Whirlwind

I'm still nursing a jet lag/end-of-vacation hangover this morning. Uh, actually I just realized it's 5:30pm, so make that "this evening". I'm exhausted. Vegas wasn't the typical relaxing vacation that I'm used to. We were on the go from the moment we landed. We had one hell of a time though. This blog will probably be very long as I have lots of pictures to share.

My first impression of Vegas was that it seemed fake, like a Universal Studios sound stage. Everything was just too big and too beautiful to be real. The hotels, all crammed onto one street, seemed like facades. Like if you looked behind their glitzy, beautiful exteriors, you'd see wooden braces holding them up. It amazed me. I kept wondering how one would even come up with the ideas to build those grand buildings. Where would you even start? And even though my first impression was during the day, before I could be blown away by the "lights of Las Vegas", I was still awed by the glitz and glamor. I guess I'll start with our hotel. The beautiful and amazing Bellagio:



The hotel was gorgeous. From the Chihuly glass exhibit in the lobby to the botanical gardens, the jasmine arches and rose gardens leading to the pool, and of course the fountains, everything around you was just breathtaking. When we checked in I asked, as I always do, if they had any upgrades available. We had booked the least expensive room, which was probably a highway view or something. We were very fortunate to be upgraded to an 8th floor, fountain view room. Here is the view we had from our room:


And now, at night, with the fountains:



UH-MAZ-ING!!! Seriously, any time you travel, ALWAYS ask for an upgrade! What's the worst that could happen, they say no? I feel very fortunate to have had such an awesome view. They even had a channel on the TV that you could turn on to hear the music that corresponded to the fountain show. It was very cool.

Our flight got in around 10:30am, too early to check in to the hotel, so we checked our bags and set out to explore. We walked next door to Caesar's Palace which, by the way, is freaking humongous! The place takes up like 4 blocks. It's beautiful too. We walked through the casino and through the Forum shops. We were kind of hungry so we sat down for lunch at Chinois by Wolfgang Puck. For an impromptu "light" lunch, it was delicious! Joe had Pad Thai, I had a shrimp and tuna roll and we shared some pot stickers for an appetizer. It wasn't cheap, nothing in Vegas was, but it was SO good. The restaurant was very pretty too and had an awesome lounge upstairs but we never made it back to enjoy it.

After we checked in and got cleaned up, we headed down the strip to New York New York. I was expecting it to be one of the cheesier hotels, but it was actually pretty neat. The inside looks like an old street in New York city with store fronts and restaurants. We popped into a Mexican restaurant called Gonzalez y Gonzalez and had some pretty good Mexican food and a couple of drinks. Joe stuck to rum and coke while I enjoyed a mighty fine margarita.

From there we headed out to a piano bar near the casino. We had a couple more drinks and watched some very drunk patrons dance their asses off (and fall on occasion) to the pianos. It was quite entertaining and we had some pretty good laughs. Things got a little fuzzy after that but I'm pretty sure we hit up The MGM Grand (which didn't impress me), the Palazzo, and the Venetian. The Venetian was beautiful, everything in it was decadent and perfect. We found a little bar off the casino floor that had a live band and we stopped for a couple of drinks there. All in all, not a bad first day in Vegas.

Day number two was very different but no less amazing. Not fully adjusted to the three hour time difference, we were up at 5am wide awake and ready to go. We'd planned on picking up our rental car around 7am, so we just got up and started getting ready. Joe had rented a Cadillac for our trip to the Grand Canyon but when we got there, they had no Cadillacs left. So we settled for a Hummer H3. It felt very pretentious driving a Hummer... almost a little embarrassing, but it was comfortable so who cares. We rented a Garmin GPS or, as I pronounced it, much to Joe's amusement, Garamon. At first the thing confused the hell out of us but once we figured it out, we were headed to Arizona.

The drive shocked me. I thought it would be highways with rest areas or at least exits with food and gas. No. The drive was like "The Hills Have Eyes". God forbid you break down out there as there is NOTHING for miles and miles. We were shocked to see trailers sitting out in the middle of huge valleys with nothing around for like 50 miles or more. Where do those people eat/work/shop? Crazy. But, even though it was a little creepy the drive was beautiful. The mountains were overwhelmingly gorgeous. I couldn't get over just how amazing they were. Different from any mountains I'd ever seen.

It took us almost 5 hours to get to the Grand Canyon, factoring in a stop for breakfast and gas/snacks. Even though the drive was long, it was so worth it to see the Grand Canyon in person. I knew it was huge but I honestly had no idea how big and just truly overwhelming it would be. I know my pictures won't do it any justice, but here are my favorites:


I have so many more, so I'll post them in the family album. They are mostly landscape shots because I was just so mesmerized by what I was seeing that I couldn't help snapping about a billion pictures. We didn't do any of the tours while we were there but we did walk a little way down into the canyon. I'm talking a VERY little way down. The elevation was kind of messing with us. That, and the fact that we are both very out of shape. It was hard to breathe and I kept getting light headed. But, we walked the path a little way down and actually got to see some petroglyphs carved into the rock face. They were too far away to tell what they were, but it was still cool to see. I can't even imagine how long they've been there.

