Lessons from Las Vegas

The second part of our trip was the complete opposite from our hike of the Grand Canyon, but it was just as fun. These are some things I learned. :)

• Interestingly, no one gives you a second glance when you stumble into a casino to check in exhausted, smelly and sore from hiking the Grand Canyon. This is possibly because they just thought we were drunk and/or hung over like everyone else. :)

• If you have any sort of time sensitive reason to be somewhere in a Las Vegas casino, leave early because everything is always at the opposite end of the building and the casinos are rather sprawling. Double this time if you are still walking at a snail's pace from the aforementioned hike.

• If you want to play blackjack and don't want to risk large amounts of money, don't play at night. Find one of the few tables that is open in the morning, preferably one with no one playing, and if you ask nicely, they may change it from a $10 minimum bid to a $5 minimum bid. Then if you play well, you might just leave with $15 more than you started with. :)

• The Bellagio fountain show are very cool. They are choreographed to music and very fun to watch. We discovered that at night when the shows are 15 minutes apart, if you watch one show near the entrance of the Bellagio and after it ends walk slowly enough along the lake towards Cesar's palace, you can catch the next show before you make it to the next street! (We were still moving pretty slowly)

• Don't leave any toiletries at home that you might need because buying a replacement at the hotel is really expensive. I bought ibuprofen for the soreness and a regular sized bottle was $10!

We did have a good time exploring the different casinos. Some of them are really neat. On Monday we started out at Cesar's Palace to try a restaurant called Beijing Noodle No. 9. It was really good. They have hand pulled noodles and we got to watch the chef make them before we left.

After lunch and then dessert at Payard Patisserie, we wandered around Cesar's Palace a little more and then explored the Paris Hotel and went up to the Eiffel Tower restaurant to see the view. We also wandered around the Cosmopolitan Hotel, the newest one in Las Vegas, and then headed over to the Bellagio. They had a pretty cool garden with things made out of flowers. This picture from flowers was pretty cool.

Then we had dinner at the Bellagio Buffet. There was so much food and it was fun to try things that I wouldn't normally order at a restaurant. We ate pretty late and took our time, so we were ready to head back and go to bed when we were done. On our way back to the car at Cesar's Palace we caught a couple of the Bellagio fountain shows. They were really fun to watch.

The next day we dragged ourselves out of bed, fortunately not as sore as the day before, and headed over to the MGM Grand to have brunch at 'wichcraft (mainly a sandwich place). I had the fried egg sandwich that had bacon, blue cheese and greens on it. It was so good! We made it there just before they opened at 10a and by the time we placed our order, the line was already out the door.

After our wonderful food, the guys dropped us off at the Qua, the spa at Cesar's Palace. It was so relaxing. If you have a treatment there, you can use the facilities there for the entire day. They had a steam room, sauna, ice room, Jacuzzi, Roman baths and a tea lounge. We spent several hours there and it was so nice and really helped with the soreness.

Then we got all dressed up for dinner and met the guys. We headed over to the Venetian where we ate at the B&B Ristorante. The food was absolutely wonderful and we had a very leisurely meal over the next couple of hours. :) 

The Venetian was pretty cool, they even have indoor canals and gondola rides. We didn't explore for every long because we wanted to get to the MGM Grand with plenty of time to spare before our show. :)

We went to see KA, one of the Cirque du Soleil shows. It was so much fun. The stage floor rotated and at times the performers were on a completely vertical stage. We thoroughly enjoyed the show.

After we got back from the show, it was time to sort through all the camping stuff so we could each have all of our stuff to pack for flying home the next day. We still managed to end up with an extra pair of wool socks, but we needed to send them a CD of our pictures anyways. :)

It was a great trip and I was sad to say good-bye to our friends, but maybe next time we see them we will have a little one it tow. :) We were joking about needing to plan a boring, low-key vacation next time to balance this one out. I vote for a week at the beach with nothing scheduled. :)