Vegas Trip ... a look back

So Jeff and I flew off to Vegas the day after his birthday.  It was so nice to have 3 days off work (Fri, Sat and most of Sunday) before catching the evening flight out.  The house was clean and laundry done before we left and plenty of time to lay around and relax and enjoy his birthday before vaca.

Our flight out of Rockford was an hour delayed but funny because it was our first time not flying out of O'Hare.  Rockford is very tiny and we called it the Home depot airport because honestly it's smaller than your average Home Depot.  And the "international" terminal I named the Feed Store because it was a metal shed really. But anyways...we landed in Vegas and got to our hotel about 11:30 Vegas time.  So we spent the next three hours just in our casino (Bally's) and the casino attached (Paris) before finally getting to sleep around 3am.

Waking up at 8am we hit the ground running.  We went for a quick buffet breakfast and decided to venture into just the middle part of the strip since we were staying there and had plans for lunch at Cesear's.  So we hit Bill's Gambling Hall and Casino, the Flamingo, Bellagio's, Cesear's and the Mirage.  In the middle of the day as planned we headed to Mesa Grill in Cesear's....this is Bobby Flay's restaurant.  If you watch the food network at all or the Today show you know who Bobby is.

OMG I can not describe how delicious this meal was.  I had high hopes and it certainly delivered.  The best of the entire meal was the appetizer we shared.  I had decided before going there that I wanted the smoked chicken and black bean quesadilla's with avocado and creme fraische.  I swear to God, I almost had an orgasm it was that good.  Then for the main dish I had a cornmeal encrusted Chilie Relleno with manchengo cheese.  And of course, a Margarita for a drink.  All so delish!!

For the evening we just stayed close to "home" in Bally's and Paris again and I went to bed at 2am but slept only until 7am.  I wondered if 5 hours is the magic number of hours of sleep in Vegas.

We walked past the fountain pond (no fountains during the day) at Bellagio and went into the "newer" Cosmopolitan.  It really looks in there like Carry Bradshaw was the designer.  I was afraid it was a snootier, younger, hipper place (from their ads) but thankfully at 9am we fit in fine.  Did see a few girls doing the walk of shame into the hotel hahahaha.  Jeff and I walked out of there up a little but then headed to the Aria where I then proceeded to lose it but Jeff continued to win.  So we moved on to the Monte Carlo, and then New York, New York.  We held our own and had some fun but were on a mission to make it the whole south strip so walked on to Excalibur and Luxor - again to gain and lose a little.  Finally we got to the last casino on the west side of the street....Mandalay Bay where we decided to play a little before heading to that day's destination Minus 5 (more on this soon).  It was a great place to play for me, because Jeff decided he wanted to play at one of those big Wheel of Fortune games and I won $200! Woohoo.  And this is when I decided we'd buy a picture when we went to Minus 5.


Now, before we had left - for months, Jeff has been playing a facebook game called "My Vegas" where you earn points playing a game for free that you can then change into real activities in Vegas.  He had earned enough points for one free entry and two free drinks at the ice bar Minus Five.  So we went to redeem it only to realize we had left the code for his points in the hotel room (Noooooo!) but they were able to find them at the rewards booth and gave us a voucher for $70.  ((More than he had earned! He'd only earned $54)) So we headed to the Bar that's in the mall just outside the casino.  They had never seen that voucher before but said they'd honor it and even did a little better...they gave us two free entries and four free drinks ($74 plus tax value).  Sweet!  So we got into the Ugg-like boots, gloves and calf length parka (with our legs bar from wearing shorts in the warm 88 degree Vegas weather).

Inside Minus 5 is amazing!  Everything is made of ice (except the floor).  Even the chandeliers that look like glass are ice.  As well as the bar, the benches (which are covered with faux fur pelts) and all the carvings inside.  There was a woman's bust (her actual bust, not artsy like a bust of the head) that was an ice sculptor for getting shots out of her nipples.  Even the glass you're drinking out of is made of ice.  This is why it's a vodka bar since it will not freeze at 31 degrees Fahrenheit (minus five Celsius, thus the name).  We posed for three pictures and had our two drinks each - one of which I really want to really want to recreate.  It's called a Snowflake.  It has mango flavored vodka, pineapple and orange juice. YUMMY!  But two drinks is all you really want to be in there.  Because while there is no wind or moisture, it still starts to feel a little cold after half an hour (at least on the bare legs).

Afterwards we picked the one picture we wanted to pay for and I stole the other two by using my camera phone and the internet.  I really love the one we bought and don't care that the other two are not as great quality from photographing a computer screen. So please ignore the "do not copy" as I just really want to show off the bar and one sculpture.

After than we went to the east side of the street and hit the Tropicana and the MGM Grand.  I don't remember much about them...but then I was a bit day-side drunk at this point LOL.  I remember the Trop as being rather plain.  To end a long day we hit Jeff's fav burger joint in the world for diner: Fat Burger!  For a little grease to soak up the alcohol.  We got back to Bally's/Paris where I decided at 8:45 I had enough.  Went upstairs and soaked my legs in a hot bath, and watched TV until 11pm when I finally went to sleep for seven hours!!!...but Jeff had stayed up later than I so I had plenty of time to shower, do the hair and makeup, check up on facebook and my bump girls before heading out for a full day on the north side.

So Wednesday we headed out for another full day... we hit McDonalds for breakfast and stopped in Casino Royal, The Venetian, Wynn, and Encore.  While at the Venetian, I convinced Jeff that since I got to have the best meal of my life we should stop at Emeril Laggase's restaurant for him to repeat what he said was his best...the Lobster Bisque soup he had at a friend's bachelor party over four years ago.  We decided because of cost to just share and app and have the soup instead of a "full meal" there.  And it did deliver on OMG status...but not better than Bobby IMHO.  Next up? Riviera (where we tried to find the escalator they use in both Rainman and Hangover part 1) only to not find it.This is the only escalator we found...it must be hidden somewhere because I swear we looked everywhere. So we crossed the street and hit "Slots o' Fun" and quickly walked  into Circus Circus and decided it was not our kind of place (a dump) but caught a cab out to Rio (off the strip) to play for a few hours and get Day side drunk again off vodka cranberry's.  We again decided grease to soak up the alcohol was the route to go and ate at the Burger King inside and then headed back to our hotel on the free shuttle.


Since we were doing so well maintaining our bank (Up, down, even)...we decided to spend the night casino hoping in our little area but first I insisted on seeing the nightly fountain at Bellagio.  Amazing that water set to song would be so mesmerizing.  Then spent most of the night at Cesears.  Getting six hours sleep and catching breakfast - we only had an hour and a half to play before our shuttle took us back to the airport and home to reality.  We took $200 and played....and thank God we didn't hit that massive losing streak until that last day because I've never seen $125 go so quickly!  But leaving with some money in our pockets, and money in our account we had designated as "Vgas money" felt like a WIN to me. We had so much fun!