LAS VEGAS

Unwillingly, it seemed that my aim for my time in Las Vegas was to see how much food I {Tenille} could fit in my stomach before I exploded. I feel like I came close to exploding a few times. After a buffet brunch at the Cosmopolitan Casino I had to sit down after walking every 50 metres or so, I was just so full. It wasn’t my fault though, how can they put so much delicious food in front of me and expect restraint?

We stayed the first night in the Stratosphere hotel, down the Northern end of the strip. I think it was the ghetto. It was more ghetto than the main strip, but not as ghetto as downtown, Fremont St area. We booked only the one night as we decided to leave Death Valley a day early and start the Vegas fun! It was great staying there as it has a tower that rises over 900 feet above the strip, giving an awesome view of the city. We went up the tower for 2 for 1 cocktails and had so much fun with that. What we didn’t realize was that when they say two for one, it wasn’t choose one each and get two, it was choose one each and end up with four, we didn’t complain too much! We continued onto the next bar where we got endless mojitos for $25. Wow we got our money’s worth. I {Zane} even got some alone time, sitting in the bar overlooking the strip whilst Tenille had to go and get changed out of her dress {ate too much again}. This ordeal should have taken approximately half an hour which includes the stumble there and back, I’m not completely sure, I too was slightly intoxicated, but by my drunken calculations Tenille returned about one and a half hours later, I had drunk another cocktail after I finished the one I got when she left and had started on Tenille’s cocktail when she returned, a lot comfier and ready to get her drink on! After we drank till out time was up we had to make it back to our room, a lot harder task when intoxicated! Along the way we came across some of those little shops you find in the in the middle of the isles in malls, well these were in the middle of the isle in the casino, we should have know that alcohol + first night in Vegas + shops = money spent! Tenille got her sights on some hair straighteners and stopped to ask the price, the lovely lady said that seeing as she was closing {11pm} she would give us a deal, we accepted, Tenille’s old $25 hair straightener wasn’t doing her justice, so we bought a new one, retail at nearly $300, got it for $80, drunken shopping pays off :)

For the rest of our time in Vegas we stayed in the Tropicana Casino and hotel, which is more centrally located in the strip, near MGM Grand and New York New York. We had a great day shopping the outlets and then a full day of sightseeing. We loved the Bellagio fountains, which were so far beyond what I expected. It’s pretty much just jets of water in different directions set to music but I loved it, maybe because I was fairly liquored. We went to the House of Blues bar a few times for meals and live music. It’s in Mandalay Bay Casino and they have live blues music every day and half price appetizers and $2 beers from 4-7, {we had 2 beers each and then, realizing we were on to a good thing, bought a bucket of six beers}, which makes for a great afternoon. We had dinner there one night and I had amazing Jambalaya and Zane had a nice big steak.

We tried to be thrifty and collect as many 2 for 1 drink cards we could and got the all day buffets when it was viable. It was at these that I seemed to exercise my right to eat until I felt sick.

On our last afternoon in Vegas we went on a Helicopter ride out to the Grand Canyon. It was great as we got to see the Hoover Dam and Lake Mead and it was a spectacular way to see the canyon. At one point we were flying at 6,000 feet, and the canyon descended 4,000 feet below. We landed and had some lunch before jetting off back to Vegas. It was an amazing afternoon, one that I will not forget. To put the experience in perspective, in the 3 hour trip we took over 200 photos!

Since writing, we have enjoyed more of the Grand Canyon, Zion National Park, Bryce Canyon National Park and are currently at Arches National Park, in Utah. More posts to come!

Unfortunately the photos are taking an inexplicably long time to load, so I will have to post them at a later date.

Much love, T and Z