Ever since my surprise birthday party in Vegas a couple years ago, my daughter has been begging to go back.  Vegas never seemed like a great place for Daisy, but she seemed to really enjoy seeing the absurdly themed hotels and of course a Cirque du Soleil show.  So, after two years of begging, Hank, Daisy, and I went back to Vegas for three days to celebrate the beginning of summer.  Here's my trip report:

The Good: 

• The "O" Cirque du Soleil show was fantastic.  The performers were so damn agile and elegant, and the trick of using an ever-changing pool for stunts worked really well.  Great show.
• The Hoover Dam tour was decent.  I didn't really know anything about the Hoover Dam going into the trip, and, as it turns out, my tolerance for jokes like "I'm your Damn tour guide" and "Please watch a Damn movie" is pretty damn high.  Daisy was modestly entertained.

The Bad:

• The average high temperature while we were in Vegas was 106.  Apparently they were experiencing a 3-day heat wave.  Hank, who normally slathers on sunscreen during San Francisco's foggiest days, was mortified, and treated each foray outside the hotel room as through she were a solar explorer gingerly stepping upon the surface of the sun.  "I'm getting crispy!" she'd moan after five minutes.  "I'M CRISPING UP OVER HERE!".
• Good blackjack is hard to find in Vegas.  I'm sure it's there if you know where to look, but if you're just strolling around some of the nice hotels, all the tables have crappy rules, or high minimum bets, or mega-deck shoes, or shuffling machines that practically grab the cards out of your hands.  It made card counting pretty tough.
• We spent a good chunk of change on food, and never found a meal that pleased everyone.  Between Hank's wariness of buffets, and Daisy's food allergies, I was pretty much the only one of us who happily scarfed down each meal.   We even managed to feed Daisy something she was allergic to on the final night and she got a nasty stomach ache and hives.  Gah.

The Weird:

• The security guy at the San Francisco airport had no idea how to read our drivers licenses.  He stared confidently at Hank's license and then promptly referred to her by her middle name.  She corrected him, so he stared intently at my license and then addressed me by my middle name.  Isn't reading driver's licenses FROM THE VERY STATE YOU'RE IN kind of a core competency for a TSA employee?
• It cracks me up how in Vegas, at any moment strolling through a casino, you might see some dude who looks like a male model, next to some disheveled 500 pound guy in a tank top, alongside a woman in a bridal gown.  Are they all together?  Probably.