King of Prussia Mall

Well it seems like we've been in the US forever! I think when I left off blogging last we were on our way to the King of Prussia Mall for a bit of retail therapy. Well we did the rounds of the department stores, Macy's, Sears, J C Penney, Bloomingdales, etc, although we didn't do Neiman Marcus or Nordstrom's. Martin finally found a pair of shorts he liked - guess where? In Gap! Fancy flying all this way to buy something in Gap!
We finally got out off KoP and got on the road for our four hour drive up to Connecticut. We'd been advised to make a detour round New York rather than follow the I-95 through the city but to do this we had to buy a map as the sat nav didn't approve of us deviating from the ‘highlighted route'. We started our detour using the map (which was rubbish) and the sat nav however but the sat nav sulked and then finally packed up completely. It was a bit like driving blind and tension started to build in the car with Martin in turn navigating and ‘back-seat' driving, pointing out when the traffic lights had turned green - like I'm colour-blind? Around 6.30 we decided to find a hotel and stop for the night, finally finding a Ramada near a place called Fishkill, in New York state.

Well the stay at the Ramada was an experience in itself (not to be repeated!). We went to the restaurant to eat to discover they weren't serving alchohol. Well, after the drive we'd had I needed a drink! We had seen a Ruby Tuesday's across the other side of the road so decided to give that a try, together with some guys who'd checked in to the Ramada driving huge tree-moving equipment. They'd obviously been working clearing roads after the devastation caused by hurricane Irene which battered parts of the east coast the previous weekend. Ruby Tuesday's was a life-saver and we returned to the Ramada much restored.
The next morning we got on our way for the remainder of the drive up to the Foxwoods Casino complex in Connecticut, which was where the first of our trade shows was being held. First of all we had to find a shop to buy a new charger for the satnav so we stopped off at a Walmart to find what was needed to restore it to life.

the MGM Grand at Foxwoods CT

A couple of hours of uneventful driving later we arrived at the MGM Grand, our hotel, which is part of this amazing hotel and casino complex, run by Native American Indians, in the middle of a huge forest. Its apparently one of the most successful casinos in the world and there's a certain irony in the fact that the Native Americans have reclaimed their tribal lands and now charge the white man to come and visit with them!  The hotel is amazing, with the same level of luxury and opulence to hotels in Dubai and our rooms were on the 14th floor with fantastic views over the forest. Twin queen-sized beds in each room (so you could presumably sleep one night in one bed and the next night in the other!) and lovely huge walk-in showers with water pressure to die for.

The casino complex was an eye-opener, wall to wall slot machines, roulette, poker, and black jack tables, in fact every sort of gambling you could image. Even a huge room, with a giant screen showing live horse-racing, and live results from racetracks all over the US. You just have to see it to believe it!  There is a choice of around eight restaurants with different cuisines and we chose the Scorpion Bar which offered Mexican food. Martin was fascinated by our server, Carla, who had very long legs and wore very short tight denim shorts and a tight top showing plenty of cleavage. He even asked her to pose for a pic, which she was more than happy to do, for the blog at the end of the evening (for the lads at home, he said), cringe-making!

Carla, Scorpion Bar, Foxwoods

One of the slot machine rooms

Then it was off to bed to get an early night as the next day was the first day of build-up prior to the show.