Archive for November, 2009

We spent day 4 on the strip again, doing the must-sees (think animatronics) we hadn’t gotten to yet.

Despite all the fake construction, most of the foliage in the hotels is real.

Most.

We ate at the Bellagio buffet and it was by far the best buffet I’ve eaten.  A bonus was that after standing in line for a few minutes a guy came up to us and handed off a front-of-the-line ticket.  We walked right in!  We were leaving as the people that had been in front of us were just coming in.  Afterwards, we walked outside just in time to see the fountain show.  Oceans 11 moment.

Here’s how to really do chocolate fondue.

Here’s how to have fun in FAO Schwartz.  Marshall’s a silly boy.

We saw the lions at the MGM Grand.

I saved the best for last.  Animatronics.  It doesn’t get better than this.  If you’re ever in Vegas, this is a must-must-see.  Caesar’s Palace.  Write it down.

Thanks to M&M for making our vacation totally rad.  For taking us places they’ve been to multiple times before.  Good times, noodle salad!

See all the photos here.

We went to the shark aquarium at the Mandalay Bay.

They have real sharks there.

Marshall was eaten by a shark.

These are the two scariest sharks I have ever seen.

After being scared out of our mind by M&M sharks, we cruised out by Lake Mead to hike up into a slot canyon, which I think is called Lovell Wash.  Despite the 110 degree heat, it was sweet.  Kind of surreal.  Just don’t be caught in one during a flood.

The dawrgs were panting machines.  M&M said they usually run way ahead but they must have been extra dehydrated because they stayed pretty close.  It’s hard to pass up hand-fed water.

It was fun to be in the mountains outside of Vegas.  Cuz mountains are cool.  And it’s not the norm for visiting Vegas.  And these ones have stria.

All Vegas photos here.

The second day of our trip we toured the strip.  Which basically amounted to Marshall bragging about the different construction jobs he’d estimated down there and bragging about how much he knew about how everything was constructed.  Plaster this, drywall that, it was a blur.  All I really got out of it is that Marshall really had only estimated one tiny sunglasses shop and in the Palazzo and everything in Vegas construction is fake.  Fake marble, fake concrete, fake columns, fake gold leaf, fake breasts.  Oh, and then he told us the story about these cool Greek carvings on the side of the Palazzo.  Guess what?  Fake.  Apparently, the original designer (or whatever) found these random images on the world wide web to fill in the blank rectangles temporarily and nobody ever changed it.  They decided they were kind of cool so they went with it.  Haha, seriously who cares if they meant anything anyway.

Actually, it was really cool to see what Marshall has been up to in Vegas for the last few years (work-wise).  The construction is quite amazing.  Everything is so huge.  I have literally zero experience in construction but I would think creating these monstrosities has to be intimidating for an architect and the all the builders that have a hand in it.

In our tour, we of course passed lots of inviting fashion stores.  The prices are high but they definitely throw-down in style.

We each played the slots with $20 – Lacey won $5!  I lost it all.. but I did have this “almost” moment.

We went to a Cirque du Soleil show that night.  Beatles Love.  These shows are always incredible.  At one point they covered almost the entire audience with a gigantic white sheet – it was like the parachute bubble in elementary school – and then the whole sheet was sucked into the stage floor.  If you’ve never been to a show, the theaters are circular with the stage in the middle.  The most intense part was an acrobat floating around on a large swing like forty feet in the air.  I was just waiting for him to slip and eat it.  Ack!  Well you can’t take photos during the show but here’s the entrance, which is fantastic in itself.

All the Vegas photos here.