What a day! Woke to 6 inches of snow that had fallen since we got to our hotel in Mt. Carmel Junction, the Thunderbird. Thankfully I had my shovel to get the truck cleared off.

It was quite amazing looking all around with the thick layer of fresh high desert snow.

We were on the road before 9am and headed south on the 89 to take the longer way around to Hurricane and the 15 south. The plows had done a good job and I was able to go at normal speed the large bulk of the way. The park still had the east entrance closed until around noon so we weren't able to take it.

We got into Las Vegas and to our hotel by 11:30, the Horseshoe which is the hotel right next to the Battlebots arena.

It took a bit since it is a serious schlep from the parking garage to the hotel through a lot of twists and turns, but we were in the room by 12:15 and soon had our things dumped and were headed for food.

We went down stairs and ended up at the food court where we got food that we could all split which makes it a good bit easier to afford and to have less waste or leftover to worry about.

WARNING

GRAPHIC IMAGES

After eating we went to the Real Bodies exhibit that is in the Horseshoe hotel, or beneath it anyway. I saw the original before the traveling thing in Chicago at the museum of science and industry in the early 90s, then in about 05 we saw the Bodies Exhibit here in Vegas which was a traveling one and was different than what we saw yesterday. There is not a ton to say about the exhibit as a lot of it speaks for itself.

The thing that makes me a bit concerned is that most every one of the bodies was Asian of some kind and it REALLY makes me question how ethically the bodies were acquired. There seems to be a bit of controversy regarding that and I have a feeling that a large number of them had zero ethics involved in the body's current state. No proof but just my feeling after seeing this a few times over my life.

All I could think was, "MOISTURIZE ME" from a Doctor Who episode with Lady Cassandra.

After bodies we headed up to the strip and we made our way to the Bellagio for the water show. It worked out perfectly for our timing as we got to the edge of the pool right before the show started. It was the early one on the half hour so it was the longer show of 7 minutes. The on the 15s is only a single song long.

After the show and a good bit of walking around we found ourselves back at the food court to satiate our burgeoning hunger. A couple baskets of chicken strips and fries gave us a good bit of fuel for the evening. We wanted to eat before Battlebots so it wasn't super late eating afterwards.

Battlebots was outstanding! After eating we made our way over to the Arena and waited in the smallish line at the entrance. The crowd grew as the time got closer to the 6pm start.

We were let in about 5:15 and found ourselves seats on the side of the seating area where the boys could see well.

This was our vantage point.

Hive account@stryeyz took J out for a bathroom run and got a pic with a couple of the teams. I then took R out and he got this shot with the team members of Hypershock, the bot built by Will Bales.

Then this shot with Triton, the bot with a horizontal spinning bar that is as tall as R is. It is similar to Tombstone.

I respected the no pics during the show that some of may be aired eventually. At 6pm the show started and we got 5 fights for the night. A number of the bots are ones we have not seen before. Started out with Tazbot fighting Kraken who won the match, followed by Jake Ewert and Hydra whop fought Overkill and tossed them out of the arena in 45 seconds. The Ginsu was modified to have an old Slot Machine attached to it which Nightmare came out and obliterated all over the battle box. Then was Whiplash fighting Chopper which Whiplash won. Then the final bout was between Hypershock and Witch Doctor which Witch Doctor won mainly due to a always working weapon. The show lasted about 70 minutes and was so awesome to watch in person.

The boys were able to get a picture with Jake on the way out.

We stopped for merch and got the boys each a Hexbug bot and some other things to memorialize this occasion.

After we dropped stuff at our room we convinced the boys to go find food with us and we went to a Ramen shop at Flamingo and The Strip. Super good and I plowed through it all. The boys enjoyed it and we were able to finish our meal fully. Afterwards we walked around the buildings in the complex to the Ben and Jerry's store to get desert.

With deserts in hands we walked over the sky bridges to get to the Bellagio for the night time show of the fountain.

After the quarter hour show we headed back for the room as the boys still wanted to go to the arcade. They finished their deserts and then were standing at the window watching the Bellagio water show that we could see the upper half of from our room. You can just see the water spouts over R's head.

The boys each got $20 at the arcade which after the about 40 minutes spent there had us all rather tired.

Once done I ran to the truck and grabbed beer so we didn't have to pay so much in the hotel which helped to knock us out for the night.

Going to have to get them up soon so we can work on getting out of the city. We have a 3 hour drive north again but today we get to go through Zion and up the east entrance road, past our hotel for the night and on to Bryce canyon overlook. There is a ton of snow up at Bryce still so it will be overlooks, then back down to the hotel. Sunday we head into Idaho and depending on weather we will go to Montana or Home.