Las Vegas

As you all probably read last week, I went to Vegas from Jan 1-4 with Scott, his daughter, and Eddie. The weather was very nice - especially after this latest round of winter storms here in the PNW - with sunny blue skies and highs of 50 or so. Eddie got to ride the Manhattan Express roller coaster, plus the splash ride, the pirate ship, Disk-o, and several other rides at Circus Circus. We went up to the top of the Stratosphere and looked over Vegas while Scott and his daughter rode the Big Shot. Eddie also played in a couple of arcades and won prizes. We also spent an afternoon at Hoover Dam and got a tour of the power plant. Very cool and impressive the many different engineering challenges that they had to overcome. (On the other hand, I noted the low water levels at Lake Mead - granted Lake Mead was created by the dam - but still the guide said that the water goes to communities below Vegas. The power generated by the dam is used on the Strip, of course. But the guide said that Vegas was considering buying its drinking water from the Great Lakes region because they don't have enough water for all the new people and swimming pools going in each year.) We also enjoyed the Fremont Street Experience in downtown Vegas. We stayed just outside of Henderson at a place called Lake Las Vegas resort. It was quieter out there with less lights and the hotel we were in was very nice (if a bit expensive). Eddie enjoyed the treadmill there.

Other than the usual kinds of interpersonal kinds of issues one runs into, such as some people (i.e., Eddie) waking up early, and a teenager (Ashlee, Scott's daughter) wanting to stay up late and sleep in, I did suffer from some slight nausea, light-headedness, and general wooziness while there. I thought it might be because of the fact that my medication schedule was thrown off, or because I waited a couple of hours to eat breakfast because of later-sleepers, but on Sunday, Scott happened to look at the mattresses on the bed and noted that they were Sealy mattresses with the memory foam pillow tops. As you might also recall, I suffered from 10 days of dizziness, fatigue, motion sickness, nausea, light-headedness and low blood pressure just a day or two after sleeping on a pillow top mattress that I bought new in May 2007. I realized on my drive home from Portland that this pillow top mattress at the resort likely caused my dizziness and nausea.

So . . . now there's a new thing I will have to remember before making hotel reservations . . . I need to ask for a non-memory foam mattress!