Erica & Wes' belated honeymoon road trip, part 3 -
BOULDER CITY, NV & LAS VEGAS, NV
My neck. My back. My Netflix. My snacks. (Even though I like Hulu more.)
Before venturing into Las Vegas, we made two impromptu stops. One was to the Hoover Dam and the other was to an alpaca store in Boulder City, NV (the world's largest alpaca store, to be exact). The Hoover Dam was damn impressive. Hahaha...puns. We wanted an alpaca from Alpaca Imports but they were over priced and we really had no place to display it at home. What does one do with a stuffed alpaca?
Then came the main part of our road trip... Las Vegas! \(^_^)/ We stayed at the MGM Grand and saw a different show each night. They were all really really good. It's hard to pick a favorite.
Our home for the next few days.
Wednesday: Arrival and Ka.
I couldn't find a good souvenir at the gift shop so I just took a promotional picture.
We gorged ourselves at the buffet and saw a sign for BOGO Ka (a Cirque Du Soleil performance) tickets. If you purchase one ticket at regular price, the second one was only $10. How do you not take advantage of a deal like that??!? The show was amazing. It was Wes' favorite of all their shows. It was the story of a prince & princess (royal twins) who are attacked by a villain who wants to abuse gunpowder. The twins get separated and they go on crazy adventures before reuniting and having a double wedding (they each fall in love along the way). My favorite act was a trapeze type act on a vertical floor.
Everyone was taking pictures when the show ended. (They had some good display props, costumes and artwork.) We came across a group of young female tourists who asked for me to take their picture. I took a few and became the best photographer ever. LOL They were so excited to return the favor and took several pictures of me & Wes with my phone. As we walked away, they all shouted out their thanks to me and proclaimed that I was #1. I think they maybe had been drinking just a tad. Hahaha!
Thursday: My favorite day <3
Korean BBQ for lunch.
We started the day with lunch with my uncle. I called and told him we'd be in town and he asked what type of food we liked. Korean is one of Wes' favorite cuisines so we all met up at Sura. My uncle was their first customer when the restaurant opened. We ate for hours (he kept telling us to take our time and get more food) until we felt like we were going to burst.
Wee Kirk O'the Heather
After lunch, we went to get married... again! We had a renewal of vows ceremony at the Wee Kirk O'the Heather chapel. We had an Elvis impersonator officiant (because Las Vegas, right?) This was the absolute best part of our trip for me. I wish I could show you pictures but they didn't allow photography inside and our photo order hasn't come back, yet. You can see the pictures at www.weekirk-photo-lab.smugmug.com/ Click wes_erica. We have both candid and posed pictures.
Our Elvis was hilarious. He was super nice in person and a ham of a performer. He had "Elvis vows" for us to recite and act out. I could see him out of the corner of my eye gyrating his hips away and then he made Wes do the moves. I couldn't stop laughing. Oh, and the lady at the front desk asked how long we've been married before renewing our vows so we told her five and a half months. Elvis remembered to throw that in throughout the ceremony. Five and a half months! Five and a half months! We were the happiest re-newlyweds.
That night we saw another Cirque Du Soleil performance, Zarkana. It was a traditional circus type show. The premise centered around the legend that theaters have to leave one light on at night so the ghosts of the theater can come out to play. There were all sort of circus acts ranging from tight ropes, sand art, human balancing pyramids, and hand ropes (my favorite). I enjoyed all of the acts --they were all crazy impressive-- but wish there was a story to tie it all together. Sadly, the theater didn't have any cool displays and there were no giggly tourists for me to be a photographer for. So we just left after the show.
Hand rope performance. They allowed non-flash photography.
After the show, we walked around the strip a bit and caught the dancing fountains at the Bellaigo. Then we called it a night.
Friday: Sharkreef at Mandalay Bay and David Copperfield... DAVID COPPERFIELD!!
I got to pet some sting rays and blue horseshoe crabs.
We walked what looked like a short distance to Mandalay Bay (it was NOT a short distance and we took the tram on the way back) and toured the aquarium. The aquarium was neat but I think we've been spoiled by the one in Sydney and nothing else compares. I'm not sure what we did after the aquarium. I think we went back to the hotel and I took a nap. Yeah, that sounds like me.
That night, we saw David Copperfield. David freakin' Copperfield!! I have seen all of his live TV specials and I had the biggest crush on him when I was little. He was my favorite celebrity in grade school. This was gonna be awesome.
The website that I bought our tickets from messed up the ticket dates (don't trust BestofVegas.com) so we got a seat upgrade. We were in the third row!! We shared a table with a couple from Norway. The show was great. He only did a few grand illusions but the audience interaction was what made the show. It was really funny and the audience members he chose were all pretty good, too. I almost got to participate. One of the stagehands came to our table beforehand to ask for a volunteer but it had to be a male. Our table-mate, Christian, got the honors. His show centered on when David was a child and this dinosaur toy that he had. For the last illusion, he made a life-size dinosaur skeleton appear in this empty box. Oh and he had dancing duck who waddled to Shake your tail feather.
Saturday: Walkin' the Strip
This was actually just a store at the MGM Grand. We didn't come across the actual sign.
Saturday was our last day and we hadn't gambled or done any shopping. What horrible tourists we were! I won a $5 slot machine voucher from the Lucky Cat at the Cosmopolitan so that's where we went. Wes advised that I play at least $100 because the machine would recognize that I put a large bill in and then it would pay out more but I was cheap and only put in $1 (you had to put in a bill in order to use the voucher). We wandered around the casino to find the perfect machine for me to spend my grand $6 on. I played the Big Bang Theory machine. I was doing okay at first (got up to $11) but then I lost it all. LOL
Me winning my voucher a few nights before.
Big Bang Theory!! I'm there with Penny but I'm a bit dark compared to her lit up image.
After that, we had lunch at Shake Shack--per my cousin, Kent's, advice. Good recommendation; yummy burgers!! Then we went to the Venetian for some shopping. I realized that I hadn't bought any souvenirs!! (I guess shopping isn't my strong suit.) I ended up with a shirt for my mom, another shirt for Mike and nothing for myself. Wes got us a poker chip magnet. I really didn't see anything that I liked.
Lunch!!
Then that was it. We drove out of Las Vegas in the middle of the afternoon and headed back to Arizona to see more family. Take a break ladies and gents, there will be more to come next week!
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