Vegas Views

The room at the Rio was great - big and comfy. They have shuttle buses that take y0u to Harrah's, or Bally's, and from there you can walk around the strip.

The view was so-so for my room: out the back at parking lot, distant mountains, and partial Vegas skyline. This is actually the view at sunrise looking north.

The Sunflower Farmers Market Store was a great find - it's a natural food store on Flamingo Rd couple miles west of the Strip. The conference was not set up for feeding us much more than snacky foods that mostly had a sugar component to them. So I managed my own - you can see my delicious breakfast, which included a banana and grapefruit.

ASTD offered a Meet'n'Eat service where you could sign up to join 7-8 others for dinner at a local restaurant. I chose the Italian restaurant Il Fornaio at NY NY as one of the conference goers suggested it (the pic is from their website). Our party: Laurie, training director Orange Co Sanitation; David, owns training biz in BC; Mark, owns computer service/elearning biz, Kansas; April, trainer for insurance company in mid-west; Kristen, trainer and computer whiz for Farm Bureau in Michigan; Elaine, training director at a Security Co in LA; and me. I had Chilean Sea Bass with champagne vinaigrette, spinach and potatoes with a green salad and mineral water (San Pellegrino).

At the Rio they offer discounts and freebies via phone text messages, daily. One of them was for free tickets to go up to top of the Eiffel Tower at the Paris Casino. The view was great! The moon was setting on the horizon out beyond the Bellagio; we got to see the water fountain show from this vantage point; and the lights of Vegas shimmering in a clear, cool night.

All the pictures from my Vegas trip to the ASTD Conference, except the one of the NYNY restaurant, were taken with the camera on my phone, a Samsung Flipshot.