This past week we got a much needed vacation. It was for our anniversary, but because our anniversary is May 30th (The end of the month) I wouldn't be able to get time off from work because I have to be there for the end of the month, so we took off early. It also happened to be my brother Chance's high school graduation. I wouldn't say the stars all lined up, but given our circumstances, it was pretty good. We decided since we would be in St. George for Chance's graduation, we would just keep going down I-15 to Vegas.
We got in on Tuesday with enough time to play pickelball. I'm not great at the game, but Jocelyn likes it and there is no where to play up here, so we had to play while we were down there. Jocelyn has beat me the last 2 or 3 games we played, and she also beat me the first game we played Tuesday, but I won the next two. Not a huge achievement, but I felt better. We played again the next morning after I went to the dentist, and I beat her again...but I still couldn't beat Chance. Grrr...
So Chance had his graduation at two. It was short, and pretty good. Chance gave a little two minute speech because he was student body president. He did a good job. Then some more speakers, they walked through the D, and then sang the school hymn. Say what you want after this confession, but I got a little teary eyed listening to the hymn and singing along the words I could remember. I love DHS dangit, and I always will.
So anyways, we'll skip the little details of eating dinner and driving the next morning and get to where we got to Las Vegas. Jocelyn has only ever driven through or flown out, and I've been there mostly for sports. Been on the strip once, but I'm no pro of Sin City. We checked in to our little hotel. 9 floors is little for Vegas, but in Provo or St. George that is a good size. Ate lunch at Chipotle right next to UNLV and then went to the strip. The M&M and Coca-Cola places were not as cool as I remembered, but it wasn't bad. Jocelyn was really excited to see the fountains at Bellagio, so we went after the shops. Unfortunately the steak had some issues with Jocelyn's stomach and she wasn't able to really see the fountains. So we went home and that was the night.
Due to Jocelyn's sickness and our overall tiredness, we slept in (that's actually a theme of this trip...sleeping) and didn't do much for a while. We tried to go see Pete Rose at Caesars Palace, but due to the lack of traffic and over abundance of parking on the strip, we didn't make it. Let's just say I hate traffic, I hate getting lost, and I hate being hungry. There was plenty of that during the hour, so we gave up on seeing Pete, ate dinner, and then saw Bill Cosby and Treasure Island. Jocelyn loves Bill Cosby so we made sure to go. He was pretty funny. Some of the crowd was either drunk, handicapped, or both, so there were lots of people yelling during the show. One person even had a conversation with Bill on stage. He was cool about it the first time, but the second time, she ruined the show and he called security. It was rather humorous. After the show we tried to see the fountains again, but it was too windy and it was cancelled.
Saturday we slept in, decided to walk the strip from our hotel instead of trying to find parking, and we went from where we were (near the top, a little north of the Wynn and Encore, and west of the convention center) all the way down to Mandalay Bay. That is a long long walk. Seeing the hotels/casinos was neat. Before this trip we never really got up close to them, so we did a little hotel sight seeing...we walked through some of them on the way down. We were going to do the bodies exhibit at the Luxor, but it was 1) More expensive than we thought, 2) Not super high on the priority list, 3)We just ate lunch and didn't want to risk being grossed out. Anyways, we made it to Mandalay Bay, did the aquarium walk through, and enjoyed it. After we were quite tired, and took a break. We soon after discovered that they had a monorail, and we took that up to Caesar's Palace. I found out the Mike Vick would be at the store that we tried to find to see Pete Rose. I was much more excited about this, so I made sure we went. He didn't say much...like hey, and we didn't get to take a picture with him. That kinda bummed me out, but it was still awesome to meet him and get a picture signed by him. Then we went to the fountains and we watched them twice because the first time a branch was in the way and Jocelyn wanted a better angle. After that we took the monorail back to the hotel and passed out.
Sunday...if you guessed we slept in, you are correct. We didn't do much on Sunday. We went and saw the Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas sign, drove around on the old strip on Freemont street, and then went back to the hotel. I watched the Spurs game, she read a book...relaxing but awesome. That was basically the day.
Monday, we didn't get to sleep in as much because we had to check out by 11. We drove to St. George, picked up the cat, visited with my family, and then headed home to Provo. Lots of driving for one day, but it wasn't awful. Plus our car gets decent gas mileage. So that's the trip. All in all, it was a success, and we both enjoyed it. Now that we've been back at work for a day, I'm already looking forward to the next time we get a vacation.
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