What happens in Vegas...

After a long weekend in Vegas, I am pretty tired...still. It was a four-day weekend with a lot to do. We started our journey off by flying Southwest from Long Island to Chicago to Las Vegas; all eight of us. Come to think of it, the only luck I had the entire weekend was when the flight attendant forgot to ask me to pay for the two glasses of wine I drank on the flight there.

When we arrived at Mandalay Bay, we changed and headed to one of the bars in the hotel called Eyecandy Lounge. It was pretty late when we arrived, so this lounge was convenient. After a few drinks and even more laughs, we finally crashed. The next morning we woke up and a few of us headed to the breakfast buffet. Las Vegas is the land of the ultra abundant buffet, but TK and I only gave the one at Mandalay a try. After we rounded up the troops, we all headed to the Hofbräuhaus, which is a Bavarian beer garden/hall that also has an ever-popular location in Munich, Germany. They serve their namesake beer by the liter or 1/2 liter (if you are feeling more weak and less German) and it is delicious. They also serve and decorate with pretzels as big as your head. I love restaurants with a theme and this was my favorite part of the trip.

After leaving the Hofbräuhaus, we headed over to the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino, which was diagonally across the street. There were rock artifacts speckled throughout the lobby area and the dimmed lighting and variety of shops and restaurants made this hotel/casino seem very naughty, but I guess that's rock n roll so, they got it right. We went back to the hotel to get ready for the Cirque du Soleil show. We all got pretty decked out and headed to the Bellagio for O. The acrobats in the show had insane musculature and it was a great show. However, after seeing show after show on Broadway and at Disney, I thought $117 would provide a little something more. The flips, dives and back bends were impressive, but a lot of the characters were creepy, which is pretty customary for a Cirque show. I did love the artistry of the colors, costumes and makeup. After the show, some of us headed over to the Venetian for a couple drinks at their V Bar and Tao Asian Bistro. It was not a late night, so we headed back pretty early and stopped at an In and Out Burger for a snack (of course we did).

On Saturday, we decided to head over to New York New York to ride the roller coaster. It was fun but I am not sure $15 was worth the minute and a half it took to ride. After the coaster, I played three songs of Dance Dance Revolution in the arcade, got sweaty for no reason and then headed over to a pub called Nine Fine Irishmen. It's a traditional Irish pub with padded bar stools and draught beers. Afterward, we hopped in a cab and headed over to the Yard House. TK and I visited one in Arizona and loved it, so we wanted everyone else to see what was so go great about it. The food was good and the beer was even better. They have over 100 beers on tap and I was able to eat a burger with lobster and asparagus on it. I like the ability to try something new every time we visit a Yard House because the selection of food and drink differs at each location. We then stopped at the Luxor and Colleen and I walked back over to Mandalay and the Minus 5 Ice Bar. They gave us coats and gloves and then guided us into the bar/refrigerator for our experience. It was freezing but we enjoyed ordering a drink at a bar made of ice, drinking a cocktail out of a cup made of ice and sitting on animal fur so our rears didn't stick to the bench that was, you guessed it, made of ice. There were ice sculptures, ice chandeliers and pink and blue lights shining through all of the ice architecture around us. It was pretty unique and we learned that people don't normally stay longer than 20 minutes, and neither did we.

That night we all got dressed up again and headed to dinner at Little Buddha at The Palms Casino Resort. It was our fancy dinner of the weekend and we enjoyed the food and the ambiance of red, purple and black velvet with fine silk accents. It felt very luxurious, until I started popping edamame out of the pods and the spices lit my mouth on fire. That was a little rough because I don't really do spicy, but the lettuce wraps that Colleen and Leslie ordered were delicious. After walking around The Palms and not liking the snootiness we felt just being there, we decided to go back to New York New York. Since we couldn't get into the dueling piano bar, we headed across the way and hung out at a steakhouse and enjoyed some conversation.

The next day was all about football. We started watching pre-game coverage at the PBR Rock Bar at the Miracle Mile in Planet Hollywood. Dan had a burger inside an enormous onion ring, TK had macaroni and cheese with crushed up Doritos in it and I got to taste cole slaw sprinkled with Pop Rocks...this was all after I ate a Belgian waffle and half of a chocolate chip pancake. I guess I was hungry. Unfortunately, we didn't ride the mechanical bull before we headed over to Blondies for the playoff games. We enjoyed their wings but we did not enjoy the Jets loss. That was a rough one for our entire group. We drowned our sorrows, or just made it worse, by gambling back at the hotel before heading to bed to prepare for our departure the next day.

