Project Me: Visit Vegas

Since I had a trip to Vegas planned, I knew that I’d be completing one of the tasks on my “Project Me” list pretty quickly. I’ve been to both Reno and Atlantic City a few times, but have never been to that brightly lit gambling mecca known as Vegas, baby!

It was an annual employee reward trip through work, but there was only one group event that we had to attend. The rest of the time we were free to roam wild and experience Vegas on our own. I brought my husband with me, so we explored together.

Instead of giving you a boring play-by-play of everything we did during the four days we were there, I’ll just give you my top highlights.

My shoe choice proves (once again) that I’m not a cool kid

The Vegas Strip is about 4 miles long — FOUR miles of snazzy buildings to look at and people to dodge (who stop directly in front of you to look at the snazzy buildings). So please tell me why 80% of the women are wearing 3+ inch heels to walk around?? I love sexy heels as much as the next girl, and even have a saucy gold pair that I’ve named my “Wonder Woman shoes” because they make me feel like I can take on the world. That doesn’t mean that I want to put them on to go and walk a few miles! The ladies who weren’t wearing their stripper shoes were wearing flip flops, which also aren’t considered distance walking shoes in my world. I wore a super cute pair of Saucony Bullet sneakers. Not quite “mom shoes” but definitely not as cute as the other girls. However, I’d prefer not to be whining and limping in pain after a few miles.

The Vegas Traffic Jam

Imagine that you’re walking a brisk pace down a sidewalk and the person in front of you comes to a complete stop for no particular reason. Now imagine that happening everywhere you go – that’s Vegas. Every block we were on or casino we visited had these people just waiting for us to come by so that they could run ahead of us and then throw on their brakes.

Most “OOOOOHHH” moment

This would have to be a tie of seeing the bright lights of the Vegas Strip at night (especially the Eiffel Tower) and checking out the inside of the Venetian. I knew that there was a canal that ran through the hotel with gondoliers, but that didn’t really prepare me for the fact that there was a FREAKING CANAL running through the hotel with GONDOLIERS???!!! The ceiling was high and curved, with clouds painted on it and lit to look like the sky. It was simply amazing. Travis and I had dinner at a little restaurant overlooking the canal and if I squinted my eyes while listening to the gondolier’s singing I could almost make myself believe that it was Italy.

Most “AWWWWWwww” moment

My husband and I purchased tickets to see the NitroCircus, a crazy stunt show where guys and gals on dirt bikes, BMX bikes, skateboards, scooters, wheelchairs, etc. do jumps, flips and tricks. To say that it was insane would be a massive understatement. The entire show was high energy with amazing tricks and 10 different attempts at World Records (some of which were successful). Well, the main daredevil rider, Travis Pastrana, interrupts the show to slide down the 8 story tall ramp on his knees. His long-time girlfriend, Lyn-Z Adams Hawkins (a professional skateboarder also performing in the show) was standing there at the bottom. He called her the love of his life, pulled a ring out of his pocket and proposed. It was so unexpected and so sweet, especially when she grabbed his microphone to say “yes” and then covered him in kisses.

The Moment I Snapped

It was on our third day, which was our main day of sightseeing on the strip. I was a bit worn down from lack of sleep, the heat and those damn people who kept getting in my way. That’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it.

My husband and I had walked for a really, really long time and were about to enter a hotel through some of those revolving doors. When we entered our pizza slice of a door slot, the man in the slice in front of us must have had a brain-fart because he slowed down so much that he almost stopped walking. Something in me snapped – I had ENOUGH of people just stopping in front of me!! I grabbed the door and gave it a giant push, moving it so fast that the guy got a scared look on his face and jumped out just in time to not be taken around for another loop.

Travis and I looked at each other and just started quickly walking while I tried to hold in my giggles. I kept seeing that startled/frightened look on the man’s face and imagining him getting stuck in the revolving doors. Soon, I was laughing so hard that tears were running down my cheeks and Travis was pretending that he didn’t know me. In fact, I’m kind of snickering right now thinking about it.

We had a great time in Vegas but it’s probably good that we came home when we did. We gambled some and ended up about even. It would have been nice to be able to see one of the Cirque de Soleil shows, but I’m pretty happy with everything we did get a chance to do.