December was the month of colds. We did travel to Houston, San Antonio, and Seattle for Christmas, but there wasn’t enough to talk about. Beginning in January— it’s all about Grant’s birthday. The weekend of January 5th-7th which has been discussed for months — finally arrived. Grant painstakingly crafts his birthday to fit as much craziness in as possible and for everyone to maximize the time they are with each other.
Back to Basics in Vegas
Some people have been sheltering in place for a year and are just now coming out of hibernation. For us, it has only been a month, but like standard Grant and Luke shenanigans we definitely packed in quite a bit. At this time, we have decided to pause the adoption process and have been riding that emotional roller coaster. We are looking at different options to pursue, but giving ourselves a break for a bit to figure out what we want to do.
Gold Medal In Running Late to the Silver State
If there was a gold medal for running late and finding a way to still make that event on time— we would be awarded the gold medal. While this is incredibly stressful, it does make an ordinary trip a lot more interesting, but maybe not for the right reasons.
The Food Was Great, but The Scares Were Not...
Halloween is a big deal for Grant and me. We travel from coast to coast going to haunted houses to find that next big scare. This year we did not need to leave our home to be scared with all that is going on in the world, but being the thrill-seekers we decided to go out anyway. With Las Vegas “unofficially open” we rolled the dice and took a chance for a fun time.
Our Saturday morning flight out was normal. Grabbed our rental car and headed to our hotel. Grant procured a reservation for $18 a night at Stratosphere because our Halloween events were on that side of the strip. We won’t talk about how much the resort fee was... That’s where they get you.
The first stop was Mon Ami Gabi; the French bistro at the Paris Hotel. Grant loves the caesar salad at this place and constantly rants and raves. We had a very nice meal and then headed out to the Hoover Dam.
Having been to Las Vegas a million times and seen the signs for Hoover Dam tours everywhere it’s strange, but I have never been. Grant went as a child so he was excited to see it as an adult. The tours were closed, but we got to see the bridge and stand on the dam. Travel Tip: don’t park on the Nevada side. Keep going across the dam and into Arizona to save yourself the $10 parking fee Nevada tries to charge people.
We drove back to the hotel and got freshened up for our evening Haunted House. Our first stop was the Haunted Ride. This was an offshoot of the now de-funked Fright Doom at Circus Circus’s Adventure Dome and the Saw Escape Room. The premise behind this was that you would enter a haunted medical facility with doctors carrying cattle prods and usher you to a golf cart. You would then be personally chauffeured by this doctor through a maze of zombies, demons, clowns, that would chase you in the golf cart. Considering the limitations and social distancing guidelines— they did a stellar job hiding behind the fog, strobe lights and being able to sneak up on you.
Haunted houses rarely get my heart going, but it gets my stomach. Grant scored major major brownie points for getting a reservation at a restaurant that has long eluded me— Lotus of Siam. This unassuming Thai restaurant in a strip center off of the Vegas strip is anything but average. This restaurant has been featured in multiple television shows and has even been visited by the Queen of England. Grant is not a huge Thai fan so he had no idea what or how much I was ordering. I somehow managed to slip 2 appetizers, 1 soup, and 3 entrees for the two of us by him without objection. We also somehow found a way to eat all of that food. Highly recommend the Nam Kao Tod (crispy rice with sausage appetizer) and the Chef Special Crispy Duck Panang. Everything we ordered was $15 or less beside the duck, which was $30 (but the duck is usually expensive).
After licking multiple plates clean enough that they didn’t need to go through the dishwasher— Grant wheeled me out to our next haunted house. This was a new haunted house called Asylum and Hotel Fear that was found at the Meadows Mall.
There were people everywhere, but we had reservations so we were confident that we would not have to wait too long. However, as we parked and started walking to the event a gunman in a hoodie pulled out a handgun and began shooting. Bam. Bam. Bam. Bam. Bam. We had a perfect view of the guy shooting five shots away from us and others. We were close enough to see the red and orange glow of the barrel of the gun. Screams ran out and people began dispersing in every direction. We turned around, ducked our heads, and ran for the car. Grant got us out of there as quickly as he could. As we got on the highway and looked back police lights were already flashing. A bit shocked by what just happened —we returned to our hotel and called it an early night. We turned on the local news thinking that there would be some mention of the event, but there was nothing. The top story was far more sadistic and as the movie Nightcrawler put it best “if it bleeds, it leads.” So we took the non-mention as a positive that no one was hurt.
The next morning I scoured the news to see if there was any mention of our eventful evening and it didn’t even register as newsworthy in print. If Las Vegas wasn’t going to make a big deal about it neither were we. So we lounged around our room for a bit and then got up to try a restaurant Grant wanted to eat at called Firefly Tapas Kitchen and Bar. The food was spot on and continued our trend of having excellent food. Give me a bacon-wrapped date and you won’t see it for very long.
