September 15, 2009 | Family Portrait,How coolio is THAT?,Life in General,The 4-1-1 on Me,Weekend Wrap-Up
To celebrate our 3yr anniversary, Mr. Maul and I went to Las Vegas . We took Friday off, drove down and came back Sunday. So here’s what we did:
FRIDAY –
We stopped at the Hoover Dam. TRANSFORMERS was filmed there, y’know.
Got to Vegas a little after 3, checked into our hotel, Excalibur, then explored our surroundings a little bit, trying to get ideas for what we wanted to do. That night, we went to dinner at Cathouse in the Luxor:
This restaurant was designed to look like a bordello. The setting was very intimate and it was where I had my very first real alcoholic drink. I say real because I am not a drinker. I don’t like the taste of hard alcohol, wine, beer, wine coolers, etc. The only alcoholic drink I’ve ever really liked is sangria. And Olive Garden makes the best ones. The only reason I can drink that is because the taste of the alcohol is heavily masked by additional stuff. Taking that into consideration, the bartender gave me a couple of choices that I could handle without gagging, so I tried a Strawberry Blonde (Ketel One vodka, strawberry puree and something else). It wasn’t too bad.
I had a few good sips before I started to feel tired. Thank goodness we had coffee with dessert (little red velvet cupcakes, btw). I had sauteed garlic shrimp pasta for dinner and Mr. Maul had grilled tuna, seared raw (ewww, gross!).
After dinner we walked over to New York, New York Hotel where I encountered show girls:
a little touristy kiosk that had this funky headpiece:
and Gallagher’s Steakhouse, which, according to Mr. Maul, has the best steaks he’s ever eaten:
On the way back to the hotel, we got some good shots of the Statue of Liberty:
and the special memorial for the firefighters and police officers who lost their lives at 9/11:
There were plaques placed at certain intervals, of quotes made by famous people, and I had Mr. Maul take a picture of two of them. This first one is by Martin Luther King, Jr.:
And it says:
“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in the moment of comfort, but where he stands in times of challenge and controversy.”
The other quote is by Nelson Mandela:
and it says:
“There is no easy walk to freedom anywhere, and many of us will have to pass through the valley of the shadow of death again and again before we reach the mountaintop of our desires.”
We also got some night shots of the, well, nightlife:
and our hotel:
But wait, there’s more
SATURDAY –
We went to the Luxor. I’d forgotten how cool this hotel was:
We checked out the Bodies Exhibition:
I wanted to see this exhibit when it came to my city, but I didn’t get a chance. This is one of two exhibits that’s permanent. And just like the sign says, all. The. Specimens. Are. Real. Humans. Right down to the fetuses. We were told that the bodies are from Asia (at least, in this exhibit. I don’t know about the other ones), from people who hadn’t been claimed or donated their body (and/or body parts) to science.
This was a very interesting and educational exhibit. I got to see the affects of a smoker’s lung, a brain ravaged by stroke, a liver ravaged by cirrhosis (I spelled it wrong, but you know what I mean), the different stages of a fetus forming bones…I could go on, but you should really see it for yourself. If you ever get to Vegas, go see it. If it comes through your town, go see it.
Before you go in, you get your picture taken against a blue screen. We ended up buying two pics. One was of us standing between the specimens you see in the picture, another was of us in hologram form. If you move the pic back and forth it changes from human to skeleton. Very cool. I also bought a magnet.
We passed through MGM Grand to catch the monorail and encountered this Lion Habitat along the way. Here’s the Daddy:
The Mommy:
and the babies (aren’t they the cutest things?!!), but they were kept in a separate area.
This habitat is pretty much out in the casino area, connected to a gift shop. There’s no fee to see them. You can stand there all day and watch them. Until they put them to bed, of course.
We hitched a ride on the monorail to the Mirage Hotel to check out the Dolphin Habitat and Siegfried and Roy’s Secret Garden. The Dolphin Habitat was a place of research only, so there were no planned shows, which I thought was pretty cool. Just the interaction between dolphins and their trainers. This is the view from the top, where about 5 dolphins were kept in two different areas:
and this is the view from the underwater observatory room:
Looks like he’s saying, “I seeeee youuuu”.
