My best friend and I turned forty this year and so to celebrate / mourn the event(s) we decided to take a trip together. Despite living only a couple of hours apart, we have not seen each other in almost two years! She does not drive and I see my grandmother every weekend, so it just does not tend to work out. Anyway, we were in dire need of a hangout so we started trying to plan something a few months ago. Florida and Texas were also considered because we wanted somewhere sunny where we could hang out at a pool or beach but in the end we decided to go to Las Vegas.
To sum up the trip – I enjoyed myself and am glad I went but I do not think I ever need to go there again. Las Vegas is . . . a lot. I mean, it is shiny and huge and loud and just not very me. I don’t really drink or gamble much and am not a thrill seeker in any way so the city really does not have a lot to offer me.
Our time together started on Saturday, when BFF came to town and I picked her up at the train station. We got facials and haircuts at Aveda then pedicures at a nearby salon followed by dinner at a bar we used to like when she lived nearby. I just got a trim to get rid of the raggedy ends (even though I had not gotten it cut for at least a year) but I think it turned out well. Also, the facial cleaned out my pores. I had some blackheads on my nose which are thankfully gone now. For some reason I cannot recall, we chose to watch Magic Mike that evening before bed – it was even dumber than I recalled.
On Sunday morning, we got breakfast at a diner and headed to the airport. The flight was four hours, the longest I have been on since COVID, and was surprisingly uncomfortable. I started to feel some low grade nausea pretty immediately and thought that a Tums would take care of it but alas, it was not to be and when we landed I actually had to make use of the air sickness bag for the first time in like twenty-five years. I used to vomit on planes all the time as a kid but thought I had grown out of it. Apparently not. I also had a cold sweat going, which my BFF had also although she did not actually get sick, fortunately. So, the flight was not great but it was over! Immediately after stepping off the plane, we saw the obvious sign we were in Las Vegas. Well, maybe not the MOST obvious sign, because that was the literal one that led down to the baggage claim but right next to our arrival gate was a bank of electronic slot machines – in case you just can’t wait to gamble, I guess.
We took a taxi to our hotel, The MGM Grand, selected because its pool complex features a lazy river. We were both surprised at how close the airport is to the strip. I just assumed it would be further from the actual city like many airports are. Anyway, I was able to check in on the app which apparently also acts as a room key through bluetooth or NFC or something but we chose to “print” room key cards anyway because that just seemed more secure. We were only on the second floor and the view was basically non-existent but the room itself was perfectly comfortable although it did take us a bit of time to find it, the casino floor seems purposefully confusing and difficult to navigate and of course one has to weave between slot machines to get to the hotel rooms.
That evening, we headed out to explore a bit. We got ourselves 24-hour monorail passes and wandered around the building until we found the station. It was surprisingly far even though the stop was actually in our hotel. Each of the hotels in Las Vegas is the size of several city blocks, for which I was not quite prepared! We also had to do a lot of walking after getting off at the stop we chose, through an entire additional hotel, then up the street a ways to The Venetian. Once we finally got into the shopping district there, it was very nice although physically a bit confusing. There is a sky that is not the real sky although it is pleasant enough to look at. There were gondoliers serenading tourists as they poled down the indoor canal and we considered trying that for ourselves but determined we were too hungry and needed to find a restaurant instead. We went to a Trattoria for dinner and each ordered pizza, which turned out to be a mistake – even BFF with her regular stomach could not finish her whole dish so there was no hope for me and my surgically ensmallened one. We decided after that to get one entrée and one appetizer and split it so as not to be so wasteful. Also, food in Vegas is pricey!
After eating a bit too much food, we headed over to The Bellagio. There was a nice view from the skyway over Las Vegas Boulevard and we had a pretty good time gambling at the slots there. We actually found a machine that let you bet a penny per spin. It turns out that lots of the machines allow you to choose to pay a penny per credit but most of them require multiple credits for each bet; 50, 200, etc; 88 cents is a surprisingly common minimum. Anyway, it was on this unicorn of a machine that I actually won some money! I sort of understood how it worked but not totally. Still, I was able to get $26 from the cashout machine after only putting in $5 to play. I did gamble a little more during my stay, bringing my net gain down to only $10 but hey, I still won overall! The problem we had at The Bellagio was getting to the front to see the fountains. By that point we were exhausted and confused and there were not sidewalks where there should have been but we got there just in time to see the show, which was set to music and very beautiful. Afterward, we did have some trouble getting back to The MGM Grand though. My phone told me it was faster to take a side road but when we did that, we had to walk even further because there was no door to let us into the building there and we had to walk over halfway around the monstrosity before we discovered a usable entrance. I just have to say again – those buildings are so damn big! My watch says we walked about seven miles on Sunday.
