I’m not much of a gambler as you will surely tell from this posting, which describes my exploits as Bob and I ran amuck in Las Vegas. Following the Hoover Dam excursion, we headed toward Vegas, but made several stops on our way. First, we stopped at Cinema Collectors in Henderson, a shop specializing in movie star photos that was formerly located in Hollywood. I have spent many an hour browsing this shop’s vast array of photos – especially back in the day when I was actively collecting autographs through the mail.
Although I hadn’t planned to purchase anything, I was sucked in by the many cool and unusual photos of Laurel and Hardy that the store had on hand. After mulling through the catalogs of photos, I ended up relieving myself of just over $75.00.
Next, as we neared downtown Vegas, we stopped at one of Bob’s favorite lunch restaurants. Although my mouth was watering for the nearest sushi bar, I conceded to let Bob have his way and swing into the Skyline Casino for their famous chicken 
and dumplings meal. Very good stuff – and I was especially captivated by the 99-cent shrimp cocktail offering, which was absolutely packed with shrimp.
After stuffing ourselves, we made another pit stop to see the final resting place of the famous 1930’s comedy team Olsen and Johnson. They were located at the Palm Desert Memorial cemetery in Las Vegas. This is very unusual, as they are the only comedy team in history except for the married couples Fibber McGee & Molly and Burns & Allen (who I know of anyway), who were actually buried beside one another. While there, we also checked out the vault of “Wild Bill” Elliot, who was interred at the same cemetery.
Finally, we arrived at our destination: the Sahara hotel and casino. Here we relaxed for a bit and then met up with the three Wileys who had driven to Vegas seperately. We had conveniently adjoining rooms so we could keep tabs on one another. Jimmy set up his video equipment in their room in order to conduct an interview with Way Out West tent founder Bill Patterson for a project he is working on. I somehow convinced Kris to get wild and wear the lampshade on her head!
After grabbing some rest, we all took a walking tour of the strip and headed to dinner at Battista’s Hole in the Wall Italian Restaurant. Along the way, Bob forced Kris into posing with gladiators below who were standing outside of Caesar’s Palace (below). The food was good and moderately priced, but I was most intrigued by the unlimited supply of wine that came with the meal. Bad influence that I am, I even instigated the Jimmys to down a couple of glasses. The highlight of the dinner was the freakish accordian player that came around and serenaded Kris with a bizarre rendition of “California Here We Come.”
After this we headed to our fateful performance of the Beatles “Love”.
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