, we used the occasion to taste two different Sauvignon Blanc wines, the white for which New Zealand is famous. (Cost: $56AUS, about $45US)

The setting: was the amazing patio in front of this historic hotel that overlooked the harbor and fronted the small main street that catered to pedestrians and an occasional car or two. (Russell will soon be featured in a post on TravelnWrite.)

A Sample of Southwestern United States: Las Vegas and Scottsdale
Gluttony – pure and simple!  I am almost ashamed to show you some of the food we ate while traveling in Nevada and Arizona this year. Let’s just say, I understand why my cholesterol count was off the chart a few weeks ago and why my doctor suggested 'continued attention to exercise and low fat foods'. . . (ahem, I hope she misses this post!)

Okay, so it was my July birthday. . .remember, 60, the Big One? I believed that a little self-indulgence was in order at Mon Ami Gaby Restaurant on Las Vegas Blvd. ~ and who can say 'no' to a birthday treat from the restaurant, right?

The View: was equally as delightful. . .we sat on the patio under ‘the Eiffel Tower’.

I’ll conclude this food fest retrospective with our November visit to Scottsdale, where we ate twice at the Four Season’s Proof American Canteen. We finally gave in on our last visit and each ordered – and ate – their  Best Burger - Vermont Cheddar, Smoked Ketchup Mayo, Bourbon Molasses Onions, Deep Fried Bacon.  Okay, it tasted as good and was as unhealthy as it looks BUT we didn’t order the optional fried egg on top and ate Cole slaw instead of French Fries. . .that must count for something. . .

The Setting at the foot of Pinnacle Peak (pictured below) couldn’t be beat!

We found plenty of good eats in 2013 and the meals flavored our travels with great memories.

Today we raise our glasses to each of you in a toast of “Thanks!” as our travels in 2013 come to an end:

Thanks for the time you’ve spent sharing our close-to-home and far-distant adventures.  Hopefully our tips were useful and tales entertaining. The Scout and The Scribe recognize that time is a valuable commodity these days and we can't thank you enough for sharing a bit of yours with us.

We look forward to having you join us again in 2014 because there’s a lot of world out there to savor and we hope to have a big helping of it. . .maybe even seconds and some desert as well!


Our thanks and best wishes for a Happy New Year and Happy Travels  ~  Jackie and Joel

We are linking up at:
Noel Morata’s Monday Travel Photo Discovery
Budget Travelers Sandbox Travel Photo Thursday

Traveling the Road Not. . ., well. . ., less Taken in 2013

I’ve chosen to put a new twist on Robert Frost’s poem, “The Road Not Taken”, as we reflect on our travels this last year.

Sadly, with limited amounts of time we will always have roads not taken, but we’ve also had some great travel by choosing roads, less taken. 

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

O’ahu, Hawaii – January – February

If you drive west from Honolulu, past the town of Kapolei, past Ko Olina, a planned unit development, past Waipahu town, you come to the end of the road, where waves crash against the shore and the real beauty of O’ahu is found at every turn. . .even on days when clouds cloak the Waianae Mountains.








Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

Greece – Mani, Peloponnese – April

We set out in our rented car from Nafplio, Greece to explore a section of the Peloponnese – a taster sized sample of a rugged, but beautiful part of this country with which we are so taken. Often times we found ourselves alone for hours on a narrow roadway that looped up and down, over and around the stunning countryside. (GPS hasn’t discovered this part of the world yet.)



And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.


Vancouver Island, British Columbia – September



The narrow roadway that cuts across Vancouver Island, British Columbia was a new route for us and one that cut through magnificent old growth forests leading us to Tofino, the small fishing (and tourist) village at the end of the road.






I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.


Mo’orea – French Polynesia – South Pacific – November

Never ones to favor those group tours organized by cruise ships, we prefer to set out on our own.

Lucky for us, Avis had an ‘office’ at the dock when we arrived in Mo’orea!  And some of the sights we saw were simply amazing to our American-safety-first way of thinking.


That’s it for this Travel Photo Thursday! Drop by Budget Travelers Sandbox where we are linking up today for some more armchair travel!


Our wishes to each of you for a Happy New Year – full of travel whether it be by car, bike, ship, plane or armchair.  And try putting away that GPS once or twice and set out on the road less traveled. We recommend it!

‘Twas the Time Before Christmas

It’s that time of year when suitcases sit empty at the TravelnWrite House. 

The flurry of pre-travel packing and departure preparation has been replaced by Christmas preparations for a stay-at-home holiday.

But there was a time in our early years together when my work – and its Scrooge-like amount of vacation time -forced us to travel at Christmas (one week of current year’s vacation coupled with one week of the next, made for a blessed two week getaway without zapping my entire year’s 10 vacation days).

So Christmas time was always spent in some far away place;  thousands of miles from family and friends. . . And you know what?

It was a great time to travel!

We were surrounded by knock-out holiday decorations the filled the hotels (much more elaborate than we’d have done at home), we ate Christmas dinners and goodies that we didn’t have to prepare (whew!) and we had time to enjoy the season, our surroundings and our time together . . .

This year we had a taste of those old Christmas travel memories when we began the month of December by spending a few days at the JW Marriott in Texas Hill Country, outside San Antonio. The photos in the post were taken there.

I was among some 1,200 conference attendees and outside each conference room a festive tree and poinsettias made it clear the Holiday Season was upon us.

Amazing what a couple of Poinsettias will do to enhance everyday décor.

And a gingerbread display filled the hotel foyer with cowboy boots as big as the State of Texas!

