Viva Las Vegas

I have recently been obsessed with my Ding! App. from Southwest. I love Southwest! I love them because it has been fairly easy for me to obtain free flights so whenever possible I do all I can to fly Southwest. I recently received a Ding! for super cheap flights to Las Vegas so we booked em' and headed to Sin City for the weekend.

This was my priority list:
1. Pool
2. Shop at the Outlets
3. Stay in a nice hotel

This was Jer's priority list:
1. Buffet's
2. Golf
3. Buffet's

This was how the weekend actually went:

We arrived and headed straight to the hotel (a Marriott, so not a super nice hotel like I wanted but still nice - on a side note, I'm not having as much success with the Priceline Negotiation App as with the Southwest, hence the Marriot and not The Wynn). We checked in at 3:00 and were in a hurry to get over to the Bellagio for our first buffet, we wanted to be there around 3:15 to get the lunch price but still be able to get the dinner food which started at 4:00 (I know, how "Senior Couple"ish are we?) However we were running a bit late and couldn't decide if we needed to dress up for the comedy show we were going to at 7:00. We decided we did need to dress up (first mistake) and that we wouldn't have time to come back to change. So we hurried and changed our clothes and off we went.

Unfortunately, because of our delay at the hotel we arrived at the cash register of the buffet at 4:02, which means we got to pay $35 for each dinner as opposed to $17. It was an expensive 2 minutes. But the food helped wash away our pain...and all the hard work we've been doing at the gym.

Jer loved the meats and crab legs.



I loved the chocolate dipped strawberries and the pizza!



After dinner we started heading down the strip, we needed to go 1.2 miles in about 2 hours. Cake, right? Not so much, due to the clothes change. The shoes I was wearing started hurting my feet about 50 yards into the walk, but I thought I would be able to make it. That's when we hit mistake #2. We hadn't made it very far when it started getting kind of cold, we were at the Miracle Mile Shops and I thought, hey that's a mile, let's just walk inside the mall and be warm and still head in the right direction. Wrong. The Miracle Mile isn't so much built in a north-south direction and by the time we came out we had only made it maybe half a block further, and by that time my feet were on fire. I had blisters forming on both pinky toes and both heels. It was so bad we stopped at an ABC store to see about buying some flip-flops, which we found but they cost $8 so I didn't want to buy them, mistake #3. So on we went down the strip with me hobbling along like Quasimodo, literally. I was in so much pain. I kept trying to walk in different ways to avoid the pain but nothing helped, and everything made me look more and more stupid. Finally, by some small miracle we made it to our show and I was able to sit in peace...

Turns out, if you take off shoes that are too small after straining your feet for a 1.2+ mile walk, they swell. Who knew? So now the shoes really don't fit, and really cause pain. I can barely walk. Somehow we hobble down to the main level and stumble upon a gift shop where the flip-flops are now $26. And we kept hobbling on. We decided we just needed to make it to the monorail which was just across the street. We made it outside and I wasn't doing to well so Jer decides he will carry me. So I hop on his back and off we go, we weren't really making better speed with this new plan because every few steps Jer would have to stop and kind of boost me back up on his back because I kept sliding off. People probably thought we were some drunk in love couple but I assure you, we were none of those things at that moment. Finally, we made it to the monorail and we think we are saved and we find out the monorail is going to cost $10 for us to ride, and we will still have to walk all the way through two casinos and across the strip to get to our car. Why didn't I buy the $8 flip-flops? After much debate we just pay the $10 and ride one stop down on the monorail. At this point Jer has finally convinced me to just take the shoes off and walk barefoot. I had been refusing to do this because I didn't think it was appropriate behavior but finally I gave in and we made it back to the car, with very dirty feet.

Luckily, the mini-vacation did get better. We got up the next day and went to the breakfast buffet at the Paris and after stuffing our faces again we walked around for a bit where we were able to learn it is the year of the Tiger.



And we also were able to visit the best Pawn Shop in Las Vegas, star of the show Pawn Stars. Chum Lee wasn't there but we had fun taking pictures anyway.




We then headed back to the hotel for a much needed nap (cause we'd been working so hard...eating and driving). After our nap we decided we needed to do something spiritual seeing as it was Sunday and we were in Sin City, sinning so we headed up to see the Las Vegas Temple.



After the spiritual journey we headed to the Outlets to do some shopping which was quite enjoyable for me, but much less enjoyable for Jer. Finally we ended the evening by enjoying some sandwiches from Capriottis. They were SO good and I'm not sure how Jer ever lived without them. His description of the sandwich is as follows:

"Turkey - Awesome, Stuffing - Awesome, Cranberry Sauce - Awesome, all of it on a sandwich - Awesome!"

After all of this we needed some more relaxation and wanted to head to the hot tub. I was very cold so I decided to dress up for a journey to the pool.



As we got on the elevator, a group of maybe 5 guys was getting off and they gave me an interesting look at my outfit but I didn't really care because I wanted to be warm when we came back up. Unfortunately, the pool was closed. As we dejectedly returned to our floor the same guys were getting back on the elevator. Now I just looked like an idiot, even I can admit that. I mean maybe if I had come back wet, it would have explained walking around in a robe, but to come back up maybe 30 seconds later, just looks ridiculous. Oh well, it's just Vegas!