This week marks the commencement of The Great Southwest Adventure, aka Craig and I cramming in as much sightseeing as humanly possible.  Our first stop was fabulous Las Vegas, Nevada.  Even though Britney Spears took a vacation from her show THE EXACT DAYS WE WERE THERE, we still had an okay time.  I seriously need to remember if I plan on doing something, it’s probably closed, under construction or having extreme weather (referencing The Great PNW Adventure last year…)

Day 1:  Landed at the airport that is unusually close to The Strip.  Seriously, you could get off your plane and walk right to the signature sign.  Also, there are liquor stores and slots everywhere, which is AwEsOmE!  Picked up the rental, which was basically a clown car, and barely fit my massive suitcase.  Drove to the Stratosphere and immediately lost $5 on a slot machine before we checked in.  Vegas-1, me-0.  This fabulous Rod Stewart magazine made up for that though.  He’s soOo suave. 

Headed to Fremont Street, which is basically a big playground.   We ate at this amazing place, Food Junky.  I’ve been a pretty good vegetarian for the past year, but as soon as I saw an In N Out Burger, I fell apart.  So I ordered the ribs here.  I’ll stop eating meat when I get home.  The girl who worked there was super friendly, and told us the town she was from is home to the world’s biggest thermometer.  She wasn’t even excited when she told us!  I was like, OMG that’s awesome, I’ve always wanted to see the biggest things in the US!!!!!! And she was like …….. .  She suggested we go to The Container Park, a series of shops, restaurants and bars that are made out of shipping containers.  West Coasters are so innovative.

Ventured to The Neon Museum, which kind of reminded me of American Horror Story: Freak Show.  The tour guide was awesome, and gave us lots of fun facts about the history of The Neon City (do they call Vegas that?  They should).  They said not to post pictures on a blog that promotes yourself, so I’m just putting a picture of the entrance.  I’m not in the mood to get sued by Vegas, they have a lot of billboards for lawyers.  It was an awesome experience– take the night tour if you go and buy your tickets in advance. 
Went back to Fremont and rode the Slotzilla zip line.  I was a little apprehensive, but not as scared as the lady behind me who was freaking out, crying and praying. It’s not that high…  Here’s me coming in for an extremely graceful landing:  After walking 13 miles up and down the Strip, jet lag set in and it was time for bed.  We’re literally probably the only people in Vegas who were in bed by 11:30 each night.

Day 2:  Drove to Red Rock Canyon, about 30 minutes outside the city.  It was awesome, but I got sunscreen in my eye and since we’re in a desert, there was no water around to wash it out, and I basically was blind for the whole thing.  This picture is from the first scenic stop, right before I lost my vision. After a stop at Dunkin Donuts for a sink (and a donut, duh), we headed to the Hoover Dam.  It is massive, and it’s impossible to fathom how people built it. We read about the dog who was the workers’ mascot until they RAN HIM OVER.  Wtf.  We went up on a huge bridge to look over the dam, and there were tons of unsupervised children running around.    Yea, cool, it’s not like we’re 150 feet in the air next to a busy highway over a hydroelectric plant… Note to self: don’t take my future ungrateful children anywhere until they’re like…30. Stopped at a local brewery for lunch, which boasted the best dam wings, best dam beer and several other word puns using dam(n).  Dammmmmmm Boulder..Got back to Vegas and stood in a long ass line to get a picture in front of the Welcome sign.  About 3 wedding parties pulled up, stumbled out with drinks and cigarettes, and tried to cut in line. Uh, hell no.  Some guy posing as a photographer took like 20 pictures of us, directing us to do different poses each time.  I was like, uhm did you meet me in a previous life?!? 

 
    We had big plans to go to the Bacchanal Buffet at Caeser’s.  Since I found out Britney was on Spring Break, this has been the only thing I cared about going to.  And in true travel fashion, there was an insane wait.  And we didn’t get to go.  I literally almost threw a huge tantrum in the middle of the casino.  So if anyone wants to come back to Vegas with me and go to the buffet, let me know.  Also, I was wearing this, which was probably not the best ensemble to eat $60 worth of steak and crab legs in…it was stretchy though, so maybe… I got annoyed with Craig because he was wearing jeans and a shirt, when he usually wears a shirt and tie to the grocery store.  But as we were walking around, I kept seeing hot girls dressed up like me, with their boyfriends (presumably) in tshirts.  The weaker sex my ass.

We went to see Vegas! The Show, and it was so good.  It took you through the evolution of Vegas, and the performers played the roles of The Rat Pack, Elvis, Sonny and Cher and more.  I really wanted to see the Showgirls at the Flamingo…you know, the ones that have been there forever.  BUT…surprisingly they just had their last show the week before we came.  Why do I have so much horrible travel karma?!? 

Walked a few blocks (which in Vegas time takes like 3 hours) to the High Roller.  We got a car to ourselves, and the annoying video tour guide kept making jokes about how high we were, especially at 420 feet.  It was pretty scary, and I recommend buying the open bar car tickets and pounding shots to get through it.  It was a great view though, I will admit. 

On our way out in the morning, we stopped at the Pawn Stars shop, and found a Vegas geocache!

Then we pawned it.  No, jk, but there was a crazy looking dude pawning something at 7 am.  That’s what you get for waking up in Vegas I guess…