At the Secret Garden, we saw white lions:
playful white tigers (who reminded us of our cat):
sacked out leopards:
one alert leopard:
and a young leopard that had to be coaxed to “come out and play”:
It was a hot day and a lot of the kitties were sacked out. It was pretty funny. The white lion at the top (the one where I’m in the pic) was laaaazzzzily cleaning one paw. Seriously lazy. He was licking his paw like he was savoring an ice cream cone. At the time, he was the only kitty awake. The other one didn’t wake up until we were ready to leave and he looked over at Mr. Maul in the cutest way. He got the shot. And then he went back to sleep. LOL.
After leaving the Mirage, we saw this casino as we crossed the street: the infamous Casino Royale.
As gaudy as it looked, I still wanted to capture the James Bond reference for posterity.
Ah, yes, and here’s me, pooped from all the walking we’d done that day:
I managed a 1 hr nap before I had to get up and get ready for the show.
SATURDAY NIGHT -
We checked out Mystere at Treasure Island. This is one of six Cirque du Soleil shows in Vegas. We hit up the Mystere store before the show started where I bought an $8 keychain (it had dance figures on it and looked like a charm bracelet. Very cool) and Mr. Maul snapped me in a mask:
The show was an hr and a half and we had good seats. Actually, there wasn’t a bad seat in the house. We were in the back way at the top, which is good because then you can see everything. Mr. Maul got a shot of the stage before the show:
You can’t really see them but there are two old-fashioned baby carriages on there and “baby sounds” could be heard periodically. The skit with the baby was pretty funny and I don’t know about the other shows, but this was very interactive. Glad we were sitting up top. Mr. Maul got another good shot on his camera phone before it was confiscated. Yes, confiscated.
Yes, they tell you no flash cameras, no audio, no smoking, blah, blah, blah. They even make it a part of the show at the beginning. We just didn’t realize how serious they were. Needless to say, he wasn’t the only one who disobeyed the rules. He got his phone back after the show, though, and was asked to delete the pics. We still had a good time.
After the show, we walked over to the Wynn Hotel and ate at Stratta. We didn’t make any dinner plans beforehand because we didn’t know how long the show was going to last. We wanted to eat at a nice place, but the two places we checked out wouldn’t accept walk-ins. We ended making a reservation at Stratta because we didn’t want to keep looking around for a place to eat.
The reservation was for 1015.
The only thing I’ve ever eaten that late at night is a bowl of cereal, ya’ll. I had salmon, he had lasagna (but wish he’d ordered a pizza after seeing it at the table next to ours) and we shared a slab of tiramisu for dessert.
We didn’t gamble a lot. We were too busy checking out the scenery, but we killed some time in between by playing some $.25 slots. LOL. Yeah, that’s about as risky as we get. We didn’t win anything.
All in all, we had a great time. He wants to go again, just do it cheaper…and try to see more things. Like the fountains at the Bellagio, Fremont Street Experience, and the Sirens of T.I. show at Treasure Island. We got out of dinner just in time to catch the 1130 showing, but it was cancelled due to it being too windy.
I didn’t post all the pictures, there were just too many. But if you want to see the rest, you can check them out HERE.
So, how was your weekend?
Technorati Tags: Las Vegas, Hoover Dam, TRANSFORMERS, Excalibur, Cathouse, Luxor, Olive Garden, New York, New York Hotel, Gallagher’s Steakhouse, Statue of Liberty, Martin Luther King, Jr, Nelson Mandela, Bodies Exhibition, MGM Grand, Mirage Hotel, Dolphin Habitat, Siegfried and Roy’s Secret Garden, Casino Royale, James Bond, Mystere, Treasure Island, Cirque du Soleil, Wynn Hotel, Stratta, Bellagio, Fremont Street, Sirens of T.I.
Wendy Prior says:
Wow! What a trip, I had no idea Vegas had so much to offer. It’s amazing! I love your dress from the first two shots too. Suddenly it’s a lot higher on my must visit list for next time I’m in the US. Awesome!
Peggy says:
Awwww….look at you all curled up like those baby kittens (ahem). Maybe it was that ONE vanilla blondie. I’m such a light weight drinker too; one beer and I’m out like a light. Love the pics. P.
Celise says:
Peg – It was a strawberry blonde and you’re right. I was probably still feeling the effects of that in my system. It didn’t help that it was hot, too. The people that carried drinks around in those mile-long cups? No idea how they were able to walk the strip without passing out, because I wouldn’t have been able to hold up. LOL.
Celise says:
Wendy – I forgot that you live on the other side of the world. Your country is my list, too. LOL.
Wendy Prior says:
Well at least if you get here, you can have your own personal tour guide!
Celise says:
Wendy – LOL. Amen!