New Year's Eve 2007

This new year, Jamie and I decided to experience New Year's Eve on the Las Vegas Boulevard (the strip). People at work have told us how crazy it is. They said expect people climbing the light posts, fights, riots, and all sorts of stuff! The news was warning people to expect a three to four hour commute home after the fire works! We were debating at first if it would be worth it, and finally we decided, "why not!" So, we took the plunge, and headed over to the strip after eating at one of our favorite places, Pei Wei. Jamie works only two street roads away from the strip, so he has figured out a lot of surface routes to avoid the I-15. We detoured away from the high traffic roads and ended up getting to the strip at 8:30 at night. We parked a distance away from the strip (close to the Rio) and walked down Flamingo road to meet up with all the crazies. The city had blocked off all the roads from the I-15, so most everyone had to walk. Anyways, it took about a half hour to walk down there, and quickly the entire strip was filled with a sea of people! Cops were everywhere, as well as cops on horses! Supposedly no cop was able to get that night off so they could all be there. They baracaded a median down the whole strip for the cops to be and watch everyone incase of riots and everything else. We watched a guy get handcuffed and restrained on the ground, everyone was drunk and completely out of hand. It was CHAOTIC! I have never experienced anything like it! On the side note, it was freezing! It is fun to say we did it, but I really have no desire to go next year. The fire work display was beautiful at the end though, as well as the Bilagio Fountain going off constantly the entire night. Those were two things we really enjoyed. All though, I must say, it was quite entertaining to watch everyone make complete idiots out of them selves! The entire time Jamie and I were whispering to each other, "Look at that person!" It was crazy. There were so many people! The news had said there were more there than had they expected. 307,000 people! Holy crap! And, as I said, Jamie works down there, so we took surface routes when we went home, and it only took us a half hour! That's actually less time then it usually takes Jamie to get home! Yeah...we rock! :)

We took a video while we were down there. There were some people picketing signs about "Repenting, and coming to Jesus." The funny thing was that that was exactly what those people needed to hear that night! Although I didn't agree about the way the were going to tell people about Christ, their message was overall true what they were saying. It was crazy because normally when someone is picketing something like that people just ignore and walk by. This time, they did just the opposite. People were cussing, yelling, and doing crazy things...we thought their was going to be a fight break out between the public and the guy yelling in the mega phone! Then we went into Ceasar's Palace to use the restroom real quick where we could at least use toilet liners, (instead of using the porta-potties where we thought we'd catch some type of STD or something) Anyways, everyone was in their gambling, smoking, drinking, and everything else. It was pretty sad...Jamie said it reminded him exactly of Sodom and Gamora in the scriptures.