Neal decided that we should probably go get something to eat, so I could take my mind of things. We weren’t sure how far we could make it with the car, so the first sign of a McDonalds we stopped. This was a great place, because it was cheap! We could at least make the first days rent, after the Family/Friend deal wore off, after getting breakfast off the dollar menu. We then decided it was time to stop for gas…we drove all the way there without filling up once! I typed in to our GPS to tell us where the nearest gas station was. Like all GPSs do, its wise instruction demanded a U-turn right off the bat. U-turns are usually pretty okay, but not when you are expecting your car to break down any second, and most likely mid-U, so you are blocking traffic in every direction. Luckily we made it through and went up to the next stop light where we were instructed to make a left-hand turn. Once stopped at the light, we both looked to our right and saw a gas station!!! I could not believe they were “making” us drive a full-two blocks over, when we could have just filled up right across the street!
We made it to the gas station and I ran in to buy a razor because that is the number one item I forget to pack on vacations and the number one item I need while on vacation. (You can’t be the one with hairy armpits at the pool, especially in a pool where 98% of the people have had laser hair removal and frown upon anyone who misses the smallest stray hair.) I went in, half expecting to be mugged, but was able to find the razors quickly and make my purchase. The woman put them in a small brown bag, which reminded me of a condom bag. (Not that I have ever purchased that item, but I’m sure a good percentage of high school kids walked around with brown bags just like that “just in case” a good few years.) This of course tainted the purchase for me, so I subconsciously ran back out to the car thinking of all the different ways I could make it back to the hotel without anyone seeing the bag, so the housekeeping people would still be willing to clean our room, rather than just wanting to burn our sheets. Luckily by the time we made it back to the hotel, housekeeping had already come, so we were in the clear!
Perfectly shaved, we headed over to the pool. This was one of those nice ritzy pools, where everyone is getting drunk and has million dollar swim suits on – the ones that make you look tan, flat stomached, thigh-less and busty. There was a whole building erected to just hold the towels that are bleached perfectly white and probably never used twice. No one seemed to care who was coming into the pool area, or even our hotel for that matter, but anyone who dared to check out a towel from their fancy towel building had to prove they were really hotel guests and had to wear tacky paper wrist bands so everyone else knew they got the towels from the fancy towel house.
Our pool had this great waterfall feature with a cave/walkway behind it which was great. It also had fabulous sun bathing lounge chairs surrounding the pool. After an entire summer of trips to Seven Peaks, we got bored of “swimming” and started people watching and came up with life stories for almost everyone at the pool. My favorite was this random girl who was wearing this crazy sundress. She was there alone and was NOT wearing a bathing suit. She would sit in her lounge chair and then periodically get up and stand with her feet in the water, staring off into space like a “blind possessed choir boy”. After about a minute or so, she would return to her lounge chair and read, just to return to the water a few minutes later. We also enjoyed the couple we were sure had hooked up at the attached Casino that night, who had also blown all their money that night and were just hoping they would stay together long enough that the other person would hit it big that night, so they could benefit from a small portion of the earnings. Vegas visitors are great!
We then got all cleaned up and ready to head down to the strip, where we were planning on enjoying dinner and the Phantom of the Opera. Neal had bought me this great black dress for our anniversary (after a few HUGE hints) which I was planning on wearing to the show. Unfortunately it was SO hot, and I was not up for walking around the strip in my high heels with the desert heat beating down on me. So, I ditched the high class idea and put on a pair of shorts and off we headed!
Once we finally found a parking spot in the hotel we were watching the play in (finding a spot to park only took us about 20 minutes…haha), we headed into a whole other world. This hotel was really more like a mall/cathedral that just happened to house a bunch of vacationing people when/if they needed to sleep.
Front View
The walkway from the parking garage led straight in to this mall where the ceiling was painted to look like a sky and they had a river running through with men giving gondola rides. It was pretty confusing for the first second to try to remind yourself that you were still inside a building. Neal thinks it even smelled like outside. Some people were SO convinced that they really were outside they decided to smoke (of course, that may just be because you can smoke inside buildings in Vegas, but I would like to think they have just killed so many brain cells at this point they no longer have the capability to make that kind of discernment).