Some of us lost and some of us won, but all 10 of us had the chance to bond and spend a long weekend together. Even if one of us had a leg brace, one spent the night in a bathtub, one needed to go to Gamblers Anonymous, one dressed as a rock star, one was the star of stage and screen and one belted out the words to Be Our Guest in public...we all had fun together as a group, and that's what really mattered.

Until next year...

Ah, Desert Bliss

We are back from Arizona and we had a great time. Our hotel, Westin Kierland Villas, was beautiful. We had a one bedroom suite with a balcony. There was a "relaxation pool" for adults at the resort so I took it upon myself to spend a couple days there. A woman even came over and brought me ice water as soon as I sat down. One day I even ordered a frozen beverage and a sandwich for lunch. It was lovely to get pampered. The other days of the trip we were pretty active...see below.

• Monday: We went to the Phoenix Zoo where the animals were closer than I have ever experienced. I even rode a camel. It was awesome! At night we went to the mall and to the Yard House. They had 150 beers on tap and gave us a tour of the keg room. It was a crazy sight and it was great to try beers I have never seen or heard of before.
• Tuesday: I hung by the pool, TK hit golf balls and then we headed to the Arizona Diamondbacks game at Chase Field. We started out down the street from the stadium at Alice Cooperstown. It was an interesting mix of sports and rock. The bartenders all had black eye makeup designs on their faces. After eating, we headed to the stadium and it has a retractable dome, a pool in center field and a TGI Fridays in left field where you can see the game. The game was great and corn dogs were only $1.50...What? That is unheard of at Citi Field or Yankee Stadium where prices are so inflated that you need to take out a second mortgage to feed a family of four.
• Wednesday: It was a little chilly out, surprisingly, but I managed to drag TK, kicking and screaming, to the Desert Botanical Gardens. Guys don't like gardens? What? Who knew? Well, this garden had mostly cacti, and a butterfly garden where butterflies landed wherever and whenever they wanted. It was so cool to see them flutter all around you. Then, I promised TK that I would go golfing with him, so we did back at our hotel. We had fun and I realized that I could not channel Annika Sorenstam for any of the 18 holes no matter how hard I tried.
  
• Thursday: We went to Casino Arizona which wasn't the best idea because we donated a large quantity of money in a small quantity of time. I left grumpy and with empty pockets. A quick visit to Sonic, however, helped to lift my mood a little bit.
  
• Friday: We headed to Arizona Mills Outlet Center and stopped at Joe's Crab Shack for lunch. I LOVED it there. The waitstaff dances, the t-shirts are inappropriate and the food is delicious. I am determined to visit another location this summer. After shopping, we found the Four Peaks Brewery and sampled some of their beer. I loved the Arizona Peach, it was crisp and refreshing, and TK loved the Leroy Brown which was a little too dark for me. We visited both of their locations in Arizona. Then, we went back to the hotel and got a car to take us out in Downtown Scottsdale. We hit Shotgun Betty's Rock & Roll Saloon first and that was interesting. Not somewhere I would leave my husband to hang out alone for the night but I did like it there. Then we went to a few others, including the Rusty Spur (where we saw people fail at riding the mechanical bull), American Junkie and Dirty Pretty...We were able to hop from bar to bar because people drive golf carts around the street and work for tips. It was really convenient.
  
• Saturday: It warmed up so I lounged by the pool again and then got ready to play another 18 holes of golf. This time we went to the Camelback Inn to do so. The course was beautiful and the cart had a GPS. I sucked again and this time I did in front of a couple from NY that were in front of us. After my poor showing and a little cleaning up, we went to dinner at McCormick & Schmick's and it was delicious.

On Sunday, we left Arizona and headed to Atlantic City because our trip just wasn't over yet. During our flight from Vegas to Long Island, we had to make an emergency landing in Virginia to reroute around some weather and fuel up. It took us an extra 3 hours to get home. All I was thinking was, "It could be worse. We could have crashed and died," and it helped me through a throbbing headache. Then at 3 a.m., we jumped in the car, made a quick pitstop at 7-11 for eyeopeners and headed to Atlantic City. We stayed at the Showboat, lost more money, ate at Carmine's and Ruth Chris.

In conclusion, I enjoyed Arizona and would go back again and Atlantic City was OK and I don't have to go back for a little while but it is an option if I need to just get away for a long weekend.