A Funeral in Florida

I was planning on visiting Florida in late December in order to get some adventuring done and also to see my Florida family during the holidays. The unfortunate news that my grandfather unexpectedly passed away came so close to my planned trip that I decided to just go down a week early and then meet up with Lydia later on.

View Naples, FL in a larger map

I split my time between my grandma in Marco Island and my aunt, uncle, and cousin near Golden Gate. Naples served as "the city" to both so I made several trips over there as well.

Well I pretty much spent time with my family and helped my grandma out with stuff around the house. It was a nice chance to see everyone and see their neck of the woods.

After a stop at the grocery store I opened the car door and realized I that I had a hitchhiker.

My grandma is really into fruit trees. Marco island is like a magical place where you can plant a coconut or a papaya and soon there will be a tree there. No big deal. I probably ate 2 star fruit a day while I was in Marco. Hand picked from the back yard.

This is a Marco Island back alley. Just walk past your orange tree, jump in your boat, and steer it though the canals to the open ocean. No big deal.

Grandma insisted I take a pair of Grandpa's sunglasses. I was a bit uncomfortable about it at first, but I don't think they look too bad.

I decided to walk to the beach one day and hang out. Marco Island is pretty awesome but it's also pretty developed. There were lots of fancy hotels that were pretty mean about letting non-guests get to the beach. It took some walking but I eventually snuck my way in though a hotel lobby.

Grandma and I had a nice little walk in downtown Naples. We did a little walking on 5th Avenue, which is a pretty upscale little shopping area. We were doing some window watching when we noticed this clothing store window, with everything inside white. There was a white cat with an exotic hair cut which made it sort of look like a little white lion. It didn't move much at first, which prompted us to wonder if it was alive or just some weird prop. Eventually it started moving around more and doing typical cat things. Its twin appeared and the two began licking each other's faces. The whole thing was like a surreal, rich person's dream. I took a lot of pictures.

On a different night my cousin who is a chef invited me over to his restaurant. I knew it was kind of pricey beforehand, so I figured if it was too expensive I might just have an appetizer or something and hang out at the bar. My awesome cousin had another plan. Apparently part of his job is to periodically walk into the restaurant in plain clothes and order from the menu to ensure everything is being done correctly and the servers are doing their jobs. What followed was the most ridiculous meal I've been a party to. There was so much ordering that we couldn't eat much of any one thing because we needed space for the next round.

It was awesome talking with him because he knew so much more about the dishes than the tiny menu description could reveal. Olive oils had to been imported from Italy through a special dealer because each year's crop was unique like wine. Cheeses were hand made and had to be eaten within days or they were thrown out. It was awesome and a little bit embarrassing at the same time. I felt unworthy to adequately appreciate the wonders on the table. But I did my best.

We ordered about half the dessert menu. The white cloud looking guy on the left was a sort of hand spun cotton candy. The base of the dessert in the center was a phyllo dough that was not allowed to rise while cooked. So all of the flaky layers that usually develop were forced into a really dense and crispy wafer. It was fantastic. The ice cream on the right was some sort of espresso float. The whole meal clocked in at $350 for the two of us. I don't think I'll be topping this one anytime soon.

Las Vegas: Land of Vaccinations, A-Bombs, and Jelly Beans

After our busy day Monday, we decided to take it a little easier on Tuesday. Our first stop was the Clark County Health Department.  Not your typical tourist destination.   Well to explain, we're going to Nicaragua in the next few weeks and needed typhoid shots.  We sort of waited until the last minute to take care of this, and there were no available appointments in St. Louis. Luckily the health department in Clark County does walk-in immunizations and offered the shots quite a bit cheaper than St. Louis.  It was also sort of a cultural experience.  There was a whole room labeled Food Handlers where I assume people were getting the necessary vaccines to work in restaurants.  Maybe we have this in St. Louis, but it seemed very local in Vegas where everything is so service-Industry orientated.  In addition, most people were Hispanic. My favorite part was seeing these cute twins.

Everyone, especially our nurse, was very, very nice.

Next we headed back downtown.  When we went to the downtown casinos on Sunday night, I earned $10 in free play at Binion's, so we decided to go back and play with our promotional money.  This led to several rounds of slot play - Mummy, Spider Man, and a few other no- name machines.  One of the other promotions we signed up for was $10 match on a table game.  When two people use these vouchers on Roulette - one person bets red and the other black - there is a 95% chance of winning.  As such, we took our vouchers and headed straight for the Roulette tables.  We placed our bets, the lady dropped the ball, and it landed on... green!  Big bummer! Well we didn't win any huge sums of money, but we did get a free entrée at the casino's cafe and our picture taken with $1,000,000.

Next we stopped at the Golden Gate casino (also downtown) for a shrimp cocktail.  The shrimp cocktail was invented at this particular casino, so of course we had to have one for ourselves.  It was well worth the $3.

On the way back to the car we stopped at the Mob Bar for a quick drink and they validated our parking ticket.  We also passed by some cool neon signs.

We got in the car and drove to the other end of the strip to visit the National Atomic Testing Museum.  This Smithsonian  museum is dedicated to all things related to atomic bombs, nuclear warfare, and the Cold War.  From 1951-1992 Mercury, Nevada, about 65 miles outside of Las Vegas, was used as one of the US's main testing grounds for nuclear weapons.  We saw a lot of interesting exhibits, but one of my favorites was a movie showing some of the testing.  They built houses and placed mannequins inside to see the would-be effects of an atomic bomb on average American citizens.  Needless to say, there wasn't much of the mannequins left after the explosion.  John's favorite exhibit was a small screen that you could manipulate to see the effects of an atomic bomb in slow motion.

"Civilian Dog Tags. Given to all citizens including schoolchildren of Las Vegas in the 1950s for identification purposes in the event of a nuclear attack. This belonged to the Thiriot family."

[John: This exhibit was pretty cool. Museum goers can hold a geiger counter over a radioactive substance, and they turn the wheel to obstruct the reading with different things like paper or aluminum.]

After getting our fix of explosions, we checked into our new hotel, Treasure Island.  We dropped our bags in the room and headed for the pool.  Even in the desert heat we decided to hang out in the hot tub.  There was a cute baby playing with the fountains who provided us with entertainment.

For dinner we went to the buffet at Treasure Island. We didn't originally plan to eat at so many buffets, but they are the most convenient option in Vegas. The food here was pretty good, but the dessert was the best we'd had so far. We had amazing creme brulees and a lot of chocolate covered strawberries.  They even had a Jelly Belly bar where you could fill up on your favorite jelly bean flavors. [John: On a related note we now know what pina colada jelly beans atop creme brulee tastes like. Delicious.]

Our last event of the day was the Cirque du Soleil show Mystere.  It was just as mind blowing as they advertise.  There were trapeze artists, some crazy pole climbers, and a girl who danced with a ribbon in mid-air.  John's favorite part was a clown dressed as a baby who made several comedic appearances throughout the show.  He was very funny!