USA 02: Road Trip - Las Vegas

Tuesday, November 19, 2024

I was up before Thinh this morning and I decided to let him sleep while I did some work this morning. I had a message from Thinh that he had gone out to get something to eat in the middle of the night (he’d messaged me just in case I had woken up and wondered where he was). When he eventually woke up this morning, he told me that he’d walked to a nearby Circle K to get a sandwich.

In the early afternoon, after showering and having a leisurely time getting ready for the day, we decided to finally head out to explore the Vegas Strip. The weather was cold but sunny, so Thinh and I opted to walk along the Strip for a while.

Our first stop was at the Circus Circus, which was a casino that I had never visited before. We walked through the casino area, following signs for the food court so we could get a quick bite to eat for lunch. Unfortunately, the ‘food court’ was a disappointment, with most of the stalls closed. We got bourbon chicken and rice from the Asian restaurant, which was better than expected (though slightly too salty). Finishing lunch, we walked through the casino so Thinh could truly experience Vegas gambling. The Circus Circus is a visibly dated casino, but the gambling machines were all very modern. Upstairs was an area that resembled circus games, such as ring toss, with various prizes (mostly stuffed animals). There was also a small area where they would put on small trapeze shows, though no show was on while we were there.

Thinh and I went back outside to continue our walk down the Strip. We passed by several of the casino resorts and then finally went inside the Treasure Island casino hotel. The interior of the casino had some pirate/treasure themed decorations along the walls, but was otherwise just a non-descript casino. In front of the casino were two large pirate ships in man-made lakes, which impressed Thinh. This was the first real taste of Vegas theming that we had seen thus far, and Treasure Island was one of the few remaining themed casinos on the Strip.

Across the street, we next explored the Venetian hotel and casino. I pointed out to Thinh the various replicas of buildings in Vencie that the hotel had constructed to complete the immersive theme. The area directly in front of the casino was full of temporary stands for the F-1 race, but it thankfully didn’t prevent us from fully enjoying the sights. We spent most of the time walking around the exterior of the casino before heading inside to have a look around.

It was getting late in the afternoon by now and we decided to head back to our hotel. We had originally planned to take the monorail back since the stop is directly opposite from the Sahara (we can see the station from our hotel room), but we instead decided to take an Uber in order to save some time. Once back at the Sahara, I grabbed a coffee and did a little bit more work while Thinh got ready for dinner tonight.

At 16:30, we went down to get our car from the valet so we could head out to dinner. The valet appeared to have some trouble locating our car, which seemed odd; after waiting around 15 minutes, our car was finally brought around. We took back roads to avoid traffic on the Strip, but still encountered some traffic later on the drive due to rush hour. We finally arrived at the Cheesecake Factory in Henderson at 17:20, just slightly late.

Dinner tonight was with my uncle John, aunt Shari, and cousin Megan. John is my mother’s brother and I had last seen him in London last year when we were both there coincidentally at the same time. I had not seen Shari in a number of years, so I was excited to see her again this evening. They had arrived at the restaurant ahead of us and we eventually found them at the table. After introducing Thinh to everyone, we sat down to order. The menu at the Cheesecake Factory is quite extensive and it took Thinh some time to decide, while I stuck with my usual selection of pasta Da Vinci.

We spent several hours catching up with my family and filling them in about the details of our upcoming wedding in Scotland. It was nice to spend this time with my family. It was loud in the restaurant, which made conversation somewhat difficult. When we finished dinner, we all decided to have dessert, so Thinh and I split a slice of tiramisu cheesecake. After spending a few hours together, it was time to head out, but we first snapped a few photos together outside. Thinh and I said goodbye to John, Shari and Megan and then we drove back to the hotel.

I was still quite tired from the long drive the previous day, so I went to bed early, while Thinh stayed up for a little while longer.

 
Wednesday, November 20, 2024

Today was our final full day in Las Vegas and I wanted to show Thinh the rest of the mega casino-resorts along the Strip. After getting ready for the day, we took the monorail from our hotel down to Harrah’s. The monorail was small and ran frequently enough that we had only a short wait before boarding. During the ride, the monorail went past the Sphere, a huge ball covered with lights capable of displaying all sorts of images, videos, etc. One of the most well-known and humorous displays was when the Sphere was a giant yellow face that would ‘look’ at things in the area, from airplanes to cars. We didn’t get to see the yellow face, but it was still cool to see it up close.

Once at Harrah’s, we made our way our to the Strip and began to walk south along the boulevard so we could visit the rest of the casinos. We grabbed a quick lunch at Chipotle, which was Thinh’s first time eating there. It was the usual Chipotle food, but it tasted good and Thinh enjoyed it. We briefly walked through the Flamingo casino and stopping to take pictures of the unique signage outside, we took the pedestrian bridge over to Caesar’s Palace. Before going inside, we made a short stop outside of the Hell’s Kitchen restaurant (Thinh is a fan of the Gordon Ramsey TV show).

