Thanksgiving in the "Great American Southwest", Part Two

Shortly after watching my baby ride away in a white Prius with my lovely in-laws, Derek and I head off to the Monte Carlo to hang with my sister-in-law and her husband while they check in. In the room we went around and around about where to go for dinner, but the only conclusion we came up with was that we would go get cleaned up a bit and then meet up at our hotel, the Tropicana in about an hour.

Sidebar: Just to give you an idea of what kind of hotel we were staying in, lets think of it in terms of cars. The Monte Carlo is nice, clean and modern. Lets call it a 2008 Toyota Camry. The Tropicana however, is loud, not well ventilated and the decor hasn't been updated since 1989. We'll call it an 89' Ford Escort with about 250,000 miles on it. But the breakfast buffet has really good eclairs. Oh, and this is where Wayne Newton has decided to perform his last shows in Vegas before retiring. Really Wayne? You couldn't find a better place to go out? I digress.

So Dana and Pat meet us at the 89' Ford Escort around 4:30PM. We decide to walk across the street to the Excalibur and start there, then work our way down the strip to the Mandalay Bay so we can check out The Red Bar. The Red Bar is a Vodka bar in the Mandalay Bay, with a communist theme, where the bar is actually made of ice. Perfect for serving vodka. We went in and it was not busy at all. They had some really neat stuff. Next we headed to the China Grill so we could check out their famed bathrooms, which are individual pods that are odly placed at the front of the restaurant. Each has its own TV. Yipee! See my picture below.

The whole evening kind of went like that. Wander here, wander there. We decided to eat at Spago (one of Wolfgang Puck's many, many, many restaurants on the Vegas Strip) which resides in the Forum Shops at Caesars Palace. We all ate grandly and wandered back to the Bellagio to watch the fountains. Derek was pretty much ready to retire after that. We'd probably walked about 8-10 miles, so we were pretty wiped out. Sadly it was only about 9PM. We realized that we probably should have taken an nap and started later that evening, but hey, live and learn. We had a good evening either way. We saw lots of cool things, weird people, fancy people, homeless people and got to spend quality time together.

So on the very long journey back to our 89' Ford Escort, we have to walk past a huge construction area. This really drunk guy gets behind us and is grunting and pounding on the wooden wall protecting us from the construction. I was afraid he was going to either do something violent or projectile vomit all over us. Derek held my hand we walked as fast as we could, but really couldn't get around anyone. We were stuck. He eventually dropped back. The end. Sleep was interrupted multiple times by more drunk people next door. Constantly coming and going and talking very loudly. The end.

Next morning we decided to visit a few casinos that Dana and Pat hadn't seen before, the Venetion and the Wynn. Both incredible, both sprawling.

Then came the drive to Ivins, UT. See, you have to drive down these long stretches of desert to get here and the wind feels like its going to blow you off of the road. It sucks hard for the first 30 minutes or so. And I don't particularly love my brother-in-laws driving. He's more used to it so he goes pretty fast. I managed to keep my mouth shut and the eye rolling to a minimum. Sometimes I just closed my eyes and waited for it to pass. To get to Ivins you hop on I15 and travel through Nevada, New Mexico and finally into Utah. Its only about two hours. We get off on some back roads for the last 30 minutes or so. This part is pretty amazing because its like driving through mars, interspersed with some old mud brick buildings/homes (western history, people!) and indian reservation land (really poor and depressed). Shivuwitz, I believe.

When we walked through the door my baby squealed with delight...and I cried again. Hey, its just who I am.

To be continued...Pictures up next!