Uber and Lyft are too expensive in Las Vegas. And the public transit system isn’t all that hot. So…I am going to rent a car for the remainder of the trip. It ought to save me some money. And save my feet. I found a very inexpensive car rental which is a mixed thing of course. One gets what one pays for. I don’t pick it up until noon. Life is basically on hold until I’ve picked up the car. Out with the old “plans” such as they were, and in with the new. I wish that my uber or lyft (which doubled in price from when I looked at 7am to now, 7:30 am) would take me to the car rental place at the airport directly, but it seems they can’t. Which means I will have to go to the airport and then find the rental car shuttle and take that to the car place. I start this adventure at 11 am. Wish me luck!

Aha! I can take a “rideshare” to the car rental place – eliminating one transfer. Woo hoo. I have scheduled the ride for 11:25. So excited. I think I will eventually get dressed and then head up to Fremont street and see what’s what up/down there (since it is actually South – is South down?).

Woo hoo! A couple of long(ish) term boarder leads. Not specifically for my space, but in general. One wants a private entrance, which I can’t really provide. Whatever. If it happens, it happens. If it doesn’t, we will all survive just as long as we survive…

I do like cargo pants! I can carry lots of stuff and not have to carry a backpack or a bag or anything. Yay. Unfortunately, when I carry my glasses case (with the sun going down so early, I need to carry my second set of glasses) the glasses rattle against the case. But I have stuffed a napkin and a cleaning cloth in there and now, hopefully, no rattle! That would be nice…

The Fremont Experience is only a ten minute walk from my Airbnb. And I saw the transit center – which is even closer. Good to know for the future if I decide to take a bus. Though since I am getting a car…I walked the length of the Experience. Stopped in at a few places to lose some money. I found an interesting machine that had three open windows. You could pay for one window, two windows or three windows. And whatever showed up in the windows was what you won. I also played on a penny machine for a little bit. Twenty five lines which is the same as playing a quarter machine. I broke even on that one. And I found the Pinkbox donut store. Oh my goodness what a great collection of donuts. Too bad my stomach is so small. I only got one. Which cost about $5. A Pooh shaped donut. Yum!

In the “No good deed goes unpunished” category…I went to the car place and spoke with a person in line. He was from Shanghai. Here to exhibit. He needed to rent a car so he could pick up some packages that hadn’t made it to the exhibition hall. I thought that was silly so I offered to drive him when I got my car. That’s another story. Anyway, we got to the place where the packages were but they wouldn’t release them to him because his name was not “Freeman” (A company’s name). Lots of phone calls later and there was no resolution. So I ended up dropping him at the convention center in hopes that he could find someone from Freeman to take him back to the grocery store with a teeny fed ex presence and get his packages. We are now WhatsApp friends. Woo hoo!

As of now, I am safely back at the Airbnb with none of my plans accomplished. Life is that way sometimes.

Oh, about the car rental. My $70 car cost me over $100. So excited about that. They tried to jack up the price a few other ways that I managed to avoid. Like charging me $44 for a full tank of gas. Instead of me filling it before I dropped it off. With the amount of driving I am going to do, I think I might use up half a tank which would be $20 or so. Grrr.

Now I am not sure what I am going to do. I think I need to get a car phone holder for this car, too. Had I thought I might rent a car, I would have brought the mount I bought for the other rental car (which I had while my Tesla was in the shop). Aha! I got Carplay working – wired – but that’s ok by me. Better than no carplay. The screen in the car is teeny compared to the Tesla screen, but directions are spoken through the car’s speakers. I think this will be very helpful. Phew even.

Buckle up – more to come!

So, Where was I? Right, I got car play to work. Then I sort of sketched in my plan for the rest of the evening. And this is what happened.

I drove to where the Circus is. It was a long way from here, but doable. They are borrowing a circus tent and supporting vehicles from some other circus. I was wondering how they were going to handle that. They are in the parking lot of a large store – just like one of the circuses in Medellin. But no one was around to ask if the time on the ticket was correct and the show was going to go from 7 until 10! Oh well. Onwards.

My cell phone had said there was a Bojangles restaurant in the area. I lived on Bojangles for a few months when I was living in NC. I still like them whenever I get the chance. I think the nearest one to me is in PA somewhere. And out here, I thought they would be around. But the one I was sent to was a phantom store. At an underpass way south of Las Vegas. Coming soon, I now see on the Website. Poo.

Next stop, MGM to see David Copperfield. I got there and found they were charging $30 per vehicle for some special event that was happening. I opted to not do that and parked on a scary street three big blocks away. Yes, I did worry a teeny bit that something would happen to the car. Nothing did. Las Vegas is pretty safe, I do believe.

At the MGM, I changed my mind and went to see Cirque du Soleil’s Ka instead. So glad I went. But before I headed in, I gambled a bit and came out $2 ahead. Huzzuh! Then I went in and sat in the custom theatre for an 40 minutes before the show. A preshow started about 10 minutes before the show proper began. I love preshow when it is done well. Everything (well, most everything) about this show was very well done. The only confusing bit was two women/girls in red dresses. Yes, they were different sizes, but it was still a challenge at times. This show was a good combination of story and circus – though it was a bit heavy on the fighting side of things for me. So much cool stuff. If you go to Vegas and you like spectacular productions, this is a must see. As is O imho. I am actually a bit tempted to watch it again on Wednesday…

After the show, I bought a ludicrously expense awesome program. Walked to the car and came back to the Airbnb. Where I sit typing this now. It is late my time and getting later local time. I have eaten – finally finished the darn torta – and done a teeny bit of duolingo and typed up this blog post. If you have stayed this long, extra brownie points for you. Those can be exchanged only for A&P green stamps…