As we finished lunch, we realized we had nothing else planned. Our flight wasn’t until 7 pm so we needed something. Having looked up some side trips we kept seeing Red Rock Canyon come up over and over again. We had been to Red Rock Casino before with the Newmans, but never to the conservation area. So we jumped in our Kia Soul and set off for our next adventure highly unprepared. As we pulled off for the entrance for the scenic route there was a line of cars trying to get in. We also saw a $15 price tag and started having doubts. I was all set to turn around and leave when we saw a one-way sign that gave notice that exiting would pierce the tires. We didn’t need a clearer sign that we were going in.
Not realizing what we were in store for we were pleasantly surprised that it was a hike/climb on boulders and dunes. The one downfall of not knowing what we were doing was that both Grant and I were climbing with leather sandals, not tennis shoes. We somehow made it up pretty high with limited traction issues, snapped a few photos, and only had one little mishap where Grant slipped while leaping from boulder to boulder. The poor nearby hikers heard lots of expletives as Grant peeled himself up off the giant rock and limped the rest of the way. There were other places to stop and get out of the car for more climbing but for some reason, Grant wanted to keep driving.
As we were leaving the reserve we received notification that our flight was delayed by over two hours. This was disappointing as we were already ready to go. We went back to the hotel room and took a nap. We woke up hungry after our big day of exploring and ended up going to Las Vegas’s Town Square. I am not sure how long this has been opened, but it’s a high-end shopping and restaurant area right by the airport, which is a perfect place to waste time. We ate at Brio Italian and split some dishes. The only thing that Grant refused to eat was the beef carpaccio, which came out on a plate wider than a foot-long sub from Subway. I gobbled up everything on the plate including the last caper that fell on the table. Yummy.
We returned the rental car and then waited at the airport. The winds were extremely bad which explained why our flight was delayed. Take off was a bit rocky but the landing at home was smooth. Now to go to the scariest house of all— our own where our dogs have been left with minimal supervision for the last 48 hours. Yikes!
Mission For A Free Meal in Vegas
Covid-19 is still around, but evidently Las Vegas has decided to ignore the memo. Having decided to reopen about a week ago, Grant and I decided to sit out opening week to let things settle in. With a week in the books, we hopped a quick Spirit flight with previously cancelled vouchers for a quick Saturday to Sunday trip.
The flight itself was uneventful. Most people kept their masks on until we landed in Nevada and then all bets were off. Even the dutiful flight attendants removed their masks and smiles their goodbye as we departed the plane. Our first stop was to pick up our rental car from Budget. The last few trips we have booked with Costco Travel exclusively for rental cars and not only are they usually the cheapest, but usually come with a free upgrade.
We initally intended to go to Bobby’s Burger Palace as a quick burger sounded good, but we quickly came to realize that it was still temporarily closed. Not all of the casinos and restaurants were open and even those that were had strange modifications. We ended up going to Mon Ami Gabi, which was a Parisian resturant at the Paris. They sat us in the perfect spot— right in the middle of their La Cantina Doors so we had one foot in the patio and one foot inside the resturant. The air conditioning was wastefully blasting and so while it was close to 90+ degrees you couldn’t tell from the AC. We also had a great view of the Foutains of Bellagio, which we got to see from our table.
We got our steps in as we walked back from Paris to New York, New York and grabbed the car to check into MGM Grand. We got our room and Grant went to the pool, while I laid around relaxing. He came back to get me and we went lounging in the lazy river.
After getting cleaned up, we got ready to go to Jaleo by Jose Andres. The resturant specialized in Spanish Tapas, which have been our jam since visiting Spain. I ordered anything that looked good and then the bill came. Grant and I were somewhat full, and after our bill totaling $210 came our brain told our stomachs it was cut off. Everything we had was good, but nothing earth shattering or memorable.
The only memorable thing was Grant making an “I-Spy” joke about a woman sleeping at the bar. I kept looking and couldn’t see her. Defeated he explained it me and I laughed at how corny he is.
As we left, Grant kept muttering how expensive the dinner was and that he was going to be hungry later. That triggered a competition in me to get the dinner cheaper so I wouldn’t hear him complain. We had pulled out $100 to gamble and so I decided to not only not lose it, but try and get it to increase. This delusion is usually never actualized, but I was determined. So I started playing slots at the Cosmopolitan and ended up winning $50. So that shaved the bill to $160.
Since I didn’t want to press my luck to much we left and went to Fremont Street to witness the Fremont Street Light Show. It was pretty spectacular watching the screen roof above our head turn into an outdoor rave with people dancing in the street and jamming out to Steve Aoki. Again. No social distancing. We could almost picture CNN doing a live shot above the crowds scolding and talking about how people weren’t taking this seriously - like they do Florida beaches. We decided CNN wouldn’t be wrong; people were too close for our comfort so we took off after that and made our way back to the hotel.
The next morning I woke up and started responding to various student emails. Grant slowly woke up and we got ready to leave. Every hotel in Vegas charges a ridiculous resort fee and is always that “hidden gotcha” fee that no one likes. I called the front desk from our hotel room phone and politely asked for them to remove it. I also might have thrown in something like “I did not enjoy my hotel stay enough to willingly consent to pay an extra $39 plus tax.” Without a debate, they said “sure we will remove it!” I generously applied that $45 credit to our $160 remaining bill, which brought it down to $115.
