Las Vegas Trip Day 2

Welcome back to the Thuis Blog Time Machine. Today we go back nearly 2 weeks to Monday, March 24, 2008.  Back to our trip to Las Vegas.

As you remember we spent last night in Grand Junction, Colorado.  Today it’s early to rise as we start the 508 mile (or so) second leg of the road trip.  We hope to make Las Vegas before dinner time, so after an overpriced breakfast buffet at the hotel (the only thing I didn’t like about the hotel), we are off.

The beginning of our drive is through Utah.  I tell you what, nothing is more desolate than the first couple hundred mile of this drive.  I don’t ever remember seeing signs saying, "Get your gas now! 120 miles until next services.", but we see them now.  The scenery is enough to keep us entertained.  The drive is beautiful, and we stop a few times to take in the breathtaking views.

We stop in a town called Richfield and have lunch at a restaurant called Wingers.  The appearance of this place is deceiving.  Outside this looks like a fast food place, but inside we find a full restaurant.  The food was GREAT. I had a steak sandwich, that was delicious even though it would make a cardiologist stand up and take notice.

Back on the road we don’t stop until we hit the Nevada border. After a quick stop in Mesquite, Nevada we finally arrive in Las Vegas around 4:00 PM. For the duration of this trip we will be staying at the Embassy Suites Convention Center Las Vegas.  This is a very nice hotel.  Probably tiny by Las Vegas standards, but big enough for us.  NO casino but this is where the wife’s class is being held so we couldn’t this of any better place.

After getting cleaned up a bit and changing clothes (it is now in the upper 70’s and we showed up in blue jeans and sweat shirts), we decide to hit the town.  So after a short break at the hotel bar for FREE drinks and snacks, we head on out.

For the first night we decide to go and see the fountains at the Bellagio and then find some place for dinner.  We decide that we will take the monorail downtown, but the desk clerk convinces us to drive, park at Caesar’s Palace, and walk "next door" to see the show.  Well the drive was not as bad as anticipated, but parking at Caesar’s was a huge mistake.  I am pretty sure we got "lost" once we entered the Casino, because it took us forever to find a way to get out of Caesar’s and get "outside" to get to the Bellagio.  Though at the time we didn’t really care and tried to consider it an adventure.  Finally, finding our way to the fountains we watched the show.  This really is a "must do" when visiting Vegas because the show is great and best of all it’s free.

The show is finally over and it’s about 8:00 PM and we decide we really need to get some dinner (mistake #2).  But where to go and how the heck do we get back to the car?  After "getting lost" again in Caesar’s getting back to the car, we decide to find someplace to eat in the hotel.  Anyway, long story short, after searching around and some "heated" discussion, we end up getting some overpriced, crummy pizza slices and eat it in the car.

Back to the hotel.  The boy wants to hit the pool, and you’ll hear no complaints from me.  After the drive and all the initial walking I want to hit the Hot Tub.  Upon entering the hotel we find out that the hotel is changing their boiler tonight so no water tonight after 11:00 PM until 5:00 am.  No big deal we’ll be sleeping.  We change, hit the pool for about an hour.  Get cleaned up, fill the fridge with some drinking water and head off to bed.