First off, Las Vegas is not part of Los Angeles. I know this. I am not geographically challenged. But Las Vegas has long been LA's playground, so I feel no shame in including my trip to Vegas here.
Jaime, Katie and I road tripped it out to Vegas. We left at 2 PM on Friday thinking we would beat traffic, but in LA one never really beats traffic. But we had fun along the way and the highlight of the journey was our stop in Baker, a roadside town whose claim to fame is the world's largest thermometer. Isn't it a beauty?
We got to Vegas around 7:30 and checked into the Four Seasons. This is the way to do Vegas. The Four seasons is its own hotel, but has its rooms in the Mandalay Bay towers. It has its own pool, Lobby, elevators, etc. but is connected to Mandalay Bay and guests get to use all its facilities. It was fantastic. After dinner, Katie decided to go to bed. Jaime and I hit the slots and Fat Tusesday. Or as we like to call it Fat Tub Day. And this shot is camera trickery. I was not as "gone" as I appear, we just got the thing!
Fat Tub Day is a Mardi Gras themed drink bar with very large containers of alcoholic slushy drinks. Very deadly.
The rest of the gang, Ryan, Nathan, and Rachel arrived around midnight.
We spent the rest of the night wandering the southern strip and finally got to bed.
Our next morning we hit the outlet mall. If you have never been to the outlet mall in Vegas, it is pretty fantastic, and I don't even like shopping. They have everything. I think everyone got something. Then it was off to lunch at my favorite spot, Mon Ami Gabi, at Paris.
We sat outside in the nice sun and watched the Bellagio fountains across the street. No Carrot Top this time (we have seen him twice here). But we did have a strange waiter who would not let Rachael order a Caesar salad. Seriously. It was mildly amusing at first, but then just got annoying when he wouldn't bring extra spoons to share Jaime's chocolate moose. Mon Ami is still awesome and the food was great.
That evening we all went to Penn and Teller.
Nathan scored some free tickets through his work! Penn and Teller is one of those acts that has been around for a long time but you still don't know what it is about. But the show was great! It was like the anti-magic show. Comedy combined with cool tricks. We had fun theorizing how the tricks were performed afterwords. Two Fat Tub Day's later and I was feeling pretty good.
After dinner at ESPN Zone Rachael and Katie called it a night.
Ryan, Jaime, Nathan and I attempted to go to Club Prive at Planet Hollwood because we had passes, but were promptly rejected because of Jaime's flip flops and nathan's white tennis shoes. We were too cool for them anyways.
Next it was blackjack at Bellagio (I came out ahead!), and then we wandered into the new City Center. Man that place is huge. The Aria hotel was very nice and the casino was cool, but it didn't seem like much was going on. From there the evening degenerated and we will leave Vegas in Vegas, but suffice to say the night ended in a good old fashion pillow fight.
The next morning we enjoyed the wave pool and the lazy river and caught some rays. After a 3 hour lunch at Burger bar, it was time to say goodbye to The Vegas. It was fun as always and I will return soon!
What a motley looking crew!
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