This is being written a couple of days after our Vegas trip because Vegas + moving to LA = chaos. I'm splitting it up for ease of navigation later.
So on Friday we woke up in Tuba City and really took our time with hitting the road. I was writing and adding pictures furiously for the Grand Canyon post in an effort to stay on top of everything (says the girl who is writing a post about Friday on Sunday after the road trip has already ended) and we had a pretty short drive ahead of us to Nevada so we weren't in a rush. We also needed some time to prepare ourselves for whatever our girls were going to put us through. We grabbed breakfast at the restaurant next to the hotel called Hogan Family Restaurant and got the best coffee of probably the entire trip and a yummy breakfast. We went back to the room to finish packing up and I finalized the blog and we made the journey to the truck with the cats.
Remember that time I was going to marry Dan? He had the idea to prop the girls up on suitcases in the back seat for probably the whole trip. I was concerned about safety, if they would like it, and if they would be at even heights so I continued to resist. After the situation we had on the way to Arizona and knowing that drugs were not going to be an option, I was willing to try anything. And what do you know - the girls barely made a peep for at least an hour. It was incredible! They definitely complained eventually and Olive was still pretty vocal for about 70% of the drive, but it was the BEST drive we had with them. So much so that it seemed to fly by and the next thing we knew, we were in Nevada and approaching the Vegas Strip quickly. It seemed like such a piece of cake compared to all of the drives we had. Oh, and the temperature was 116 degrees when we pulled into our La Quinta's parking lot. No joke. I think it's the highest temperature either of us had ever experienced.
In that hot weather, the trips from the truck to the room seemed absolutely impossible. There was also only one working elevator and the hotel was so spread out and massive that it was quite the process to get there and actually catch an elevator. We got the girls settled in and all we wanted to do was go in the outdoor pool. We had dinner reservations at the Venetian at 7pm and I think we went out to the pool at 4:45pm knowing it would be a stretch but not giving any craps. The water was SO warm but it was still super refreshing. It was just what we needed, and barely anyone was at the pool which made it even more worth it. We stayed about 30 minutes and then went upstairs to get ready.
We had dinner reservations at a place called Aquaknox in the Venetian. It seemed fancy and we both were in a seafood/steakhouse kind of mood (minus the steak for me) so we were excited to spoil ourselves to end our trip. Dan had never been to Vegas and I went once before with friends from college in the summer before our senior year. I was excited for him to see the spectacle of it all. Before our reservation I walked him around the hotel to see how gigantic it was and, of course, to show him the gondolas in the indoor canal. He was as impressed as I had hoped he would be.
We headed off to dinner and got amazing food and cocktails. After dinner we headed outside to walk to the Mirage for our next portion of the evening. Dan got to see a bit more of the strip on our walk and was totally in awe at how insanely rich and big everything was. He hadn't been too keen on the idea of Vegas and I assured him that it was worth seeing and totally insane, so it made me really happy that he was reacting how I did... eight years ago? Jesus Christmas. He also took some great pictures. And that beer sign, because that's right up our alley.
We entered the Mirage for one of the big splurges of our trip - tickets to see the Cirque du Soleil Beatles LOVE show. I also saw this show when I was here last and looooved it, and Dan being a gigantic Beatles fan, I was determined to get him here to see it. We were both dorking out so much on the way to our seats. One of the ushers, seeing how dorky we were, told us that two days prior Paul and Ringo had been sitting in our section two rows behind us. Dorking out continued. Someone came by to take professional pictures of us before the show started, and thank goodness they did because they took a great final photo for our trip. They also took these two, which are weird.
#imamodel #theytoldmetodothatiswear
The show was more incredible and impressive than I remembered, probably because I was drunk when I was there last and had no concept of how to appreciate amazing experiences. We loved every second of it and left there feeling on top off the world. We gallivanted off to grab a drink to walk down the strip with. The people watching on our walk was amazing. We stopped at the Bellagio so I could show him the water show. I was convinced that I was hungry so we grabbed a couple of slices of pizza and beer just after midnight, and then we had the brilliant idea to walk the 25 minutes back to our hotel. We eventually realized that this was impossible, as there were people evvvverrrywhere and it was still well over 100 degrees, so we called ourselves a Lyft and went back to the hotel to sleep, getting there a little bit before 2am. At least we got a cool picture of the ferris wheel along our failed journey.
In the morning we took our time again and decided that instead of visiting the Hoover Dam like we had planned, we would rather take the morning to swim in the pool to enjoy our time before the chaos of moving in/unpacking started. This is about when the reality of everything hit us both so some tranquility was much needed. We hit the road around noon and started the 4.5 hours to LA. This ride seemed very long, both because Olive was a whiney nightmare despite the suitcases, and I think we both were just on edge about the day. We drove in to a crazy looking California sky, which I was convinced was a really gross smog but was actually smoke from a fire in the hills.
We stopped by Time Warner to get a WiFi modem which was SUPER easy compared to our typical Comcast experiences, and then we went home! The apartment had been painted after the prior tenants moved out, so it was nice to move into a place with a nice fresh coat of paint. We ran to the grocery store pretty quickly to get provisions because we were starving, and were so excited to find a nice grocery store super close by that had a great selection of food and has so many of our favorite brands of products that I usually had to go to different stores for - like Amy's, Mrs. Meyers, Kashi, and Kind. OH AND THEY SELL BEER AND ALCOHOL.
A win for us Massachusetts kids for sure! We also ordered an insane amount of sushi to pick up on the way home and had a fabulous feast. We spent the rest of our night unpacking and organizing and had a great night of sleep because we were utterly exhausted.
I will elaborate more in a future post, but we are here, we are safe, and we are unpacking. The cats are settling in, and would be happier without all of the noise.
Olive, as curious as can be and SO HAPPY to be out of the car.
Emu is the most comfortable cat you'll ever meet, and she spends most of her time stretched out in the hallway to keep cool. Comfort is not an issue with her.
Lots of happy stuff with a whole lot of suffering because moving is the WORST, as we all know! More later when we stop sweating and don't have to climb over stuff to enter and leave rooms.
-A
Final Olive Poop in the Car Tally:
Massachusetts (7/14/16)
New York (7/14/16)
Illinois (7/17/16)
Utah (7/21/16) (2x)
Arizona (7/22/16)
Nevada (7/23/16) (2x)
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