down on the strip

Good morning.
We didn't get down to the strip on Thursday, we instead went Friday.  The reason is I found a Groupon for the Beer Park which is right next to the Eiffel Tower. And after I printed it out and read the fine print, found out it couldn't be used with-in 24 hours of purchase. I had never seen that type of restriction before, but not a big deal as we're retired and we could go any day!    :-)
So, we drove down on Friday morning. It takes a good 30-40 minutes to get down there with the traffic. We were able to park at the Paris Hotel/casino. They have free parking for NV residents. At least right now. Parking anywhere on the strip used to be free, but one after another started charging for parking and now they all pretty much do. At least, right now, they give residents free parking.
And here's a pic inside the Casino I took while waiting for the elevator to take us to the top.

Here's a stock pic of the tower. It's pretty tall! but only about half as tall as the original. This one is 50 stories tall. They couldn't build it any taller because of being so close to the airport.

They have the entire platform covered with screening so the only way you can get decent pics is out those small openings. But I got a few good ones...

Above, the tall gold tower in the back middle is the Trump Tower. The mountains behind are the Sheep Mountains. Our house is w-a-y back at the base of those mountains.

Then after viewing the scenery for a while we went back down the elevator and over to the Beer Park

The Beer Park is about one story above the street. It looks like a big outdoor deck. We got seats along the edge and good views up and down the strip. I got a special Groupon. It gave me 40% off a purchase. So this Groupon, which was $26 for $40 worth of food and drink, only cost my $13.   :-)
After there, we wandered down the street to Bally's which has a large outdoor bazaar and a lot of little bars and restaurants.

We had a couple of drinks and did a lot of people watching.
Then we wandered back to the Paris Casino, and made our way back to the parking garage, without stopping at one slot machine, and drove back home. Because it was late afternoon and rush hour, it took us nearly an hour to get back home. Another reason we don't go down to the strip very often. But we had a very enjoyable time. It's fun to see all the tourists, but nice to be back in our quiet neighborhood.