Today is Valentine's Day but more importantly, tomorrow is Presidents day. I am not sure what we are supposed to do for President's Day but I do know the buses are running on a Saturday schedule. Today was a day of getting our butts kicked…We had a great nights rest and a big breakfast and got ready and equipped to hit the strip. We headed out to catch the shuttle and missed it by minutes. The next shuttle was not supposed to come around for another hour and a half so we decided to take the city bus. We had to buy a day pass for the city bus anyway so we could ride the "deuce" bus on the strip. We walked up and down the boulder highway trying to find the bus to take us to the strip. By the time we were finally on the right city bus, we could have just lounged around and taken the shuttle. Oh well, thanks to a friendly bus driver at least we knew what buses went were and what bus pass we needed. We hit the strip and started walking and walking and walking and walking. It was a beautiful sunny day and we could not get over how over the top these buildings, malls and hotels were. We saw the Bellagio first and the fountain show in front which is pretty spectacular.We also saw Lions at the MGM Grand. Mira was awed by the Lions and did not want to leave. We ended up walking down the strip from The Flamingo all the way down to Mandalay Bay with only one stop for lunch. By the time we reached Mandalay bay it was dark and we figured we would jump on the Deuce and head to Fremont Street. The Deuce is a Double Decker bus that travels up and down the strip that you can get on and off whenever you want. We ended up walking quite a distance before we managed to get on the bus but once we were on we breathed a sigh of relief. We made it a couple of stops before Mira started asking to go to the potty. She is potty training right now and she is doing incredibly well so it is really hard to ignore her plea so we told her to hold it and jumped off the bus to find a restroom…she made it! Yay Mira! Getting back on the Deuce a second time proved to be more difficult than the first time and we never made it back on. Instead we walked and walked and walked trying to find the shuttle back to the RV Park. The problem is that you look at where you have to be on a map, look up and see the hotel name that you need to be at, look at your watch and think "no problem, we have lots of time to make it there" but these hotels are so big and the properties are so huge, it takes forever to get there. There are also a lot of bridges instead of crosswalks that take you into a mall or casino across the bridge, through a mall or casino and then back onto the sidewalk. I am sure it is only in the name of safety and improved traffic flow except for the part that takes you into a mall or casino on both sides of the street. Walking back missing bus after bus, we did manage to see the Mirage Volcano erupt which is pretty cool and we saw the Bellagio Fountain at night which is amazing.We made it back on a city bus and started heading for home. Mira had been incredible all day long. HAD BEEN incredible up until the meltdown on the bus… oh well, she had a long day and was ready for bed.

In order to keep the story short I left out some parts. If you care to continue reading, think of this as the bonus features on a DVD. The stuff that was either not good enough to go in the main story or was edited out to keep the movie a certain rating. So there was a crazy driver that randomly turned into a crosswalk and nearly took us all out. I am not sure how you can be that inattentive driving through a sea of people…Then there was the stroller fiasco where Mira's stroller seemed to get sucked into the escalator (SHE WAS NOT IN IT!) We were carrying her on the escalator and the stroller was just beside us when one of the wheels suddenly jammed into the side of the escalator. There is a reason they tell you not to take strollers on escalators. We thought it just meant with kids in them in case you were dumb enough to let go of the stroller or something. Finally, within 500 hundred meters of home, while jay-walking, with Mira on my shoulders Brigette and I somehow managed to run into each other and nearly all fell to the ground. Round two is tomorrow, pray for our safety.