We got out of the hotel without incident and ate at Viva Las Arapas at a little local shop off the strip. We drove around looking at different sites and tried to go to the Palms. It wasn’t open so we backtracked and made our way to Gold Coast Casino as we had no idea it was even over there. We entered played the Mad Max Game and won another $50 after hitting two bonuses. $65 for dinner now.
Now this may be cheating, but the expectation was that we were going to lose the $100 we had to gamble. After playing at multiple casinos and spending some here and there we ended up with $145 in my pocket. So $145 - $65 means the dinner was free and that Grant owes me $80. I am sure my math may be off somewhere.....really off....but I think the meal is at least somewhat affordable if you considered all the offsets. Hahahaha!
Flight home, Uber to car, and home with our Whole Foods delivery 15 minutes later. Not a bad weekend at all.
An Escaping Angel in the Zombie Apocalypse
Needing a break from a stressful month of remodeling, job hopping, and life— Grant and I decided to take a quick weekend trip to Vegas. Grant just went to Vegas and is always trying to get me to go. I finally caved under the condition that this weekend was not going to be about weird shows, but rather activities or hands-on experiences.
Our flight left Saturday morning and it was delayed. Evidently, its extremely difficult to get a flight crew the day before Easter for a 45 minute flight. So even though the plane was here and ready to go— we had a 2 hour delay due to flight attendants having to be brought in. A minor snafu because everything was already scheduled, but Vegas is really great about being flexible with rescheduling things if needed.
We took an uber from the airport to our grand hotel— The Linq. Straight up real talk— don’t stay at The Linq. It sucks. The food is awful, gambling is awful, rooms are tiny, weird smells, and a $35 resort fee per night. We originally were going to stay at Park MGM, but due to the timing of our flight this was a better deal. Upon entering our room we opened the window to find that we were looking at a cement wall. Needless to say our room looked like a prison.
Needing substance since we had only eaten junk food at the airport— we went over to Julian Serano’s Tapas at the Aria. Tapas are expensive little bits of Spanish food that are super flavorful. We ordered about 6 of them and our total skyrocketed north of $150.
The only thing memoriable thing about the lunch was when Grnat and I started intentionally saying super embarassing things. A guy leaned over the glass wall that was next to our table to talk to the table beside us. Finding this rude, instead of just being quite I started saying really perverted and inappropraite things really loud to embarass the guy to leave. It worked and we had a very nice remaining time at the resturant.
On a full stomach we left to go shoot zombies. We signed up for this Zombie Apocalypse experience taught by marines where we would storm buildings and shoot up anything in sight. We geared up and were taught the basics of breaching doors and where to go upon entering. If your the last person in you become the lookout. The experiecne on a whole was cool even though the zombies were a bit cheesy. Basically, guys dressed up in bunny costumes, clown costumes, and football costumes.
Having survived out encourter we then ran over to see Chris Angel’s new show Mindfreak. Fair warning. I hate Chris Angel. I find his show boring and dumb. Grant on the otherhand loves the show. Found it to be amazing and one of his favorite shows. My favorite part was sitting next to this “local” who had seen the show a few times, was clearly apart of Chris Angel’s fan club, and narrated the entire show. Even though everyone kept yelling at her to “shut-up” he beligerant demeanor and love of Chris Angel prevented her from shutting her trap. The real show was her.
I couldn’t convice Grant to leave early so we were running a bit late to our last stop, which was the Saw Escape Room. They dropped us off at a random meat packing plant, which was a cover for the game. Not knowing this in advance, we circled the block, which was not a smart idea considering where we were. Thankfully we were not mugged and made our way back to the store front. This time a security guard was there to usher us in.
Our team included Grant, myself, and 3 other random girls. We tried to be friendly and ask them if they had ever done an escape room. There response was “no we have never done an escape room, but we have done a room escape.” I was a bit puzzled by this response, but just said “cool.” The entire escape room was top notch and a lot of fun to do. Jigsaw was there to greet us and explained the rules of the game.
Once it got started Grant and I took over and tried giving people tasks. The other team members kind of just stood around. We would give them codes to put into doors and they would “attempt it” and it wouldn’t work. So I would then try it and it miraculously worked. Since its timed it is critical to be able to get everything done in a timely manner and they were not helping. We completed 4 out of the 7 rooms, which I took as a win. At the end we were brought into a gift shop. Grant and I looked around and the girls we were with just sat down. We went to leave and the girls who were super confused thought the gift shop was apart of the game. They literally got stuck in a gift shop. lol. We ended the night with room service.
The next morning we ate at our favorite Italian buffet — Buddy V’s. It was delicious as always and was a good price of $40 for a buffet on Easter. We then walked the strip up and down looking at the different hotels. Grant took off to go to the spa and I went back to the room to chill and watch the game. We checked out, our plane was again 2 hours late due to the flight attendants, and made our way home that is under construction. Fun times.