We stayed at the Grand Canyon for a couple of hours, just taking in the sights, before we headed back. We stopped at the Hoover Dam both on the way and the way back. Unfortunately, our timing was wrong both times to do a tour, we were too early in the morning, then too late on the way back, but we did stop to take some pictures. The dam was pretty impressive. But, there was a construction project going on that really caught my eye. They are in the process of building a new road through the mountains and there is a new bridge being constructed over the Hoover Dam. I can't even begin to estimate how high the new bridge is over the water but it looked terrifying. The men and women working on that thing get major props from me for being that high in the air everyday. Here's a picture of the dam and the crazy new bridge:


When we got back we were tired but soldiered on, not willing to miss anything Vegas had to offer. We decided to walk up the strip and see where it took us. Where it took us was one of the funnest nights I've had in a long time. We started out at a dive casino called O'Sheas. We grabbed a quick slice of pizza and a couple of drinks and kept on walking. We were handed two free passes to a bar called, Rockhouse and figured what the heck. Oh my God you guys, I had so much fun! The music was great, the drinks were strong, and I was having a blast. It was there that I actually rang in my 30th birthday. Or, as the picture implies, my 03rd birthday. Joe even showed off some of his dance moves. Oh, and it's been so long since I've had an entry stamp on my hand, I had to commemorate it in picture form.


This is the longest blog ever. I can't believe I'm only two days into our trip...

Tuesday, my actual birthday, was my spa day. We hit the buffet at the Bellagio before I headed over to Qua spa at Caesar's Palace. I know that I'm over using the word "amazing" in this blog but there really aren't many words strong enough to describe how awesome this spa was. It was dim and decorated in taupe's and blues and stone. It was like something you would see in a movie, just absolutely gorgeous. I went early in order to take advantage of their facilities before my massage. When I checked in, I was given my spa slippers and a quick tour, then shown to my locker so I could change. I started out in the Roman plunge pools (big ass Jacuzzis). There were three, in a huge room, all different temperatures. There was one big waterfall in the center of the room, then two smaller waterfalls falling into two different plunge pools. I alternated between the warm and the hot pools. They also had heated stone lounge chairs around the room so when I wasn't in one of the pools, I was relaxing there. It was not busy at all and I had the room to myself for a very long time. It was so relaxing to sit and just listen to the water.

I had time before my massage to take advantage of the saunas as well. There was a cedar sauna, a steam room, and an arctic room. The cedar sauna was what you would expect, nothing too fancy. The steam room was a little scary, as it was so dark you couldn't see across the room, but it felt so good I didn't care. After the steam room, I gave the arctic room a try. Talk about invigorating! It is really cold in there and it actually snows on you! It felt really good going from the steam room into the arctic room. I did it several times before leaving the spa.

I went back to the tea lounge while I waited for my masseuse to come get me for my stone massage with aromatherapy. I was a little disappointed there was no one there to make tea for me (you're not supposed to do it yourself) but I didn't have to wait too long before my massage so whatever. The girl doing my massage came to get me and led me through a long maze of treatment rooms before we got to mine. My massage was amazing. The hot stones felt so good being massaged into my muscles. After hiking up the trail in the Grand Canyon, my legs definitely appreciated a good rub down. The massage was very relaxing and I was floating when it was over. I had use of the spa facilities all day so I took advantage of the plunge pools and steam/arctic rooms again. Then, I headed to the showers for one of the best showers I've ever had. Rain shower head, shower heads on the wall, and fancy spa products at my finger tips, I didn't want to get out! But, I didn't want to leave Joe alone all day so I wrapped up my spa excursion and headed back to our room.

Joe had a little fun of his own while I was being pampered. He found a gun range that lets you shoot machine guns and shot guns. So he played there for a couple of hours and had a really good time. I consider that his "spa day".

We tried to hang out by the pool for a while but it was a little too windy and chilly to sit out there in a bathing suit so we decided to get out and walk some more. We headed up the strip again and visited the Wynn. Seriously, one of the most beautiful hotels I've ever seen. The Bellagio is gorgeous, but the Wynn is unreal. Steve Wynn really knows how to build a hotel. We had lunch at the buffet and WAY over stuffed ourselves. We were almost instantly regretting it. But, we were on a mission, so we kept walking. We visited the Ferrari dealership that's in the Wynn and saw some really amazing vehicles. We saw a $995,000 Ferrari and a 2010 model that isn't even available for sale. Unfortunately, there were no cameras allowed so I have no pictures to share but here is my favorite sight from inside the Wynn:


That night we had my birthday dinner reservations at Sushi Roku. It was in the Forum Shops at Caesar's also so we got dressed up and walked over. I, unfortunately, don't have any pictures to share as Joe was very camera shy on this trip. I think that's one of the draw backs of vacationing by yourself, not having anyone to take your picture. Anyway, dinner was very good. The restaurant was beautiful, we had a great view of the strip. We were still pretty full from lunch so we shared some lobster tempura and a crunchy spicy tuna roll. Both were excellent. Being that it was my birthday, and being that I love cake, we also split some chocolate lava cake. Yum!!

