Last year, when Kevin and I were at our race in Corpus Christi, we spun a wheel at a booth the night before the race, and we won a trip to Vegas. And so, on my birthday, we hopped on a flight to Vegas for a fun little getaway. They only paid for us to fly Spirit airlines, but it was just fine, because it was such a short trip, we only packed a backpack each and it was just fine. We went straight from lunch after playing golf in the morning, to the airport to catch our flight.
The flight was only about three hours, and when we arrived, my dear friend, Brandi, picked us up from the airport. It was so fantastic to see her!!
The three of us went to dinner at Gordon Ramsay's Burger restaurant, and that was one amazing melt in your mouth burger, but the conversation was even better.
The best part of the meal, however, was the sticky toffee pudding that we got as my birthday dessert to share. It was to die for good! I mean, Brandi, who really doesn't like dessert, ate her whole portion, savoring every bite. Seriously, it was AMAZING!!
After dinner, Brandi dropped us off at our hotel, The Luxor. After getting checked in, we may have had a bit of an adventure trying to find the elevator to take to get to our room. We were supposed to take the red elevator, but tried the burgundy elevator, not realizing it was wrong, and our key card would not make it go, and when we accidentally made it to the right floor, there wasn't a room number to match - ha ha!! Turned out we were in a tower on the complete opposite side of the property. Good times!
The next morning, because our bodies were on Texas time, we were up and wide awake at 4:30 am. Since we were up, we researched good donut shops in Vegas, but since we were carless, we decided on Pinkbox Donuts, which was just a short 3ish miles from our hotel, instead of 15+ miles across town. We got ready for the day, and by 6 am, we were walking down the cold, but very empty strip.
It was pretty cool to have it mostly to ourselves, except for a few runners and some random homeless people. To make our way along the street, there were a lot of streets where we had to walk to pedestrian bridges. One of the times, we could not find the stairway for the life of us, and so we tried the elevator, only to have it open with a homeless person asleep inside. Needless to say, we searched again until we found the stairs - ha ha!
After an hour of walking, we did eventually make it to the donuts!! It was a popup inside what looked to be a really great deli, and I wanted all the bagels too, but we stuck to the donuts. They all looked all so amazing, it was hard to pick, but Kevin's favorite was their maple bar. He didn't let me taste it, and so I can't chime in. My favorite was the strawberry shortcake one with fresh strawberries.
To get back to our hotel, we thought we would take the tram, which was supposed to be a short walk from the donuts. It was the station by the Convention Center, but because of construction and very large fences everywhere, we could not get in!! We had to walk an entire mile out of our way just to get to the station. However, because of it, we were the most popular people ever as we walked around with our donut box, and got to tell people as we went where to get them. Good times! The tram was pretty cool, and reminded me of the monorail at Disney. And as we went past the golf course at the Wynn, it was cool to be able to see down into it. Also, there was a random coyote in the space where they keep all their equipment. Crazy!
Once we got off at the station, we still had to make our way through the entire MGM Grand Resort, and so I took a picture with the golden lion so I could show Arthur.
We then crossed the street and had to walk by/through a few more resorts to get back to our hotel. The Luxor really is pretty cool looking, and even though it is old and needs some maintenance, I love all the Egyptian architecture.
We went back to our room and took the first of many naps throughout the day, and I also got to read a lot of my book while we chilled in our room. At 11 am we had an appointment at the Flyover Vegas, where we got to ride on a cool thing - very much like Soarin' at Epcot Center. They had a few different ones to choose from, and decided on the American West. It was very fun, and lasted about 20 minutes, which was awesome. Such a fun activity, and I am so glad Kevin found it.
Across the street from the Flyover Vegas, was the amazing Eataly. I had always wanted to go to one of them in New York City, and so when I saw one in Vegas, we had to go there for lunch. It was very pricey, and we weren't super hungry because of all the donuts, and so we shared some pasta - Cacio E Pepe, to be exact. It was delicious! And after the pasta, we shared a gelato. There were so many other amazing looking things to eat there, I would have been happy eating there for multiple meals. Yum!
We spent the afternoon napping and reading off and on. We actually never turned on the TV, which was pretty funny. We had contemplated going to the hot tub, but the one at our hotel was still closed for the season, and we would have had to go to the resort next door. No thanks. Especially because it was still pretty darn cold outside. I did take a bath in the deep tub in our room, which was nice, since the big tub in our master bath has no hot water running to it - ha ha!
Eventually, it was time for us to finally go down to the casino to use the leftover change that Kevin saved from our garage sale back in Pennsylvania. He decided that we would play a game - see who won the most money, but play until it was gone. Years and years ago, I had played the nickel slots just because I was old enough to do so (back when you could still put coins in a slot machine), but had never actually gambled. Well, Kevin and I discovered that I am a VERY grumpy gambler. I was angry at the stupid nonsensical machines that made no sense at all about what won and what didn't. I may have told the machines that they sucked, as I tried a few different ones, hoping to find one that actually made sense to me. (It's a good thing I wasn't playing at a table, or I may have yelled at the dealer and gotten thrown out. Seriously.) And I was angry when Kevin played too. I was especially angry that I was playing by the penny, and even if I still had money in there, if it wasn't enough for the minimum bet, I couldn't use it, which caused me to cash out a quarter, as I was not just giving that money to the evil machine. Kevin was giddily happy as he made fun of my surliness. I am pretty sure I even made a Miss Piggy growl. I mean, I had never planned on gambling, but this just showed me, it is definitely NOT my thing. I hated it.
After the horrible experience with the video game things that they say are slot machines, we went back to our room for a bit before Kevin's brother, Scott, and his wife, Shannon, picked us up for dinner. We went to the yummiest pizzeria near where they live, and the food was great, but the company was even better. We had such a great time catching up, especially because we don't get to see them very often. After dinner, we went to their house to hang out and talk some more before they took us back to the hotel. Their dogs, Cooper and Finn, were very, very friendly. Finn kept trying to lick my face, which I managed to dodge, and Cooper kept wanting to smell the back of my neck. Pretty funny, but my favorite part was when both dogs had made themselves at home on Kevin's lap. I think the beard drew them to him - ha ha!
Wednesday morning, we were up bright and early, yet again, but this time we actually had a purpose in getting up, as we needed to pack up and head to the airport. Luckily, our plane was time (after my last trip, I may have been a little paranoid until I saw the plane) and we had a great flight back to San Antonio, especially because for $11 each, we were able to get seats in the exit row, and we were the only two people in our row. So much legroom, even though the seats still felt made of wood. Good times! And so, it was back to reality. We had such a fun time, and are so grateful to Lily for holding down the fort while we were gone.