It was hard to sleep last night with noise from the HVAC. I am rethinking whether I want to stay at the Doubletree in Flagstaff again. We were up for breakfast in the hotel with only two other couples in the dining room. Not great service. Took a while for anyone to show up to seat us even though they had a sign up "Please wait to be seated". Then no one came around to refill drinks or offer to take an order for eggs.
We left the hotel about 10:00, stopped for gasoline, and were on the road with more construction (but no visible highway patrol) soon after.
When we arrived in Las Vegas about 2 p.m., we drove by the iconic "Welcome to Las Vegas" sign. I planned on stopping for a photo op, but there were tons of people already there, I didn't want to wait in the heat for a chance to snap a photo of us at the sign. Perhaps another time.
The sign is just about a mile south of our hotel, New York-New York, so it was not out of the way to go by. The hotel's parking garage was easy to find. When we found our way inside to the reception desk, there was a long line of people waiting to check in. Seemed like a slow operation. We were greeted warmly though and had no problem checking in. The clerk asked how long we had been married, just assuming we were there for an anniversary. I did tell her we'd been married 46 years, but did not tell her that our anniversary is in January. I guess we could celebrate it any time anyway. She gave us an anniversary Hershey bar and two gaudy necklaces that said "I'm celebrating 46 years.
" I never could get from her if wearing the necklaces would get us any perks, but I guess not. They just add to the sparkle that covers the city.
We dropped our luggage at the room and went in search of lunch. The Broadway Burger Bar and Grill in the hotel looked good and had tables available. Our waiter, Tony, was friendly and the salads we ordered were nice.
At 5:00, we left the hotel to walk to Harrah's Showroom for the first of the two concerts we planned for this trip. I added on the Righteous Brothers concert just a few days ago. We planned the trip around the Eric Clapton concert tomorrow, but wanted to get to town a day early. There are so many shows to choose from. We thought it would be fun to hear them, too. The Righteous Brothers are now Bill Medley and Bucky Heard. Bobby Hatfield passed away a number of years ago from a drug overdose. McKenna Medley, Bill's daughter, also sang lead with them on a few numbers and sang backup with two other women on the rest. The band also had drums, keyboards, bass, guitar, trumpet, trombone, and bass and tenor sax.
I enjoyed the show. Bill's voice is not like it once was, but he tried hard and certainly seems to enjoy performing. He struggled at times to get sound and words out and other times almost yelled instead of singing. Bucky Heard is much younger and has the stronger voice now. Bill's jokes and patter throughout the show were fun.
They sang lots of old standards including their two most popular: "Unchained Melody" and "You've Lost that Lovin' Feelin'". I didn't remember that they were the ones who popularized "Rock and Roll Heaven". Bill talked about Bobby Hatfield several times throughout the show.
It took fifty minutes to walk just over a mile from NY-NY to Harrah's. There are only a few crosswalks over Las Vegas Boulevard, and they are set back from the intersections. Most of them are raised over the street accessed by stairs or escalators. We didn't always find the most efficient ways to cross and climbed stairs when there were escalators nearby. Inside Harrah's, we did find the showroom without asking for directions. After the show, we walked back to our hotel more slowly looking at the sights and lights along the way.
We shared a pizza and a carafe of sangria at Il Fornaio in New York-New York after the show. When we couldn't finish all the sangria, the waiter brought us plastic cups to pour the rest in to take with us.
We are ready for more music tomorrow.
2025-02-13