Friday January 12th 2018

The Las Vegas valley is back in a good weather rut. It was another sunny day with the high temperature in the low sixties. I took it slow this morning catching up on my internet reading and watching TV. In the afternoon it was back to preparing for next weeks travel.

Huge flower covered dog celebrates the Year of the Dog at the Bellagio Hotel and Casino Conservatory in Las Vegas. The tail of this magnificent representation of a dog is wagging.

Today’s task was to get the oil changed in the Honda CR-V. I typically use a Valvoline Instant Oil change place for the car’s lube job. It is convenient since their computers have all of my service records. If one isn’t available, I use a Jiffy Lube. In this case there were three Valvoline Instant Oil change places in the valley. Unfortunately, they were all on the northwest side of the valley. It took over a half hour to get there for service that took less than twenty minutes including the wait time. Getting home took even longer because I took the surface roads rather than the highway.

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Since I had to cross the Las Vegas strip to get home, I decided to stop and check out the Bellagio Conservatory’s Chinese New Year display. The complication to this decision was the Consumer Electronics Convention. CES is the largest annual convention that calls Las Vegas home. I got caught in its final day traffic near the Convention Center and near the Sands Exhibition hall. It was a dangerous mix of cars and pedestrians. I was in stop and go traffic for about forty five minutes before I got a parking space in the Miracle Mile Shops parking garage.

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The Bellagio display was beautiful. In celebration of the Year of the Dog there were flower statues of Chinese people playing with dogs in the gardens. The focal point of the display was a huge black, white and gray dog. I’d guess it was over thirty feet tall. This is one of the better conservatory displays I’ve seen.

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This was probably my last visit to the strip on this stay in Vegas. There is a possibility that I might take the Sam’s Town shuttle in over the weekend. My concern is that the crowds will be high with the Monday holiday. People lining up to check in this evening. I imagine with all the convention people still here that room availability is low and rates are high for tonight.