Vegas, baby! (Day 1)

I love Vegas. I love hanging out and partying, the strip clubs, the shows, I'm not a huge gambler but I've come to love the penny slots at Casino Royale (where Scott's favorite craps tables are), and also a game that Alayne got us hooked on at Harrah's called Triple Shot, plus it's close enough to road trip (and I love me a good road trip!). However, being pregnant, I was a little apprehensive about deciding to go for the 4th of July, since it would be hot and possibly really uncomfortable, and because we were staying off-strip at our timeshare and we would have to find a way up to the strip anytime we wanted to do anything.

It turned out our apprehension was all in vain; we had a blast! I found a list of free things to do, we decided we would go see what tickets were available at the ticket broker and wing it on shows, and there would be a fireworks display on Saturday evening that we would go watch.

Staying off-strip didn't turn out to be a problem; we were staying at the Tropicana Ave. location with our timeshare, it's about two miles southwest of the strip, directly down the street from New York New York and the MGM Grand. When we needed to get to the strip, we would drive up to New York New York, park in their structure, and take the monorail anywhere we needed to go. We didn't take a cab a single time we were there; we got three day monorail passes and took that the entire time.

We made great time getting there, we left Thursday morning at 10, and got to the resort at 2 (check-in isn't until 4, so we had to wait a bit for the room to be ready, but they were totally cool about it and even gave us three free rentals from their DVD collection to compensate). After making a list of the shows we were interested in seeing, we headed over to the ticket broker to pass the time and get tickets for a show for the evening. While in line, we were chatting with one of the line regulators, who turned out to be super cool and gave us a really great tip about having Blue Man Group tickets at a bigger discount the next day, so we held off on getting tickets for that and saw Love Thursday instead, and also got a great discount voucher for Benihana before the show. Yummy.

Being just the two of us, they sat us with 6 other people around the grill. We met a very nice older couple from SoCal who were there with their adoreable grandchildren. I was very impressed with how well-behaved and polite the two teenagers were, especially being from LA. There was also a very nice younger couple who lived in Vegas, they were out on a date night away from their three kids. When it came up that I was expecting, I got fawned over a little, which was kind of fun :) We talked about babies and families, as well as theatre and living in the aread that we all lived in. It was a very pleasant dinner, and it was really cool to just chat with total strangers.

And then it was off to the Mirage for Love. Our tickets had come with complimentary admission to the Revolution lounge, this funky little post-modern bar with some awesome installation art pieces. Unfortunately, my camera wouldn't fit in the small purse that I brought, so I couldn't get any pictures of them. The one weird thing I have to say about the lounge is that it has the coolest bathroom I've ever seen. There's two entrances, one marked Men and the other Women, and those lead into a room with a round fountain-style sink. As you walk in, off to the left there are women's stalls and off to the right are men's stalls. No barriers, no walls. It's semi-coed. It sounds strange, but it's actually pretty cool.

The actual show was awesome. I've never seen a Cirque du Soliel before, and it totally lived up to expectations. I really enjoy the Beatles, and watching it paired with such incredibly talented dancers and acrobats was fantastic. It was a little long, especially after having driven all morning and afternoon, and my body is just about at the point where I can't be in the same position for very long without being uncomfortable, so by the time it was over I was very glad to be able to get up and stretch.

We decided to call it a night after that; it was about 10, it had been a long day, and I hadn't gotten my preggo nap. So back to the car, and back down the street to the resort for a good night's sleep.

Day 2 coming soon!