Sunday, August 31, 2008

Vegas: Day 5

Thursday would be our last full day, and last night in Vegas. After a return to Starbuck's in the morning for my iced coffee fix, we caught a cab to the Las Vegas Natural History Museum.

Our primary reason for the trip was to view the traveling exhibit on Forensic Entomoloy since Dan studied Entomology in college and loves all things bug-related.



The exhibit featured real crime scenes and detailed how insect evidence was used to solve the crime. There was a video featuring CSI's William Petersen as you walked in, and plenty of information on how insects swarm to a corpse and the various stages of bodily decay.

It turned out it was a pretty neat museum, with an impressive display of taxidermy and some well-executed living history exhibits.



The person working the ticket office was kind enough to call us a cab (the museum is pretty far from the main drag of the Strip) and we had the driver drop us off at the Hilton for one last meal at Quark's. We sat up at the bar and I ordered fish-and-chips and drank two James Tea Kirk (sort of like a blue version of a Long Island).




The food was just what I wanted, and the drinks wonderfully toxic. We then made one last trip to the gift store so Dan could pick up a memento. On the way out, we were taken by the walls of fan mail, hundreds (at least) of people celebrating their fond memories and staking claim that the Hilton was making a horrible mistake.

It was very touching, especially one that simply read "Thank you for providing a place where I could forget about my problems."

Here is a Klingon drawing from a kid:



The rest of the day was mellow. We spent some time by the pool again, and later I worked out. That night we ordered room service, which was awesome. I had a chicken caesar salad with an entire warmed chicken breast on top.


We also split a piece of chocolate cake.

We sipped a moderately priced bottle of white wine that we ordered, and watched "Smart People," the dramedy starring Ellen Page, Sarah Jessica Parker and Dennis Quaid. The characters are frustrating but compelling, and I liked the story. At times it was very dreary, but that was kind of the point I think.

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