The decorations that filled the grounds and the building provided a chuckwagon-sized helping of Christmas Cheer and guests couldn’t help but be caught up in the festive feel of the season.

We hope this Christmas Season you will be caught up in festive surroundings 

and that your hearts will be filled with Christmas Cheer!

We thank you for the time you spent with us today during this busy season ~

hope to see you back again soon! As our greeting card says this year, 

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

South Pacific ~ Some Enchanted Evening

“I wish I could tell you about the South Pacific. The way it actually was. The endless ocean. . .

The infinite specks of coral we called islands. . .

Coconut palms waving gracefully toward the ocean. . .

Reefs upon which waves broke into a spray and inner lagoons, lovely beyond description.. . ."

The words above are from the opening scene of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s musical, South Pacific. I couldn’t have found a better description of sights we saw during our cruise on the Celebrity Solstice in October.

And there was no better way to end the cruise than by attending a performance of the musical at the iconic Sydney Opera House!

So please join us as we re-live our ‘Enchanted Evening’. . .

The Opera House’s 40th Birthday celebration was underway while we were in town -- gala musical performances, fireworks and special activities that filled both days and evenings – and it was the last week’s run of “South Pacific”.

The musical, an adaptation of James Mitchener’s Tales of the South Pacific, was first performed on New York City’s Broadway back in 1949. This,on-the-surface lighthearted song and dance tale of romance, has also been described as a 'strong progressive message on racism'. The story is of an American nurse stationed in the South Pacific who falls in love with an expatriate French plantation owner and who struggles to accept his mixed race children. A secondary story line focuses on a U.S. Lieutenant who falls in love with a Tonkinese woman but who fears the social consequences if he should marry his Asian sweetheart.

Theater-goers flocked to the Opera Bar that stretches along Circular Quay to enjoy a libation on the way to the Opera House – it is ‘the’ thing to do, we were told. We opted to have our drink inside so that we could enjoy the ambiance of this whimsical building and watch the departing cruise ships – so close it felt as if we could touch them.

I took only a couple of photos—all without flash, thus the slight blur -- inside the theater; this one during intermission.

And this one of the stage as we entered the theater:

The performance was by the cast and crew of the Lincoln Center Production, winner of seven Tony Awards, and it is continuing to be performed in other cities in Australia this fall but I doubt if any production could be half as enchanting as the one performed at the Sydney Opera House.

Let me end by providing you a sample of the evening, just click the following link. . .be forewarned you’ll be humming and smiling for the rest of the day!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4m28AfQoRc&list=UUrE1yZkh4z0WAI4f4YIS75A



We are linking up with Travel Photo Thursday at Budget Travelers Sandbox and The Tablescraper – check out the other armchair trips there today.

Travel Tip Tuesday: More Money Saving Tips

Saving Money tips from you:

I promised I’d share reader responses to our 'hitting the travel jackpot' post about getting  more travel and spending less money on our recent trip to Scottsdale, Arizona  by going via Las Vegas, Nevada:

Mark in Florida sent a tip about ways to save on rental cars:

“We find it is almost always cheaper to rent cars a couple miles from the airport . . . especially if your hotel has a free shuttle and Enterprise (car rental) picks you up.”

Paula in Washington State sent a tip for finding luxury and saving money on the Oregon Coast:

“We were visiting our daughter down in Coos Bay (on the Oregon coast) last month and stayed at the Mill Casino Hotel. I fell in love with the hotel with it's ‘. . . stunning waterfront views of Coos Bay in . . . Northwest-inspired décor. . .’ It's actually right on the Bay and you can step outside to find all kinds of wildlife.  We found an internet special of $89 a night for a 4-star room.”

Credit Card Benefits Are No Joke!
In that same jackpot post I told you we’d applied for two additional Alaska Airlines credit cards at the encouragement of the ‘sign up man’ working the waiting area in the Las Vegas airport. 

Our new cards arrived last week, the signing bonus 25,000 air miles (good for a domestic round-trip) has been deposited to each of our mileage accounts and we each have a $99 companion ticket in our account – just waiting to be used sometime in the next 12 months. When added to our existing cards, we'll have four 'cheap' trips a year.

Alaska Air, once a regional airline now flies to destinations throughout the entire U.S from the East Coast to Hawaii. Alaska credit cards are available to U.S. and Canadian residents.

Other good news for Alaska Airlines frequent fliers is that the airline just announced they are allowing miles flown on an increasing number of their partner airlines to count toward Alaska elite flyer status. 

Pacific Northwest Deals:

Canada: The Wickaninnish Inn, that high-end place on Vancouver Island’s West Coast (they offered us rooms for $420 or $460 per night last September when we stopped and didn’t stay), has a spring get-away special:  book a minimum three-night getaway at the Inn from January 24th through April 30th, 2013, and save $100/night from their regular room rates.   Available for new reservations on select dates and room types. Call 1-800-333-4604 or email info@wickinn.com.

Seattle: Mayflower Park Hotel

 The historic Mayflower Park Hotel, built in 1927, and located in the heart of the city, next to Westlake Center has a Holiday Traditions Package with weekday prices (Sun, – Thurs.) starting at $139 for a Classic guestroom; $159 Deluxe and $199 Suites. Weekend rates (Friday and Saturday) start at $179 for a Classic, $199 Deluxe and $239 Suites. Good through December 30, 2013. Reservations: 206-382-6990, 800-426-5100 or e-mail at mayflowerpark@mayflowerpark.com.  Keep in mind: rates are based on a space available basis and do not include tax.

That’s it for now. . .stop by on Thursday for our weekly photo tour link up!