Vegas!

Nathan was attending a conference in Vegas and I went with him to have a nice, relaxing time. (Remember Florida last year?) Unfortunately, relaxing it was not. I did not realize how loooooong the strip was. We stayed on one end of the strip at the Hilton. It was more of a business like atmosphere with no smoking and no casino, which was fine since we don't gamble or smoke. All the other hotels/attractions we wanted to see was on the other end: The Bellagio, the Venetian, Caesar's Palace, etc. The first night we got there, we were meeting some friends for dinner who were in town for business too. We knew where they were staying and hadn't heard back from them about where they wanted to eat, so we just started walking in their direction.(And by this time it was about 10 p.m. our time) We ended up walking about two miles to eat in the Venetian. And since it was night, I wanted to look nice so I wore some cute sandals with a heel. That was a bad idea. I think we ended up getting on the monorail on the way back to the hotel. But you still had to walk a ways to get to the station that ran BEHIND all the hotels.

I didn't get much smarter the next day. I wore the same sandals just a few blocks away to the Conference Center that Nathan was getting an award for a project he completed with his classmates from school in Michigan. It was a business casual event and I hadn't planned on going, but found out that morning he DID want me to go. All I had were jeans, capris, and a skirt. I really didn't want to wear the skirt so he suggested the capris and the sandals. On the way there, I ended up tripping and falling down on the sidewalk, and according to Nathan, I wasn't even chewing gum or talking on my cell phone. I did something to the top of my foot, and had a hard time walking the rest of the day. But after the conference, we walked around the strip for a little bit, but I had only changed into flip flops. We met some of Nathan's former classmates and professors for dinner, which turned into a 4 HOUR DINNER. We had a good time talking and laughing, but by the end of the night my foot was throbbing (the one I had hurt earlier in the day). It was only a few blocks back to our hotel but I made Nathan get a cab. Thank goodness there was one right outside the hotel we were at that took right to our hotel doors. I iced my foot that night and it felt a lot better in the morning.

The next day, I wasn't planning on going with him to the Conference, so I stayed back at the hotel. This was probably the most relaxing day. I decided I REALLY needed a pedicure and thank goodness they had one in the hotel. It was not cheap though but they gave me the royal treatment. My feet felt a whole lot better when they were done. After that, I went back to my room and had lunch and read a little of my book club book (The Book Thief). When Nathan got back around 2, he took a little nap and off we went to see more of the sights. This time I was smart and wore tennis shoes :-).
Some of our favorite sights: The fountains at the Bellagio-AMAZING and probably our favorite! We saw it two different times and it was different both times.


The main reason to go to Vegas. Two of his classmates that worked on the project.









This was our dessert one night...a strawberry tree with white and regular chocolate fondue. I didn't feel guilty about it since I had walked about 10 miles in two days. :-)

Next post: Madame Tussauds