On Monday, we decided not to leave the hotel all day. It was still quite the hike just to get to the pool complex although I don’t know exactly how far because in an attempt to avoid unnecessary tan lines, I left my watch in the hotel room. Apparently, The MGM Grand will not rent you a tube for the lazy river and buying one there is silly expensive (well, not really for Las Vegas, that place is not cheap) so I bought a couple on Amazon before we left. I figure they can be used at the pool near my parents’ house in the future, so they will not go to waste. The pool staff take the opening and closing hours very seriously and there were people lining up well before the lazy river opened at ten a.m. even though they could have been enjoying the other pools in the meantime. Of course, none of the three additional pools there are more than 3½ feet deep, not even the over-21 pool. I suspect it has something to do with drunk people. BFF was sad about that, she likes to swim more. Anyway, we were finally let into the lazy river area where we found a couple of shady lounges although unfortunately, they were not in the shade for long once the sun moved across the sky. The lounge chairs are crazy close together, which I do get because then they can fit more of them but it is terribly inconvenient to walk around a long row of them if you are not situated on the end. There were definitely a lot of drunk people on the river and plenty just standing at the edge or walking along without any tubes or floats but I am glad that we had some, floating was definitely more fun than walking. We actually tried to drink a bit ourselves; we had plans to share a frozen cocktail but apparently they won’t sell you alcohol without a proper ID. Neither of us had brought one along because we are forty and could hardly be mistaken for someone underage. They required an ID for credit card purchases too, apparently everybody but us knew to bring theirs along. Fortunately, I was able to use Apple Pay to get us some nachos and a fruit cup, otherwise we would have had to make the long slog back to our room just to be able to eat! Because of my position in the tube, my knees and chest took the brunt of the sun even though I was wearing sunblock, and turned a bit pink but overall, it was not too bad. My new hat (with a hole for my ponytail!) did a good job of keeping the sun off of my face and BFF kept her milky white legs underwater to help protect them from the harsh desert rays.
Once the lazy river closed for the day (at five p.m.) we headed back to our room to put actual clothes on. We had dinner at Grand Wok Noodle Bar in the hotel. What was weird about that place was the fact that they are a noodle place but only a couple of their dishes actually have noodles. We ordered orange chicken, which apparently comes with no sides at all, so we also got vegetable lo mein. The situation was a bit odd but the food was actually quite delicious. It turns out one meat dish and one noodle dish was just the right amount of food for the two of us, especially when paired with a delicious sparkly mango mocktail. We went straight from dinner to an in-house theater to watch Ka by Cirque du Soleil. As a birthday present, my brother bought us tickets to see it and he sprang for better seats than I would have! They were right in the center and close to the front and gave us a great view of the amazing acrobatics of the performers. I don’t really know what to say about the show except that it was absolutely amazing. Even the parts that were not crazily impressive (like the aerial duet or the feats of balance) were beautifully choreographed and performed. I was particularly blown away by the part where they fight on a mountain (a vertical platform studded with pegs) but I have no way to really describe it adequately. It just blew me away overall! By the end of the show, we were exhausted so we bought some overpriced cookies and went back to the room to relax in our pajamas. Surprisingly, the internet in the hotel was not good, the TV kept glitching and stopping, so we could not really watch anything but I guess people don’t go to Vegas for the television.
On Tuesday, we headed back to the lazy river, where we spent the morning after I slathered on extra sunblock to protect my already pink skin. We brought our IDs this time but did not really feel up to cocktails so we just lazed around until we got hungry enough for lunch. It being the day after a holiday weekend, I had assumed there would not be big crowds anymore – boy, was I wrong! The river was full of drunks again and we waited quite a while in line for the buffet. The buffet was less decadent than I had pictured (based on the media) but was still perfectly satisfying. I got a slice of beef that sated my appetite for a steak, which I had kind of wanted in Vegas and after asking around, we finally were able to have some vegetables in the form of a salad. The salad bar was sort of hidden around the corner from the rest of the buffet, it was weird. After lunch, we went back to the pool for a bit then went out again to explore a little bit more outside our hotel. We exited through the lobby, which seemed like it made sense but then we had to walk almost halfway around the hotel to actually get to Las Vegas Boulevard. The layout of these hotels continues to confuse me. We saw The Excalibur and New York, New York from across the street and did eventually make it to Milk Bar, where BFF bought some fancy cookies, and then headed to Eataly in the Park MGM. Unlike our last visit to Eataly in Chicago, we could not buy things like balsamic vinegar and olive oil to take home without paying exorbitant baggage fees, so we just got drinks and lost some money at that casino while we waited for a table at La Pizza e La Pasta. They had some pizza that looked good but since we had that just two nights before, we opted to get burrata with focaccia bread and a ravioli dish instead. BFF had a single glass of wine of which I took a sip; that was the sum total of our drinking for the trip. This time we had learned our lesson about following our phones’ maps and were able to return to our hotel in a reasonable and less exhausting amount of time.
Wednesday morning, we basically went straight to the airport, where I considered gambling away my $10 in winnings but ultimately decided against it. Exhausted, we got on a plane (armed with Dramamine, this time) and flew back home uneventfully. After showering off the plane germs, we watched some Junior Bake Off (how did I not know that was a thing?) and went to bed early. Las Vegas was exhausting!
KalyKnits 