Day 4: On the road again

Finally back to my trip recap! I'm going to forget everything at this rate.

As usual, here's where I post links to the previous entries in case you're just joining us:

Day 1
Day 2
Day 3 (Part 1)
Day 3 (Part 2)
Gallery of all my photos, most of which did not make it in the blog posts

Okay! On Saturday (back on October 10th), Dania and I had our last morning in Utah before heading back to Vegas. Before leaving Bryce, we wanted to check out the view in different lighting, and from a different point than what we had seen the day before.


We headed to Inspiration Point, which is at 8,100 feet elevation.


Even though these pictures are cool for me to look at, I know that they don't compare to real life. There are so many textures and colors and every angle is a little different. Plus it's just really interesting, and not the kind of terrain you run into every day (unless you live there, of course!). I'm getting broken record-y about this, but it was just such a unique experience to see this canyon full of spires and hoodoos.


Eventually it was time to get going, and we said goodbye to Bryce and started back on our longish drive (about 4 hours, I guess) to Vegas. It went pretty smoothly, and they let you drive fast in Utah. Sometimes the highway had an 85mph limit! I wasn't very comfortable maintaining that, though I'm sure I would if I had a bit more practice.

We stopped for lunch in...I forget the town. A place that has a university. Oh, Cedar City! I looked it up. That was probably the first normal-sized city we came across, and they happened to have a Zaxby's. I had only been once in NC years ago and remembered it being a yummy southern fast food chain. We picked up some lunch, made another stop at Walmart (I can't even remember why now), and then made it to Vegas in the early afternoon.

Since we had a bit of time before our flights, we made a couple of stops. First was to a mermaid show Dania had read about. This girl was the only mermaid that day, and she swam around and played little window games with the kids.

Then we decided to go back to the Bellagio. I really wanted to see it again because I loved it there and was eager to watch the fountain show again in daylight. First we walked through the lobby and conservatory, though.

You saw this from when we went on Wednesday, but it was night time then.

Check out this pumpkin made of roses.

I'm in ♥ with the Bellagio. Hm...am I supposed to say "the" in front of it or not?

We watched the fountain show, and then went and had some gelato. Time was getting tight by this point, because everything takes longer than you think it should (like walking to the gelato place, waiting in line, finding the car, dealing with traffic). But we managed to get the rental car back in time and clear everything out.

After we were checked in at the airport, we eventually parted ways so that Dania could fly back to Sacramento while I flew to Albuquerque. It was a little sad to see this portion of the trip come to an end, but I was excited to see my sister's family for a couple of days! I can't even remember much about the rest of that night besides landing in Albuquerque and my sister and brother-in-law picking me up. We got back late, so most of the girls were asleep in anticipation of an early morning at the balloon fiesta. The oldest, L, was letting me use her bedroom and it looked so cute and tidy! And then we all went to sleep.

Hopefully soon I can talk about Sunday at the balloon fiesta and the remainder of my trip! Thanks for following along. As always, I have additional photos here in this gallery: Utah Trip Gallery

Day 1: Vegas, baby!

Before I forget everything, let's talk about that trip I took! This will be very summarized or I'll never finish.

I purposely took a later flight so I wouldn't have to get up SUPER early and then feel all tired and headachey. I arrived in Vegas at around 1pm and Dania had already gotten the rental car and picked up some snacks and beverages. After picking me up, she wanted to stop by the Pinball Hall of Fame, where we played a few games. Then we headed to our hotel, the Monte Carlo, and unloaded our stuff.

[Dania's burger at Holstein's]

By then it was late afternoon and I hadn't eaten a real lunch, so we opted to have an early dinner and then sight-see afterwards. We had dinner at Holstein's, a burger place in the Cosmopolitan hotel. It was pretty good, and the hotel had some really cool decor.

Vegas is so over-the-top and decorated, which would never work in, say, my own home. But it's cool to see and photograph! There was this bar area that was surrounded in strings of crystals (I guess it's called the Chandelier Bar, now that I looked it up), and then a whole wall of sewing machines, plus quirky lights, video screens and statues.

We headed back to the hotel briefly before going out again. We wanted to go swimming, but the pool/lazy river was unfortunately closed! :(

 [Chihuly ceiling installation (?) in the Bellagio lobby. So cool.]

There are sooooooo many things to see and spend time on, but we had to make some sacrifices and set priorities. Not only because of our short stay, but it just takes time and energy to get everywhere. We went to the Bellagio and saw the botanical garden/conservatory, the general lobby area, and the fountain show. I loved that hotel and all of the cool things to see. It's more sophisticated than some of the other hotels and there are all sorts of beautiful details in the decor.

We walked around a bit and Dania wanted to see the Venetian after having seen it on a previous visit. It took awhile to get there, but it was really cool. They have the canals and gondolas and then inside is a pretend sky over an area that is supposed to look like Italy (I wouldn't know). The gondola drivers sing, too. I know most of you are aware of all this, but I thought I'd mention some details for people who haven't been or heard much about Las Vegas.

We agreed that a cab was in order for our ride home. We were exhausted from walking so much (with all my camera stuff, including the tripod), plus it had been a long day of travel. It probably took just as long to get back in the cab, due to traffic, but it was so worth it to sit down awhile. Then we grabbed some frozen yogurt and went back to our hotel to relax and watch TV.

These are just a few of the photos, but I have more in a gallery I'm starting and will link to in each post. Click here to visit the gallery! You may leave questions/comments on the photos and I'll try and respond. I didn't spend a bunch of time on edits, so just accept most of these as travel snapshots. :)

Have you been to Vegas? What's your favorite thing to see there?