24hrs In Las Vegas
It is not often that Amity surprises me with adventures. Most of the activities she comes up with are more thought out, and preplanned. This was not the case with this adventure. It all started on a Wednesday night when Amity looked at me and said, “Don’t get too excited, but what do you think about going to Las Vegas for a night this weekend?” I was obviously excited right away! The only catch with this adventure was, we could not plan anything, and had to just roll with what ever is available and easy for us at the time we need to do it.
MIle: 36,723
Quote of the Blog: “Las Vegas is the only place where money really talks; it says goodbye.” - Frank Sinatra
Song of the Blog: “Las Vegas” - Dean Martin
The first step was to find a hotel for us to stay at. We waited until Friday night to book out hotel. We landed with finding the best deal, location and attractions for what we wanted at the Mirage Hotel. This put us right in the middle of the strip, and close to a couple activities we like in Vegas. From there, out next plan was to wake up early and hit the road for one night in Las Vegas. The drive from Phoenix to Las Vegas takes about four and a half hours. On the way we made the quick decision to stop by the Hoover Dam. Amity had never been here before, and I had come once before with my dad as a child. The dam truly is a goddamn!! We just walked around the top of the dam and took a couple pictures, before heading back to the car and finishing out drive into Las Vegas.
Pulling into the city, our directions to the hotel took us right past the new Las Vegas Sphere. It really is a cool looking spectacle, but the only catch to it is that you cannot see it while walking around the Las Vegas Strip. It is slightly hidden behind a couple hotels. We were somehow able to score free parking at our hotel for the night! That was our first win for the trip! The Mirage Hotel is a really nice spot! Nothing too fancy, but much cleaner than other options!!! While unpacking our stuff in our room, we started making some tentative plans. We had to start our adventure with some food. Our favorite lunch spot in Las Vegas is Jaburritos Sushi Burritos in the Linq Promenade. They always live up to every expectation we have!
Next up was to just get some exploring in. The last time we were here I had just recently blown my knee out, so it was nice to walk around the city on two functional knees! We checked out a couple of the standard tourist attractions, with the Bellagio Fountains & Conservatory, the chandeliers of the Cosmopolitan and the vertical splendor of the replica of the Eiffel Tower. I always find it so funny and precarious how much money has been invested into creating these facades and fake store fronts in Las Vegas! Still looks pretty!
Along our adventure, we decided to find a booth that sold show tickets, and find a good deal on some Cirque du Soleil tickets. We scored a great deal on some good seats for the Mystère Cirque du Soleil show at the Treasure Island Hotel. We got all fancy’ed up for a night out in Las Vegas before heading out. I will say we were looking GOOD! Amity was obviously looking much better than me, but that’s always a given! To make it even easier for us to get to the show, we were able to take a tram that goes from our hotel directly to the Treasure Island Hotel. We scored a whole tram car to ourselves. This led to us having our own dance party in the tram car! Little did we know, the other tram car was full of people watching us. They were laughing and cheering us on. Later I would get a shoutout from a guy in the bathroom who witnessed an epic pole dancing move I pulled off! PROPS!
The show was very entertaining! From the moment we walked in until we left, there was always something going on. We walked in and what we thought was an usher started to show us where our seats were. After making a couple turns I did not expect, I realized we were now part of the pre-show entertainment and this “usher” was taking us on a wild goose chase around the theater with the spotlight on us. He eventually looked back at us, shouted and tossed out tickets in the air before running away. He would do this to a couple more unsuspecting audience members as they walked in. The show was really cool. It is known for being one of the first Cirque du Soleil shows, and has a very abstract element to it. Very much a French Circus that has gone wrong or way off the rails! The performers were amazing! From crazy trapeze flying, to contortionists and dancers this show kept us entertained the whole time!
After the show we decided to do some more exploring and test out luck with some slot machines. Gambling in Las Vegas is something that actually is quite overwhelming for me. I just like to walk around and find a random machine to play, before moving along to the next. There is no rhyme or reason. We actually never lost too much money on our endeavors, but never came out on top. Oh well! We then realized it was really late at night, and we had not eaten dinner yet. We found a spot close by that we what we needed. Nothing fancy, but hit the spot! After some more exploring and around 9 miles of walking throughout the day, we decided to call it quits. By this point, we were seeing some of the victims of too much partying starting to struggle back to their hotel rooms. Las Vegas is truly a funny place! We are quite glad to only spend a short period of time here!
The next morning we got up and went on the hunt for a really good brunch spot. We ended up at a really good French style café in the Wynn Hotel called Tableau. We were super lucky to get a table, probably because most of the groups were larger than a twosome. The food was so good! After some rejuvenation and caffeine, we headed out for one last adventure around the town. Amity wanted to check out some shops in the Venetian Hotel which were pretty cool. We found more art installations that were really cool, which included this room where the chandeliers and ceiling fixtures moved up and down on their tethered cords. There are so many cool hidden gems here that make all the walking and adventuring worth it!
With hours and hours of walking, dozen of hotels and casinos explored and all the alcohol we could handle in a 24 hour span we packed our gear back into the car and headed south back to the desert. Las Vegas is always a fun time! So much to do! We really enjoyed keeping our options open ended, but next time we might have some more plans in order.