Olive's Las Vegas

Las Vegas, Nevada - Another wild and crazy day in this wild and crazy city! I must stop having all this fun. The boys had an 11 a.m. tee-time at Rio Seco. They had played this course before and wanted to give it another go. They shot better today, but were a bit disappointed because the course was in terrible shape - they paid for first-class and flew coach. Something about a drunk groundskeeper, recently fired. While they were golfing, I visited a nearby supermarket. It was a great place too, just opened, and they carried every food and product known to humankind. It was a Von's store, which is the same as a Safeway. I used my Safeway frequent-flyer card and was the lucky winner of 10% off all my purchases until August 13th! Who needs a slot machine to be a winner in Vegas??

I came back to Goldie, to unload the groceries and have lunch and then I was on my "mission" for the day. Chris is graduating from high school this weekend and will attend Purdue University in the fall. His Mom wanted Purdue-colored black and gold M&M's for his party. My favorite store in Las Vegas is M&M ColorWorks! They sell M&M's by the pound and by the color - but not just your regular M&M colors - they carry black, silver, pinks, purples, metallics, white, etc.! They are in bins that reach from the floor to the ceiling and it is a beautiful display. All colors come in plain or peanut. I parked in the MGM Grand parking lot and walked (about a mile, I swear) through the casino and hotel to Las Vegas Boulevard and down the street a bit to M&M ColorWorks. I made the packages of M&M's for the Graduate and since I was there, made up a package of pinks and purples for our niece, Delaney. I took them to the shipping counter, rang-up the purchases and arranged for the candy to be FedExed to Oregon. M&M ColorWorks will ONLY overnight when it is hot - and it was 100 degrees. It was 3:00 pm. I can now report from the future: the candies were delivered to both recipients in Beaverton 18 hours later. I love this town.
 
Then, it was back out to Rio Seco to fetch the guys. Eighteen holes just weren’t enough though - they wanted to go to the Callaway Golf Center on Las Vegas Boulevard and try-out a few new drivers. The Callaway Golf Center is a great facility. It has a huge shop, golf school, fantastic driving range - grass and astro-turf - and a Par-3 course. Even I tried-out the new women's irons, but they were too heavy for me.
 
Matt went back to his hotel and DT and I had a rest and a swim at our luxurious RV Resort. We parked at The Venetian Hotel and met Matt in the lobby. Matt had goals for the evening. He wanted to have a drink, watch the Laker game, have something to eat and then (said sarcastically) he wanted to lose his nightly gambling budget. They were lofty goals, but we were willing to give it the old Vegas try. There was a sports bar in the hotel where the first two goals were easily ticked-off the list. The crowd was heavily Laker-friendly, and we were out of our element a bit, but they shut-up when the game was over. DT sat at the bar, playing video poker and won enough to pay for the third goal. We set-off in search of P.F. Chang and we either couldn't remember where it was, didn't walk down far enough, or it was gone - so we walked across the street to the Bellagio Hotel and found ourselves at a very nice tables at Olives - one of my favorite restaurants in Las Vegas. Olive's offers Santa Margherita Pinot Grigio, so I was happy. The guys had salads and I had a very delicious artichoke pancake appetizer. It was one of those "altitude" stacked things and nearly too pretty to eat. The bottom layer was an entire artichoke bottom. The pancake was next - it was about 5 inches in diameter - fluffy and light - with a strong artichoke flavor. In the center of the pancake was a dollop of basil and goat cheese mixture and the appetizer was garnished with fresh basil leaves and there was basil puree decoratively scattered around the plate. Matt had the seafood pasta, which he enjoyed and DT had a plain cheese pizza, which Olive's calls "flatbread". I also had "flatbread", but with spicy chicken sausage. It looked awful and it did not taste good either. DT and Matt tried it and they found it strange too. The sauce was very sweet and the sausage was spicy, and there were pickled onions on the top. I told the waiter I didn't care for it and he at least took it off our bill. So, I helped DT with his "flatbread". I still do love Olive's though and highly recommend it - just don't have the spicy chicken "flatbread".

We had a great time with our friend in Las Vegas, but tomorrow he flies home and we need to think about hitting the road ourselves.

RV Park: Outdoor Resorts Las Vegas