Monday, June 23, 2013 – Poway to Las Vegas, NV
So the journey begins. We made it through our first day of our 2 month voyage. We “set sail” from Poway at 9:00 AM and we had a cast of characters from the neighborhood there to send us off on our way.
Special Thanks to Joe and Marty Petter who will be house sitting for us while we are gone. In addition to taking care of our place they will also be tending to the demanding needs of our two beloved pups, Oreo, the miniature poodle and Bella, the Malti-poo mix. It was especially tough to leave them behind due to an injury poor Bella sustained to her ACL in her left rear knee. It looks like she may need some surgery when we get back. We are thankful to have Joe and Marty there to look after her and we know that they will take good care of them.
The first stop on our trip was in Sun City, near Menifee, CA where we dropped in on Linda and Frank Ruiz. Elisa dropped off a number of items with Linda who has agreed to assemble an number of vignettes using 1950 – 1980 Ginny Dolls. She was also kind enough to donate some of her books on collecting Ginny Dolls. This is our first donation for the Toy and Doll Muesum. The Board of Directors recently inspected some potential locations for the Toy and Doll Museum in Liberty Station near Point Loma – but more on that later.
We were back on the road to our first stop on our cross-country trip – Las Vegas, NV. I’m pleased to say that our new motorhome performed flawlessly, we towed our little Elantra GT runabout behind the motorhome up some pretty serious inclines and we managed to average close to 15 MPG. I know it’s a far cry from the 45 MPG that Elisa gets with her hybrid, but it’s pretty good for a motorhome.
After making several stops along the way we pulled into our campground at 6:00 pm. We cleaned up and made it to our 7:30 PM reservation at Tom Collichio’s premier steakhouse – Craftsteak. This great restaurant is situated in the sprawling MGM Grand Hotel and Casino. Our good friend Craig Dickhens urged us to visit indicating that he had the best steak of his life there. He opted to get the Japanese Kobe Wagyu beef at $160/ person for 8oz portion. We weren’t feeling quite so sporty so Elisa and I opted for the more modestly priced Prime, dry-aged beef that is cut on location. I can’t say it was the best piece of meat I’ve ever had – that Iowa beef I had a couple of weeks ago was pretty darn good – but Craftsteak did a fabulous job seasoning it, cooking it and presenting it. It was outstanding. We also complimented our meal with a couple of starters. Rex had the Summer Garlic Soup with King Crab and green onions – it was very good. Elisa had a salad of mixed greens topped with some great asparagus. With dinner we had three side dishes – baby artichokes prepared with a lemon brine and cooked with carrots, saffron, onions and we think a little fennel – fantastic. Next was the baby shitake mushrooms sautéed in butter and garlic with a touch of oregano. We also had the rosemary roasted fingerling potatoes. Everything was excellent – except the check. When I got it, I told our excellent waiter, Marvin that there must be a mistake as I only ordered a steak and not the whole cow. He assured me that there was no mistake. So other than blowing our food budget for the month on one meal we didn’t regret it.
After that sumptuous meal we decided that it would be a wise thing for us to walk around the strip. Which we did and after getting lost and turned around in countless casino’s we made it back to our car after walking what we are pretty sure was about 4 miles.
So, now we are retiring for the night. After getting back relatively late, we opted to shower and get ready for bed in our tiny little bathroom. All I can say is that it is a good thing both of us are so petite.
More later!
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