One of our friends drove us down to the strip so that we could check into our hotel. Weird thing about Vegas that I did not know? It is set up like a bowl with the strip at the bottom. Providence (where we bought our house) is on the northwest side of town and it is on the lip of the bowl. So what does this mean? You can see the strip from our yard even though it is 30 MILES AWAY!! So weird. This is our first time living on the west coast and we are used to rolling hills and tall trees. Where we are from, you are lucky if you can see to the end of the street, much less 30 miles away.
ANYWAY - so we check into our hotel, The Luxor, and this is the only picture I got of the inside:
As you can see, the INSIDE IS HOLLOW! I had no idea. I feel so fooled. The elevators run up the sides at a diagonal, very Willy Wonka if you ask me. Unfortunately, we were staying in the west tower, so we did not ride in them. I wondered if you could hear everyone's voices and the slots clanging from your room because it is open all the way down.
We checked into our room which was fitted with gold fixtures and complete with hieroglyphics. Very egyptian. And tacky. And appropriate. We also received a coupon book at check-in, of which we decided to take full advantage. We headed down to the hotel bar, where they were having an "all you can drink" evening for 25 buckaroos. With our coupon book it was $20. YES! The bar was very baroque. I didn't take any pictures but here is one from their website. Huge chandeliers, crushed blue velvet tufted booths, and some cool architecture. We hung out and had drinks and talked for about 4 hours. Which was SO great because sometimes I feel like since Avery was born, all we talk about is her. I felt like we existed in this little bubble, sitting in a huge booth for 10 just the 2 of us, chatting for hours. It was great.
Sunday we got up to explore. We walked around on the strip and had lunch at this awesome place called Lynyrd Skynyrd. It was a BBQ place that served drinks out of mason jars and had confederate flags everywhere. The live musician was really cool. He stood on the stage, just him, his guitar, and his Mac computer on a stool. He played a few chords on his guitar and recorded them. Then he looped them to play over and over again while he recorded new chords over the top of those. He recorded things one at a time on top of those chords like snapping, beat boxing, or knocking on the guitar until he had full music and percussion in less than 2 minutes. Then he played and sang over that. Very cool. I wish I had recorded it, but alas, I did not.
We also gambled. We played craps. And lost $100 very quickly...thanks to Truth Finck for building Troy's craps confidence. You can pay us back when you come visit you lucky charm you. After getting slapped down by dice, we tried our luck with roulette. My sister's husband, whose name is also Troy (oh, the irony), sent me a text saying "Put $50 on red for me" which we did. And WE WON!!! But then we were feeling lucky and played again and lost that too. The house always wins. We should have known.
Then we headed out to the pool. Which let me tell you, was THE BEST part of the trip because of the people watching. It was amazing. First of all, there was a sign outside the pool that said "$10 for alternative pool entry" and we were all "NO we already paid to stay in the hotel, we are not paying for pool entry also." So we go out to the pool deck and the bouncer girl was all "oh no, it's free for hotel guests unless you want to go to the pool party located inside the planter barriers and you two don't look like the type." I was SO offended. What? All of a sudden because we are married and have a baby we can't go to a pool party?? Whatever bouncer, give me a towel.
So we start looking for chairs and we end up finding a set of chairs near the forbidden "planter barrier." Suddenly, my head snaps up and I stare. I. Cannot. Stop. Staring. I am so naive. Alternative pool party. Meaning alternative lifestyles. Meaning a bunch of guys dancing in teeny tiny bathing suits on the pool deck. With each other. And drag queens in sparkly red carpet dresses. To Lady Gaga. Welcome to Vegas. You better believe I turned my pool chair in a complete 180 so that I could watch that. Forget the book I brought. Troy grabbed us a bucket of beer and we stared and had a grand ole time.
After pool time, we headed up to our room to shower. Then we hit up a Vegas buffet. It was pretty delicious. Troy bought tickets for us to go see Cirque du Soleil online. The tickets were $124 per ticket. They should have been printed on gold paper. Not the color. The 14 carat kind. We went to the show. It was "eh." Honestly we were both disappointed. $250 for a show and we expected it to be spectacular. Not so much. Sorry to disappoint.
We went back to our room and went to bed. We got up Monday morning and decided to take the hotel shuttle to the hotel for $7 per person rather than a cab, which the front desk said can cost more than $30. Crazy. The best part about the shuttle was that some of our "friends" from the alternative pool party were waiting as well. Troy and I chuckled.
We went to the airport together because my flight to Charlotte was at 2pm and Troy's to Phoenix ---> El Paso was at 4:30pm so we decided to check in, go through security, and have lunch in the terminal. We considered gambling (because yes, there are slot machines ALL over the airport) but then decided against it because we had already thrown some money at the casinos. We parted after lunch at Chili's. You read that right. The place I worked all through college. I
We parted. It was a successful weekend. Buy a house. CHECK! Stay on the strip. CHECK! Ogle an all boy dance party. CHECK! See a show. CHECK! Gamble. CHECK!
Fun was had by all. Especially Avery, who stayed with my mom and stepdad in South Carolina.
VIVA LAS VEGAS!
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thanks for reading!