Viva Las Vegas!

Ken and I took a little road trip this week to Las Vegas!

We were surprised to drive into a storm and have overcast and rainy weather a lot of the way there.

It was a little on the cool side. We were in the middle of nowhere in the desert and it was only 75 degrees.

Here's what you see A LOT of in Utah.

Here's what you DON'T see a lot of...

...people actually working on the road. I hate to sound down on UDOT, but I rarely ever see any work being done. Trip highlight!

Once we got near Las Vegas, we quickly got out of the cool rain and into the sweltering desert. 118 degrees to be exact.

We stayed the first 2 nights at the Mirage. We took a taxi to the MGM Grand (who wants to drive the strip at 10:00 p.m.?) for dinner and a show. While we were killing time between dinner and the show we were seeing, Ken put a dollar into the one cent slot machine and was thrilled to quadruple his money. Like the naggy wife I am, I told him to cash out.

He was so proud of his "earnings"!

That night we saw Cirque du Soleil's KA. It was pretty amazing! The stage was my favorite part. It's on hydraulics and goes all over the place. I loved it!

Here's the Mirage, our home sweet home for a while.

We spent quite a bit of time at the Venetian - one of my favorite hotels. I snapped this photo to convince myself I was really in Italy.

It didn't work because it was still 120 degrees outside. THAT'S why I don't have any makeup on in any pictures. Way too hot! 

We went to the book store featured on Pawn Stars. We even got to see the girl that Chumlee has a crush on!

We had a few celebrity sightings at the wax museum. Here's me with Johnny Depp. - he's just a little guy.. stupid Lindsay Lohan got in our picture!

Here we both are with Sigfried and Roy,

and their evil little face attacking tiger.

Me with one of my heroes... Martin Luther King Jr.  He was a lot shorter than I thought he would be.

Here's Ken with George Dubyah, 

and no one wanted their picture taken with Obama. In fact, there was an employee "guarding" his wax statue. Yeah.

That night we saw Blue Man Group.

If you've never seen it, I really don't know how to describe it. It's a lot of noise, cool facts, laughs, and three blue men who don't talk and act like they don't know what they are. It was really good though!

We wanted to document our hotel room at the Mirage. It was a nice room but can you see the red exit sign clear clear clear down there at the end of the hall?

You can't? Yeah well, that's because it's a ridiculously long hike. It was also where our room was. The last one on the right. I would have just taken the stairs but we were on the 22nd floor and I'm just too lazy so I hoofed it through the never ending corridor.

And... if you wanted ice or anything from the snack machines, you had to hoof back to the elevator and then go on down to the next floor, and then hike back. Too. Much. Effort.

We checked out of Mirage (because we wanted to spend the last day at the Bellagio) and went in search of the pawn shop featured on Pawn Stars. We found it! It was smaller and in a dumpier part of town than I thought it would be but it was still fun to see.

l

There was a line of people waiting to get in.

We parked and got in line too. After being in line for about 20 minutes, we found out that they were filming and not letting people in. Our choice was to wait it out or go get lunch.

We were hungry so we left and found a Popeye's Chicken. It was yummy! We really need them in Utah!! We went to M&M World and the Coke store. We snapped a quick photo with the Coke bear.

We also decided to try their Coke tasting from around the world. The 2 trays had a total of 14 different drinks produced by Coca-Cola that aren't here in the United States.

There were 2 of these charts that showed you what you were tasting and what country carries it.

We tried them all! Some were fruity, some tasted medicinal, and this one tasted like you were drinking minty mouthwash. Gross!

This drink the mother of all horribleness! 

It seriously made me feel queasy for the rest of the day. My stomach was churning for hours!

It's called Beverly. Stay away from it. I can't even describe the flavor but it is nasty!

We stayed at the Bellagio our last night and requested a room on the lake view side.

This was the view from our hotel room window. It was fantastic!

This was part of our view.

Donny & Marie

Fabulous Forever

Are they? Do people really pay money to go see them?

Here's Ken at it again. He slipped a $5.00 bill into the machine.

When he hit $16.50 I nagged again for him to cash out...

 ...which he did.

That night we saw 'O'. Unbelievably beautiful and amazing!

After the show, we went back up to our hotel room to take advantage of the view we paid extra for. We put pillows on the floor and laid there to watch the craziness on the strip and the fountains in front of our hotel. The Bellagio has a station that plays the music so you can watch from inside. So worth the extra money!

Isn't the view from out room great? We laid there in the 68 degree hotel room and watched everything.

 We headed home the next morning. We stopped in St. George for lunch and then went to visit my uncle Leon (my dad's brother) and aunt Irma in Cedar City. We got home about 10:00 p.m. last night and were happy to sleep in our bed again. I love going on trips but it can sure be exhausting!