Craig's birthday.

Good morning.
We were gone all day Tuesday, and got back late on Wed. no so posting. But I'm here now so here goes......
Tuesday was Craig's birthday. We booked a suite downtown at the El Cortez. Went down early Tues. morning, parked the car in the ramp, and started to explore.
There's about 10 casino's downtown. Most on Fremont St. We started at the farthest one at about 3 blocks from Fremont called the Main Street Station. Here's one pic of the interior.

It was the most elaborate of any we saw. Beautiful wood everywhere and the entire casino was designed to look like an old train station. We didn't gamble here, but spent a good amount of time just looking. Most of the downtown casinos are quite old, unlike the famous strip where they keep tearing down the old and building new. Most of the downtown casinos are original with some remodeling and newer hotel towers added. One of the casinos we liked most was at the Grand. It's designed to look like a warehouse with high ceilings, exposed brick and beams. It also looks a lot newer than any of the others. It's also 3 blocks off Fremont Street.
Most of our neighbors rave about this book.....

It's a coupon book that comes out Jan of every year. We picked one up on Monday. They are $37 and packed with coupons for most area casino/hotels. Coupons good for free play, discounts on rooms and food and even shows. We went with a neighbor a couple of weeks ago to the Texas Station for their lunch buffet. So many choices, and with the coupon, only $4 each!
So... this new book had $10 free play coupons for 5 casinos downtown. So those were the casinos we gambled at. When the day and evening were done, we were lucky enough to turn that $50 in free play to over $150! A really fun day and evening, and profitable too!   :-)
Here's a view from our room..

The area behind our hotel has many low buildings that someone painted on like this one with a giant lizard! it almost looks like it's walking down the street!
And here's a couple pics of our room....

It was very large and roomy with some odd decor...

Craig doesn't often clown around, but we did have a few drinks at this point.    :-)
We had lunch at The D where they have a Detroit style chili dog shop. They were quite tasty. And dinner was in our hotel at a lounge called The Parlor. Half priced drinks and $5 appetizers.
So, it was a nice day, we finally won for a change, and Craig had a real nice time for his birthday.