Nevada

Hoover Dam is on the way from the Grand Canyon to Las Vegas so we, invariably, stopped for a few minutes and took some pictures. I thought, as I knew I would, that it wasn’t that impressive. However, I am sure it must have been in the 30s.

I had reserved a hotel, Treasure Island, using hotels.com, a night ago in Williams, Arizona. We drove in around 6pm and waited too long to check in. Since it was a Wednesday, the Cirque de Soleil show in our hotel, Mystere, was dark for both of our nights. We asked about tickets to the other show by the same group, ‘O’, which was sold out but we could go and wait for last minute cancellations.

We rushed to Bellagio to get in line which already had 60 people in it. While Jake waited, I walked up and asked if there were any tickets for the next night and it turned out there was a cancellation so we walked out of the hotel, thrilled not to have to wain in the line.

Neither of us being gamblers, Vegas didn’t promise huge excitement for us. We walked around to see the Mirage’s volcano erupt, we watched the magnificent lights of the Bellagio. On the way back, we walked into a casino, played for 2 dollars and won 45. We went to the hotel and slept.

The next morning it was pouring so we took our time getting up. We visited a chocolate factory with a cactuds garden. We walked around, seeing the lions in MGM, the fish and tigers in Mirage, playing pinball, visiting Luxor, Mandalay Bay, Tropicana, Excalibur, New York New York, and went back to take a nap to make sure I’d be able to stay up through the night.

The Cirque de Soleil show was breathtaking. I can honestly say I enjoyed every moment of it. We waited in the extremely long yet very fast-moving line to take a cab to Hard Rock. After dinner, drinks and winning 5 bucks we took another cab to Tropicana and walked into some more of the hotels, ending up in the same casino. An hour, drinks and losing all of our winnings later, we went to bed at 4am. A true Vegas experience.