Friday, April 13th, we headed down to Las Vegas with Natalie and Tashina.  They were both soloing at the Scottish Festival down there, and Natalie needed a snare to play with her :)  Matt was going to solo, but didn't have a piper.  (No, I don't really play anymore.  Also, his tunes are hard and I don't have music for them.  Nor do I have a reed for my chanter....)  We had been tentatively planning on going down anyway, so the days-off request was already in at work :)

We left Friday afternoon.  It was rather uneventful, except for about 20 minutes when Natalie successfully got TWO tickets :)  Apparently Millard county is really cracking down on speeding.  Sad day for Nat.  We took a break in St. George to drop Natalie's mom off for the weekend and grab some dinner at Cafe Rio.  Then we were off again.

Thanks to Natalie's relation/friend? I don't know... we got a lovely discount at the hotel.  We stayed at the Howard Johnson right next to Nellis AFB.  It was only about 30 minutes away from the games, so that was nice.

Saturday, we went to the games.  Natalie and Tashina both soloed.  Nat took 2nd, and Tashina took a 3rd and a 4th.  LA Scots were there, so we got to see Andrew.  That was fun :)  Desert Skye was there, as were the Cameron Highlanders, so we got to also see Andy Fusco and Aaron Mars (former Coyne members).  AND Utah Pipe Band went down, so we had somewhere to stash our stuff.  It's fun going to these things and getting to chat with people you don't usually see :)

The weather sucked, though.  It was pretty much what was happening here in Utah - rain and cold.  Although, the sun did come out sometimes.  But other times, I was frozen.  After solos, we grabbed breakfast at the games (well, my second breakfast :)) They had a crepe vendor, and I got a tasty apple crepe.  We watched opening ceremonies (actually, Tashina played in them with Fort Collins) and then we hauled gear back to the car and let everyone change.  Interesting was to have the Marine band play with LA Scots.  I took some video of that too because it was kinda nifty.

Mostly Matt and I hung out in our chairs, freezing, chatting with some friends from Utah and watching bands compete.  When I got hungry enough, we ventured to find lunch.  Matt was so happy - he has a love of fish and chips, but only gets them at Scottish Festivals....  I found a VERY tasty chicken pot pie.  Oh! And better hot chocolate.  (The hot chocolate from the crepe place was depressingly bad.)  Then we watched more bands.  We aren't very exciting people, are we?  Oh! And Glenn Kvidahl was walking behind us and was like, "Done already, Matt?" We had a wee bit of a chat with him as we were walking back to the bands.  It was cool because a) we didn't know Glenn knew Matt b) that he'd recognize him from behind when Matt was in civilian clothes.  Matt hopes to maybe play with LA (Glenn is lead for the grade 1 band) after grad school.

At the end of the day, we wandered the vendors and purchased nothing.  There were a couple of things I considered, but nothing cute enough to spend money on - and definitely not THAT much money :)  We left before closing massed bands, so we didn't get results.

On the way home, we stopped at Natalie and Tashina's favorite pet store, Exotic Pets.  Mostly they had reptiles and amphibians (perfect for them), but they also had cute bunnies and some rodents and birds.  One of their poor budgies didn't look to be doing too well, though :(  Then we had to stop at Trader Joe's for Natalie's mom.  None of us had been there before, so we didn't know what it was.  However, while shopping for our groceries, we found some tasty-looking dried mangos, and so we bought a package :)  They also had tasty-looking three-cheese marinara sauce, which we almost bought, but then put back.  However, they had samples of chicken parmesan with the tasty sauce, which I sampled, and then I picked a bottle back up.  Now I have to make dinner Saturday :)

That night, we were trying to decide where to go for dinner while we were watching TV.  We googled what was nearby, but didn't find anything impressive.... Well, we're all nerds, so we were Animal Planet.  A new season of Tanked was starting, so they were doing a Tanked marathon with old episodes.  (Tanked is a show about this family company that makes aquariums...)  They aired an episode where they made a juke box tank for a '50s  diner there in Vegas, so we googled it and decided to go there.

We got to Shari's Diner, but didn't see the tank.  We told the waitress we were nerds and were watching Tanked...and she was all, "You're wondering where the tank is, aren't you?"  hahaha apparently they haven't had it for over a year.  Later (because we were like the last people there when they were closing) she told us the story.... Apparently that was their pilot episode, and they actually approached the diner about doing this tank.  They said alright, and ta-da, you get the episode.  However, they neglected to acclimatize the fish before putting them in the tank.... so within about four days, the fish started dying.  They would also come to clean the tank while they had customers there eating.... so eventually, the diner told them to just take it back.  She got tipped well for telling us the story :)  Still, it was fun to do something spontaneous, like going to a diner you just watched a show about....