After finding our way through the labyrinth of this hotel, we made it out to the strip! I must not have mentally prepared myself for this experience because I immediately went into panic mode and lost all ability to think rationally. Neal asked me what time it was and I proclaimed it was 4:15 so we probably should get dinner. (Mistake #1 – as we would find out a few minutes later, it was really 3:15, I had not accounted for the time difference and we had LOTS of time to kill). Additionally, in pure desperation to return to a "safe" place, I hastily made the decision that we were going to dinner at Denny's - the VERY closest and first "American" place I saw. I grabbed Neal's hand and bolted into the restaurant before Neal or the smarter side of my brain could react. (I fully blame the traumatizing events of the day before for this mistake.) We were seated and began looking over the menu. Neither Neal nor I found anything we particularly wanted to eat, but at this point it was too late. We quickly ate, made up a few stories about the people sitting around us and left. I fully regretted my hastiness just a few seconds later, when we walked four more steps down the strip and found a Subway, Panda Express and about a million other more appetizing “safe”, “American” food places to eat!
Neal and I continued walking along the strip back to the Venetian for the show, wondering what we were going to do with the oodles of hours we had before the show that we had now gained since my time blunder. There was this couple in front of us, who I thought looked pretty normal, until they passed a guy handing out “pass-a-long” cards “for men” aka stripper baseball cards. The guy from this couple grabbed a handful and started flipping through them, turned to his woman and was like “who should we have for our threesome?” This about did me in for the night! I had never been so grateful in my life that I was NOT going home with a man like that!!!
We eventually found the place we were supposed to be to get our will call tickets and headed to find the theatre, so we would know where to go when the show actually started. We walked down on corridor and passed a woman in a flowy, ivory suit, on oxygen (of course), BIG curly hair and all sorts of gold jewelry on. She was literally frozen in place, but everyone was walking past her, so we did too. At the end of corridor was nothing we were looking for, so we turned around. On our way back, we found the SAME lady, in the SAME spot, with the SAME expression. We kept walking again, but decided we were probably the only ones in the entire building who would EVER be nice enough to stop to help this lady so we turned around to see if we could help her. When we got back to her, we witnessed a miracle, as she took ONE step! We both took this as a sign that she was fine and decided we better leave her alone. She will remain my favorite character from this trip.
After finding the theater, we walked around the mall part of the hotel for a while. We were stopped about every fifty feet by hotel associates asking if they could please fill us in on this great deal they were having, where you put down a deposit now and then come back later, get your money back and don’t have to pay for the room. Had this been a more successful trip up to this point, we may have agreed…but at this point, neither of us EVER wanted to come back to Las Vegas again, assuming we were ever lucky enough to get OUT of Vegas in the first place. The first few associates were okay that I turned them down for the loan, but one lady must have been having an off day and got pretty sassy with us for telling her that we already heard about the deal. People are hilarious.
We did a little shopping and a little window shopping. We went in a store that had the most unreal pictures of the outdoors. They were absolutely beautiful and Neal and I definitely wanted some of them to take home, just not for the price they were asking. After finishing looking at a beautiful picture of a sunset, Neal and I heard the lady behind us exclaim to her friend “Look at that sunset coming up!” I’m not sure if that lady quite knew what was going on, but she sure was a pivotal moment in our trip improving.
In the midst of all this confusion and hilarity, I did gain a much greater understanding of the great and spacious building references in the scriptures. I really honestly think that vision was of this building we were in and with the kinds of people that were around us, I’m pretty sure Lehi was dead on. I told Neal I was pretty sure that was what hell was going to be like, but I’m sure at that point everyone will know how dumb they were for choosing that path and will maybe be a little more forlorn about their current situation.
As soon as the show started, it was like being in a whole other world. This was a musical and a play and a magic show and a concert and everything else wonderful and cultural you could throw in. I was amazed how well the leads were able to hit the really really high notes that they do and how the Phantom came in and disappeared like magic. It was incredible and entirely worth being stuck in Vegas forever for.
In much better spirits, Neal and I left the show…not as easy as that sounds either with the way the taxi drivers go around…Neal and I are still debating whether it would have been better to drive drunk or get in a taxi in Vegas.
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