The Vegas trip

Well I'm home now, home how sweet the word. I keep getting home so late, it's no bueno. Our house is a mountain of dirty and clean laundry right now, but I don't even care I'm just happy to be here. So finally, for the trip.

We made it our 5th anniversary trip, seein' as how we've just barely come sliding across the plate, we decided to celebrate. It was a busy busy weekend in both St. George (Sunshine Tournament) and in Las Vegas (the St. Patty's celebration plus March Madness betting). So we stayed in a hotel in Henderson, which is a lot bigger than I had imagined, by the way. Nice place though. And the hotel, I am never disappointed in anything by Mariott. They had awesome breakfast, and the whole hotel looked like it came straight out of an IKEA catalog, especially the rooms.

We stopped at the St. George Walmart on the way down to buy some NyQuil for Geoff, and arrived in Henderson late Thursday night. We were too tired to do anything, so we took the NyQuil and laid in bed watching TV until we fell asleep. (I love doing that!) Had a bit of a time waking up the next morning, anything with sleep agents totally knock me out.

But we got up and went to tour a nearby chocolate factory. It was a short tour, but we got chocolate samples out of it, yummy. Then we went to the mall, where we both bought clothes at H&M and Old Navy, and I got the mucho delicioso Milk Chocolate Decadence by Godiva. Mmmm SO GOOD! We then drove by the Gold and Silver Pawn because we wanted to see the dudes that are on TV, but there was a huge line going all the way down the block, so we decided to come back later, and I think we went to Circus circus and watched an act. They were good. We went to Fremont street next. We spent like an entire 8 hours there. We got 99 cent hotdogs at Golden Gate and tried deep-fried Oreos. (I know! But we had to try them! For the record, they're okay but not that great.) We watched the platform dancers, the U2 cover band which was amazing, the light shows, a sax-player named Carl Ferris, browsed the street vendors, and got our pictures taken with people. We gambled a tiny bit, but not much. We walked through the Golden Nugget. The best part of Fremont Street was the Knight Rider convention, mainly for Geoff because he's so completely starstruck. That he got so close to David Hasslehoff, and got his picture taken with that one girl - he didn't actually know who she was at the time, he just knew she was an actress, but he was so excited about it.

After 11 when the platform dancers came back on, people started dancing (I may call it club-dancing in my dweebishness because that's what it was), and we watched this huge drunk dude stagger around with his eyes rolled up into his head. Think of Barney from the Simpsons and you aren't far from the truth. The funny thing is, he could barely stand upright, but when he got dancing he got dancing. He kept trying to hump everything and the girls kept pushing him away. It was so funny. We got back to the hotel around 2 and stayed up another couple hours watching TV and stuff.

Saturday morning, we slept in! Normally we don't like to waste the day away sleeping on vacation, but man it felt so good. We got up and went to an indoor flea market in Henderson (I think Henderson?) that was huge! There were some people selling sterling silver rings for cheap, but they look nice, and Geoff bought one. We called it a "fifth anniversary" ring. I actually picked it out. I know we're so cheesy, but a little bit of cheesy is good for us and I thought it was really cute. :) There was a huge snake exhibit there, which included a couple of snakes as big around as our heads. And people were holding them, we couldn't believe it. There was also a bird exhibit, and an As Seen on TV booth, and lots of interesting stuff to look at. After the flea market we headed to the strip. We went to Bally's, got dinner, and watched the BYU game at one of the sports books.

After the game, we walked around the shops at Bally's and bought me a 5th anniversary ring. Geoff was telling the two cashiers that the rings were for our 5th anniversary. They thought it was so cute but the one cashier was also shocked that we could be married 5 years and be so young. (It's Utah for you, I guess.) We gambled a little, then walked down the street to see the Mirage volcano, and then the Treasure Island show.



While waiting for the show to start, we talked to this elderly, retired couple who were visiting from England. They'd been married for 35 years, and apparently they travel all over the world. They'd come to see the Grand Canyon but were spending a few days in Las Vegas. They didn't think they'd like Vegas but they ended up loving it. I thought it was so funny that an old, old couple from the English countryside could enjoy Vegas so much, with it being, "one big long party for blocks and blocks." :) We liked them a lot. He said we celebrate the Irish (St. Patty's day) a lot differently than they did. He lived close enough to Ireland once to party with them himself, and he said they had a dark gray colored drink that they got hammered on in the pubs (except he used a different word than "hammered" wish I could remember what it was.), but here we all dress up in green. ha ha.

Anyway, the TI show was something else. Not exactly kid-friendly anymore we'll just put it that way. But it was still cute I thought, with an open mind. ;) We walked back down toward Bally's then, stopped at a very boring block party, and soon after went home. We tried to find the electronic roulette games that we won on black 17 last time, but couldn't find them. We lost a few bucks on some other machines.

Sunday morning we tried to find a buffet that wasn't over $20 (no such luck), we ended up eating at a chinese restaurant, ha. We drove by Gold and Silver again and still a long line.

We stopped at a gas station on the way out of town and there was this guy parked on the side of the road in his uni-bomber van and trailer, with tables full of anti-obama paraphernalia all over. He was making such a scene that we had to stop and talk to him. He really was crazy. He thought the FBI had files on him and was after him. Geoff noticed that his van was licensed in Colorado - "that's a diversion," we were told. The van is licensed in Colorado, the trailer in Montana, but really he's from Texas. Funny, crazy, crazy dude. We were home about 5 hours later.

It was so fun! I already miss our weekend away together.