We called it a night after dinner. I think our partying the night before had started to catch up to us. The next morning we got up and hit the Cafe Bellagio for breakfast. It sits in between the indoor botanical garden and the outdoor rose garden. Beautiful. After breakfast we hit the strip again walking in and out of Paris, Bally's, and the Flamingo. We ended up at Madame Tussaud's wax museum. We honestly only went in as a joke... and because I had a coupon. We were hoping they'd have a wax figure of Miley Cyrus that we could take a picture with and tell my niece, Sarah, that we'd met her in Vegas. We didn't know that Miley is currently on display in New York. Oh well. Ok, the wax museum has got to be one of the creepiest things I've ever done. The place is seriously frightening. Joe and I were standing in a room that seemed to be filled with people when we realized it was just the two of us, and a bunch of creepy ass wax statues. SCARY! I kept thinking one of them was going to come alive and snatch me. We also walked (ok, more like ran) through a haunted house thing on our way out. I was shaking for an hour afterwards. Here are some of our favorite wax people:



After our scary trip through the wax museum, we walked through Treasure Island and the Mirage. The Mirage was another beautiful hotel. Lots of really pretty restaurants and neat bars. We stopped in for a drink at Rhumbar, which had a really nice outdoor patio. It was nice to get off our feet and relax for a little while. When we were done there, we headed back to the Bellagio to try the pool again. This time it was much nicer. We lounged for a while and had a drink and went in the pool for a bit. It was a little chilly but felt good after walking around in the hot sun all morning. Once we'd had our fill of the pool, we had some lunch and went back to our room to relax while deciding what to do for dinner. We knew we wanted something nice for our last dinner in Vegas and we had seen a really neat looking restaurant while at the Mirage.

We started getting ready for dinner and headed out around 8:30 to Stack. The restaurant was gorgeous! The most beautiful restaurant I've ever seen. The walls were kind of curvy and had strips of woodwork that followed the curves. It was very dim inside and very romantic. As per our usual, we spared no expense on dinner. We started with calamari that was delicious, then I had the surf and turf, Joe had a sirloin steak. We also ordered a side of the "adult tater tots" that were a fancier version of Burger King's cheesy tots. (Let the Napoleon Dynamite jokes begin...) These tots were filled with brie and bacon though and were pretty good. But they had nothing on the other food we got. My lobster tail was delicious and my steak was cooked perfectly. Joe's was also delicious. We decided since everything else was so wonderful, we had to try desert. We ordered the key lime pies with margarita sorbet. OH MY F-ing GOD!!! Talk about delicious! The desert was three mini key lime pie "tarts" with a scoop of sorbet that tasted just like a frozen margarita. I was wolfing the pies down so fast Joe made a Godzilla reference. Actually it went like this, "Oh no, it's Godzirra, run for your rives". If you knew how many Asian people we encountered in Vegas, it would be way funnier. Anyway, here's our post dinner picture, taken by the waiter, much to Joe's dismay:


After dinner, we headed back to the Bellagio to the Fontina Bar to sit on the patio, have a drink, and watch the fountain show. It was gorgous. I was mesmerized everytime I watched the show. It never got old. See for yourselves:


I did learn something very interesting in Vegas that I had no clue about before. You can buy day passes to spas that allow you to use their facilities all day for a very minimal price. I discovered that for $45 I could've purchaed a pass to Qua that would've allowed me to do everything I did there except for the massage. After I found out about that neat little idea, I called down to the Bellagio spa to see if they offered anything similar. Low and behold, they did... for only $25!! So I decided on our last day in town that I was going to enjoy the facilities at the Bellagio spa before we had to check out. Unfortunately, I think I'm forever spoiled by the Qua spa. The Bellagio spa was very nice and relaxing and I enjoyed their facilities but it didn't hold a candle to Qua. Not even close. But, I had a steam and a soak and a shower and did relax before having to pack and board a plane back to reality. My new mission is to find fancy spas around here that offer the same deal. I actually already found out that the Ritz in Orlando offers a pass for $40! Woot Woot!

So, there you have it. Tricia and Joe's Vegas vacation. I've been writing this blog for 2 and a half hours now! Yikes! We had a fantastic trip. We definitely ate too much, drank too much, and spent too much but Vegas is all about the excess, right?! It was nice to get away from it all and live in fantasy land for a while. I'm glad we've got two more days to recover before having to go back to work. Boo! Where should we vacation to next?