Saturday, December 3, 2011

Laughlin, Vegas and back to San Diego

From Joshua Tree, we drove to Laughlin, NV, where Rich briefly lived and worked once upon a time. We spent one night there, gambled a little, and moved on to Las Vegas. The first night we spent at the RV park at Circus, Circus. It was one huge parking lot but the staff were really nice and friendly and they had internet. :) I finally made good on my promise to dump the "black" and "grey" water from the RV.

Months earlier, Rich had found a great deal on a site called SniqueAway for a 1200 square foot suite at the Palms Place. You know we are always looking for deals. This one was about half price and included a couple of meals. So we left the RV for two nights and enjoyed this view from the 32nd floor.
The first day we walked miles and miles in Vegas and have very few photos to show for it but here are a few from the shops at Caesar's Palace. We literally got lost inside, there were so many floors, hallways and confusing intersections. We are convinced that these casinos do not want anyone to leave so they make it as difficult as possible to find an exit! But this gelato looks pretty, no?
I thought this was a funny name. :)

Two women were sound asleep on a bench and these kids kept posing behind them and taking photos. It really was pretty funny and they were having so much fun that we had to laugh along with them. Rich decided to get a photo as well, and you can see that the woman on the right is beginning to wake up and figure out what's happening.

We walked 5 or 6 miles to the Mandalay Bay so we could use a half price coupon at the famous chef Hubert Keller's place, Fleur. :) Rich managed to get discounts for several establishments at restaurants.com before we left home (he did really well on bargains this trip!) I'm not that crazy about Las Vegas but I have to admit that it is a great food city. To us, it's not really about the gambling or the shows or the shopping or anything but THE FOOD. :) We had a bunch of small plates so we could try all kinds of dishes and they were all pretty darned tasty.

Here's part of our fancy suite. It was really more like a condo and had everything you can imagine. We were definitely spoiled for a couple of days and I was happy for the respite from the RV. The condo had a washer and dryer so I could catch up on laundry, and a bathroom big enough to turn around in, not to mention the biggest shower we've seen. Rich said he went from the smallest shower in the world to the biggest in one day.

Just relaxing!
Yes, that's a tub in the bedroom.

We had Sunday brunch at The Border Grill, chefs Mary Sue Milliken and Susan Fenniger's place. They have a small plates menu and you can choose as many items as you want for your brunch. Oh my gosh! Everything was delicious and we stuffed ourselves because we wanted to try everything. On our last night, we had a super dinner at Charlie Palmer's restaurant Aureole. It's really cool looking with a huge glassed-in wine tower in the center. The tower covers several levels so they have "wine angels" who wear a harness like a rock climber and rappel along the wall to grab bottles of wine that have been ordered. Suzassippi would have loved this place! Dinner was amazing, of course.
After our eating extravaganza and winning a little bit of money, we bid farewell to Vegas and had our first really long day of driving because we had to get all the way back to San Diego to turn in the RV the next morning. We finally pulled into the last RV park after dark, had some fast food supper and got to bed since we had to get up early, clean up the RV, and repack our belongings. After my initial grumpiness, I ended up enjoying our little excursion and was glad we did it. I don't think I want to be one of those full time RV-ers but I would be willing to take another little trip someday. :)

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