Views from the El Cortez

A view from my room.

It was the window by the elevator that really had the goods.

My room at the El Cortez

I checked into the El Cortez on Sunday and stayed for two nights.  AT 18$ a night, it was an unbeatable deal.

My room was quite a step up from Stays Suites.

A Walk on Freemont Street

A Dean Martin/Frank Sinatra crooning street performer.

A street painter.

The very familiar Fremont Street ventriloquist.  He's is a frequent site at the Fremont Street Experience.

A Dog's life

An apparently homeless guy's dog is playing in the water at Bally's on the Las Vegas Strip.  He was looking for something.

The dog was fetching a large rock....

That the homeless guy got from here.

He asked me if I could donate a few dollars for dog food.  Because he let me take photo's I gave him a few bucks.

Coney Island chili dogs

My lunch at Coney Island Chili Dogs

My Chili Dog

Very tasty.  Then, I had one of their gyro's. 

Another tasty entree.

It was a good lunch.  It would have been exceptional if it wasn't for the IBEW.  The were picketing outside and they had one guy who was blaring an annoying horn the whole time.  I wasn't too happy with them.

North Las Vegas PIoneer Days Celebration 2013

Pioneer Days at the North Las Vegas Stake ball field.

The ticket Booth.  You can buy five or ten dollar tickets to be used at the concession stands.

BBQ pork Sandwich

Tacos!

And a hot dog.

Here's my corn on the cob. What you do is you put the butter, pepper and salt on one side and then you use the paper boat as a kind of roller/baster to evenly distribute the spice over the rest of the corn. This is a true North Las Vegas stake Pioneer Days classic.

It was pretty dark by the time I got to my pie ala mode and had to use the flash camera.

All kinds of fun things for the kids to do at Pioneer Days.

A young guy is trying his hand the the Super man hammer game.

Missionaries playing a little horse shoes.

Twilight in North Las Vegas.

My friend Ralph

Every year when I come down for Pioneer Days, I always spend some time catching up with Ralph. I think we've known each other since before kindergarten. Back then, our fastest dash was at the exact same speed. So whenever we had a foot race, there was never a winner or a loser. It was always a tie!

In the spring of 1981 we were both in Mr. Cozine's 5th grade class. We joined forces that year for our school's annual Field Day events to compete in the four man relay race. The class to beat was Mr. Ross. His class usually won Field Day. That was due in part because Mr. Ross used class time to allow his students to practice for Field Day events! We practiced too (mostly at relay racing), but we did it during P.E. on our own time. Mr. Cozine never would have gone for that, anyway.

When the day of the big races came, we easily beat Mr. Ross and the other class. Then our girls ran their race and also won. And last, our co-ed team raced and they took first place! It was a total walkover and a clean sweep of Mr. Ross' supposed unstoppable 5th grader machine.

Mr. Ross' class was still the over-all winner of Field Day that year but their humiliating defeat in all the relay races had to be a sore spot for them. Ralph and I are still very proud to have been part of one of the biggest upsets in the history of grade school relay racing.

This is one of the things I don't miss from Las Vegas. 

It looks like a big cockroach but I think it's actually a kind of beetle.  Either way, they don't make very good pets.

An intense tug of war a the  end of the evening.

They had the fireworks early because they were concerned about wind a rain.  It was probably a good idea.