It all began a few weeks ago in a land called Provo. With a pleasant chime, an unexpected text message from Anne popped into my phone declaring it was that time of year, again, when she, as a Vegas resident, was able to purchase tickets to Cirque du Soleil at half price. I had just been to Europe and drained my finances pretty thoroughly, but...I'm a sucker for a good deal. So I called Javier and told him, and we decided it was time for the long-discussed Vegas weekend road trip.
After many delays (yes, we left later than planned—don't even feign surprise, people), we were on our way through the gorgeous countryside that is central and southern Utah. OK, so I'm embellishing. Gorgeous is certainly not the right word. Brown. That's a better word. But in southern Utah and through the canyon down to Vegas, it's actually not a bad drive at all.
We arrived in Vegas Friday night in time to get to Anne's place and meet up with her and Nicole, who was visiting Anne from Boise, and we freshened up and headed to see Ka at the MGM Grand. We met up briefly with Anne's visiting mother and her aunt, then we headed for dinner in the casino, so we could just run over to the show after eating. We ate at a fine dining restaurant known as the Rainforest Café. Delightful. I especially liked the shooting stars and random thunderstorms. But I'm pretty sure the cheetah had a camera in its eye and was spying on me the whole time. ...the food was...not fit for human consumption. At least, not in most situations, but for our purposes, it did the trick. Nicole had the right idea: banana crepe and ice cream for dinner. Smart girl.
As we arrived at Ka, Anne's aunt and mother were waiting for us, and we were greeted by a rather imposing girl shouting, "Anne! Anne!! Where have you been, Anne?!" We liked her. She was fun.
The show was awesome. Beautiful, captivating. A bit slow for a little bit, and I really could have done without the nature-boy mulleted wonder in naught but a sparkling speedo dangling around on a rope. But the creativity that went into that show, with the huge, moving/rotating/pivoting platform and lighting effects and scene transitions, was amazing. SO worth the money. ...well, I imagine it's worth the money, but we paid half-price, and it was definitely worth that. The rest of you suckers can decide whether it's worth full-price.
So we hung out around the Bellagio afterwards, saw some cool glass sculpture stuff, talked to a tree man, watched the Bellagio fountain show, set to Elton John's "Your Song", and held down our lunch at a few skanky cleavage-focused outfits and the accompanying pompous, dressed-up trailer trash men who are Vegas's high-spending clientele (no, I'm not being too harsh -- ever been to Vegas?), getting some good chuckles from all the clowns in Vegas (no, not the circus kind; the "I'm important because I'm throwing away tons of money on crap" kind), and headed back to Anne's neck of the woods for the night, far away from the "glamour" of the strip.
After arriving back at Anne's place, I noticed my car looked different. Something was missing. It was my license plate. Yay for the full Vegas experience. Either the perpetrator was polite enough to put my screws back in after neatly removing my plate, or they just yanked that baby clean off over the screws. Swift. Efficient. I can appreciate that. Crap, I still need to get that replaced. No police encounters yet, though, so apparently nobody has used my plate for any reported crimes as of yet. I'm looking forward to the day. Mental note: use screws with larger heads next time. ...and consider plate covers.
The next morning, Nicole flew home, and Javier and I met up with Anne again (thanks, Brian, for letting us crash at your place!). We decided to skip the strip and head out for a hike along Lake Mead, through the tunnels. It was a nice walk and a beautiful day. Pictures were a must, of course.
We also decided to head down the road another 10 minutes or so to see the Hoover Dam. Nostalgic thoughts of Superman came to mind. And a desire to have a large piece of fabric to hold over my head as I jump off. And wishing I could go for a swim in the clear water without being concerned about the whole getting sucked into a turbine thing. I did discover that if you threw water over the side of the dam, the water didn't fall but flew upward in a fun array of droplets. I tested it again and again, just to make sure it was for real. It was.
After hiking, we cleaned up and went on the all-important quest for tasty buffet food. We found...expensive buffet food. It was tasty, too. The Bellagio "gourmet" weekend buffet. Pricey stuff. I sampled as much as my little stomach allowed. Alaskan King crab legs, scallops, mussels, top sirloin with huckleberry sauce, shrimp pesto pizza, various desserts, sushi with seaweed stuff that was actually pretty good, ...all kinds of stuff. We gorged. We talked about the old days, current days, future days. We laughed and quoted The Simpsons. Anne and I pretended to be a horny "Vegas couple". It was not just "dinner", it was a three-hour extravaganza.
Aftewards, we were so tired, we just watched another Bellagio show, this time to Celine Dion's "The Heart Will Go On", and went back to crash at Anne's. We watched some of season 4 of the Simpsons. Good times. Oh, and we finally got Javier set up on Facebook. *evil laughter*
Sunday, we went to church with Anne and listened to a horrific talk (OK, not horrific, but seriously uncomfortable) and a couple of good ones, and nobody fainted in the hallway this time, so that was a plus. Then Javier and I headed home to Provo, after a quick lunch at In 'n Out burger.
We left the warm, short-sleeves weather of Vegas and hit the road to Provo. Within 3 hours, we were driving through a blizzard in Utah. It was like Utah was welcoming us back with punishment for having gone elsewhere to enjoy some warm sun. It was worth it, Utah.
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