Pop and Meemee on the road: Las Vegas and Truck Woes

Today marks our fifth day here in Vegas and we certainly are having a good time, however we are having more truck issues that I will go into later in the blog.

Saturday, we ventured out to the Las Vegas Gold & Silver Pawn Shop as seen on the History Channel. We didn't see Rick, Corey, Chumlee or the Old man but did get to go inside the pawn shop, and sure nuff, it looks pretty much as it does on TV. There was a line of folks waiting to get in as they will only admit so many at a time, but the line moved fast and we were able to get in and check out the inside. We did recognize some of their employees that we have seen on TV. An employee, who works outside offered to take us behind the building to show us a painting of the show characters on a garage door, and took our picture in front of the painting. From there, we went to the old section of Vegas to check out the Freemont Street Experience. Freemont St is in the old section of Vegas and is totally different from the better known strip with a personality all its' own with casinos, shops, and unique entertainment. Freemont is closed to traffic and has an overhead canopy that provides welcome shade during the day, but also serves as a light show after dark called Viva Vision Light Show, that is absolutely wonderful. The canopy is over 1500 ft. long with over 12.5 million LED lights that are computer controlled to provide an amazing animated display of different themes. The program is accompanied by high quality sound as well. My favorite theme was a patriotic program with eagles flying the entire length of the canopy as well as the Thunderbirds flying in formation with a lot of flags and nationally known scenes. The theme was accompanied by Lee Greenwoods version of God Bless the USA. The main program was a Haloween theme that was cute. There is also a newly added zip line called Slotzilla where you can ride a zip line overhead under the canopy from one end of Freemont St to the other end. Pretty cool, but none of our group chose to ride! We saw several stages at different parts of the street that have lively bands. In addition, there any many street entertainers, and even a living statue that will suddenly come to life when you leave a tip in his bucket. It's impossible to describe the mixture of "characters" seen on this street, but was very entertaining to people watch. I think the best entertainment one could find here would be to find a comfortable seat and watch the show go by! After leaving Freemont we rode the strip to see the beautiful lights in downtown at night. The fountain show in front of the Bellagio was particularly impressive. Sunday, we headed back out to explore the sights in the downtown strip. We parked in the Bellagio parking deck (free) and went into their beautiful lobby and conservatory that is decorated in a fall theme. We spent a little time in their casino and went from there across the street to Planet Hollywood Hotel and Casino where there are many specialty shops we enjoyed seeing and buying a few trinkets before trying our luck in their casino. By the way, we had no luck at all at any of the casinos we visited. We ventured on down Las Vegas Blvd. and back across the street to the fabulous Caesar's Palace Hotel and Casino. This hotel and casino is very luxurious, expensive and one of the largest and better known casinos in Vegas. By this time our group was pretty much pooped, so we decided to look for dinner somewhere and call it a day.

Sometime over the weekend, a check engine light popped up on our truck. I had Onstar query our computer for the cause, who said it was a P-140A code which means the EGR cooler bypass position exceeded learning limits. (whatever that means!) On Monday I took the truck into Findlay Chevrolet here in Las Vegas to have it checked. They called later and said they had good news and bad news. The bad news was the EGR issue had to have some components replaced that are on top of the transmission, and the transmission has to be pulled. They said the procedure would take several days and could be as long as next Tuesday before getting the truck back. They said they had several jobs ahead of ours, but promised they would get us fixed as soon as they could. The good news was it is covered by the 5 year, 100K mile warranty and would furnish us a free vehicle to drive until we get ours back. Al drove me to the dealership yesterday to pick up the free rental, which turned out to be a very nice new 2014 Chevrolet Silverado pickup. I must say, Findlay Chevrolet has been very accommodating so far. Hey, there could be worse places to be stranded! Just another little bump in the road on our journey!

Our plans when we leave here are pretty much in limbo until we get our truck back. Al & Pat have already seen the areas we hope to visit in Utah and Arizona, so they have moved to destinations further east. We're hopeful to catch up with them further down the road. In the mean time, Meemee and I will be checking out more sights here in Vegas.