Viva Las Vegas... Part Three (final)

Garth Brooks...the entertainer. We had tickets to the Garth Brooks concert at the Wynn Hotel. Stu had been to one of his concerts, I had only seen him on television. But nothing either of has had seen before prepared us for this show.

We had 10th row seats and the stage was set with a bottle of water sitting on top of a stool with a guitar propped against it. Hmmmm....where was the band? Trick stage? Would they rise up, come out from the behind the curtains?

Nope...this was Garth unplugged...Garth like you've never seen him before. Chatting and talking to us like we were in his living room. He started talking about growing up with music in the house. His dad was all Haggard/Jones. Garth was listening to the music his older siblings were playing...Rolling Stones, James Taylor, Doobie Brothers. You get the idea....

He spent 2 1/2 hours talking, playing, taking requests, interacting with the audience and even surprising us all with a guest appearance by his wife, Trisha Yearwood. She did a song, they did a duet, then she did another song. WOW!

We laughed, we cried, we sang, we cheered....a totally amazing show. His voice is better than ever! I came away knowing more about him than ever before and becoming and even bigger fan.

Because the weather was so nice and the campground so convenient and NOT crowded, we opted to stay an extra day. We did some sightseeing on the motorcycle this time around. First on the list was the famous Welcome to Las Vegas sign...this symbolizes to me the Las Vegas I saw 20 years ago.





We headed back through the strip area towards downtown. Next on the list to see was the pawn shop featured in the reality TV show, Pawn Stars. There was a line outside and we were told it would take 20 minutes to get inside. I think it was closer to 10 minutes and we were in. The store is much smaller than it appears on TV.





We wandered down one side, looking at the displays of merchandise for sale. We recognized several things from the show. When we got to the back of the store they were selling souvenirs. This was where the "stars" of the show would come out for photos and autographs. We meandered a bit, no one showed and we had no inclination to buy anything so we started up the other side of the showcases.

We were about halfway to the front of the store when I heard a voice I knew...I turned around and yup! There was Rick Harrison, owner of the shop, right behind me. He was showing a friend around and I asked if I could take his photo. He smiled and agreed and then Stu jumped in to compare haircuts. LOL! I also got the Old Man at the back of the shop, but we were at the front so the pic is pretty fuzzy.





From there we headed to Fremont St for more sights and sounds of the older Las Vegas. Since it was still daylight, it was pretty quiet. We roamed a bit then stopped at a local pub for a beer before heading over the Las Vegas Harley-Davidson dealer.





It was getting dark as we headed back to the KOA...it gave me a chance for a night shot of the Stratosphere Hotel. As we took the last walk through the stores in Circus-Circus, we saw a t-shirt that said it all for us!





All in all, we had a great time in Las Vegas. Would we stay at the KOA again? Yes. If we were in a hotel, we'd try to book one about in the middle of the strip. The only other thing we'd do differently would be to take advantage of the kiosks selling "day of show" half-price tickets. Might see some interesting shows that way!

Till next time - keep on rollin',
Donna & Stu