To Las Vegas

We're officially making our way back north west to San Francisco!  It's a little bittersweet.  On the one hand, I'm certainly ready to unpack my car and officially move in.  On the other hand, once I do that I have to find a job, and do some serious growing up. This trip has basically been an extended college spring break, which has been lovely.  But it's time to graduate (again) and hit the "real world" (yikes!).

Vegas, really?
Las Vegas is not really on the way to SF, but it's not very off course either.  Katie really wanted to go and we had enough time, so we added it to the plan.  For the record, I never thought I'd enjoy Vegas, it's really not my kind of place.

Anyways, about today...
Katie wanted as much time at Vegas as we could get, so we got up fairly early and started driving.  When we were most of the way there we started seeing signs for the Hoover Dam.  I had completely forgotten about the dam.  In our various plans whenever we decided to go to Vegas we were also supposed to go to see the dam.  (I was more interested in the dam than Katie.)  But I forgot about it until I saw the signs.  We got some parking and went to see it.

The dam really is absolutely massive.  We walked across it, passing in and out of Nevada and Arizona  Looking at it, I couldn't help but think of people skateboarding down the sides (to their death presumably).  All that curved concrete just made me think of a skate park.  Once we'd walked along both sides we got back in the car and drove some more.

We got to the hotel for the day/night.  Actually it was a Hard Rock Cafe resort place.  It's pretty ridiculous, kind of a mini Vegas in itself. There are casinos, a fake beach, tons of stores, restaurants, tatoo parlor(s?),  and bars - all in the resort.  Unfortunately, except for the restaurants, I'm not particularly interested in any of it.  I'm definitely a mountain girl (or at least not a beach girl), so while Katie laid out in the sun reading a book I was writing part of this blog post, checking facebook, looking for email, hoping no one made a big splash that would get my computer wet.  (Katie tells me I don't know how to relax - she's probably right.)

After some time at the "beach" we worked out what we wanted to do for the evening.  First stop: the Strip.  The Strip is a section of road (probably 4 blocks long) that has all the restaurants, famous casinos, tattoo parlors,  Elvis impersonators, flashing lights, bars and anything else associated with Vegas. We walked along the street took some photos and went in a couple casinos.  Katie wanted to see Caesar's Palace (where Joe from Friends briefly worked), so we checked out that place.  If I thought there were lots of lights on the outside it was nothing compared to the chaos within.

After that I wanted to see the Bellagio (the main casino in Ocean's 11).  The inside was about the same, but this time we stopped to play the slots once.  Although I've been 18 for awhile, I've never gambled, so here I was living on the wild side.  I really wanted to find a machine where you can pull a handle.  (I had no intention of playing any card games, I don't really know how.)  Unfortunately, everything has gone digital, and no lever is required.  We took photos with some machines that at least had levers on them (retro style), and then played... a dollar each (we're high rollers like that).  I got a printout ticket for $0.20 - which I kept, basically a rather expensive post card.

We kept walking around a bit more.  We were able to catch the Bellagio fountains going off (also featured in Ocean's 11).  The fountains are pretty cool.  They're set to music and kind of "dance" to the song.  We watched "Luck be a Lady Tonight" - very Vegas.

Then headed to dinner at Margaritaville.  After that it was time to go back to the hotel.  We went to one of the many bars in the hotel and got Margaritas (I couldn't have one at Margaritaville since I was driving).  Finally we went back to the room and got ready for bed (ending our "wild" day in Vegas at... 11PM).

Day's Map