Upon entering Caesar’s Palace, Thinh was able to see a marked difference between it and the casinos that we had visited the day before. Caesar’s is a much more up-scale casino, with Roman-style statues adoring the entryway, and stunning thematic décor all around the interior. We decided to try some gambling – finally – and I let Thinh pick out which machine to try. He was confused at first because he thought we would need to have a membership or something at the casino in order to gamble, similar to how gambling works back home in Southeast Asia. I explained to him that anyone can go to any casino and gamble without any restrictions. He picked out a machine and I put one dollar in so he could gamble. He lost right away, but it was fun to watch him tentatively go about gambling. We still had some credit left, so I had the machine print out our credit balance and I gave it to Thinh as a souvenir. We then walked over to the Forum Shops area, where the elaborate decorations continued to immerse visitors into Ancient Rome. Unfortunately, the Fall of Atlantis show wasn’t performing today, so we soon made our way back to the Strip.

Up next was the Bellagio where I had wanted to show him the fountain show. The upcoming Formula One race dashed those hopes though because massive stands had been erected right in front of the fountains, blocking the sidewalk to visitors. When we entered the casino from the pedestrian bridge, I heard the music of the fountain show and rushed Thinh over to a nearby window. From there, we could see some of the fountain show, but it wasn’t the same as seeing it from the sidewalk.

The Bellagio is a very upscale, bougie casino and the wealth of the casino oozed from all sides. The décor was more high-end and the atmosphere of the place was very chic and fashionable. While walking through the casino, I noticed some holiday decorations in another room and indicated to Thinh that we should check it out. The Christmas decorations were over the top and amazing! Everything was larger than life, from a fireplace with stockings to Santa’s sleigh to a teddy bear. It was impressive, and we took our time admiring each display.

Continuing our walk south along the Strip, we next came to the New York New York casino. Thinh particularly like the exterior of the casino since it contained replicas of the major sights from New York City. He was able to pick them all out, remembering everything from our week-long trip to NYC back in January. Inside, we meandered through the various gambling machines and made our way over to the ticket booth for the roller coaster. I was eager to ride it, though Thinh was less so since he’s scared of thrill rides. We debated about riding it, but decided against it in the end – I could not justify spending the money on one ride of a rollercoaster.

We then walked over to the Excalibur casino, which is another resort-casino that is more impressive from the outside than the inside. We stopped along the pedestrian bridge to snap some pictures and then spent a short time walking through the casino itself. The final casino on this part of the Strip was the Luxor, which I had never visited before, and the sun had set by the time we made it there from the Excalibur. The giant obsidian pyramid was pretty at night, with a beam of light shooting up into the sky from the apex of the pyramid. Outside of the main entrance was a replica of the Sphinx and other ancient Egyptian statues. We spent a short time walking around the inside of the Luxor before deciding it was time to get a bite for dinner.

Thinh had spotted Johnny Rockets back at the New York New York casino, so we walked back there for dinner. Thinh was enjoying all of the casinos at night, which is how Vegas should truly be seen – the lights make the casino-hotels much more impressive than they are during the day. When we reached Johnny Rockets, we were both stunned by the ridiculously overpriced food and decided to find somewhere else to each for dinner.

Taking the pedestrian bridge across Las Vegas Boulevard, we made a very brief stop at the MGM casino and then walked north along the Strip in search of food. When we neared the Planet Hollywood casino, we followed signs for a food court and found a Panda Express, where we decided to eat. The food was good (and the price was normal), plus it was nice to have the chance to sit down since we had been walking around all afternoon.

We had one final casino to visit: Paris. We had walked by several times during our time in Vegas, and it was now our final stop on our tour of the Strip. Thinh was impressed with the replicas of the Eiffel Tower and other Parisian-style buildings. Inside, the style continues the theme of being in Paris quite well. He had me take a video of him inside the casino, though I didn’t fully understand what he wanted to do – I think it was something from TikTok or Instagram… this makes me sound so damn old!

Thinh and I then walked along the Strip until we reached Harrah’s, where we could take the monorail back to our hotel. The past two days in Las Vegas had been a lot of fun and I was glad that we had been able to come and visit. There are so many things to see and do in the United States – I want to share it all with Thinh!

Back at the hotel, Thinh and I both relaxed by watching videos on our phones. We went to bed around midnight though, tired from the long day of walking around Vegas.

 
Thursday, November 21, 2024

Today it was time to check out of our hotel and bid farewell to Las Vegas. We lounged in the room until check-out time at 11:00 and then went down to get the car from the valet. As we left the Sahara behind, I drove us down Las Vegas Boulevard so Thinh could have one final look at the casinos. At the southern end of the Strip is the famed “Welcome to Las Vegas” sign, where we stopped to take some photos. There was a large crowd queued up to take photos in front of the sign. After waiting for a while, I got impatient, especially since a large group was taking numerous photos and monopolizing the location. Thinh and I opted to get out of the queue and walk over to the side, where we could still take excellent photos with the sign.

Before leaving Vegas, we stopped at Jimmy John’s to get some lunch. We ended up going to a location near where we had dinner with my aunt and uncle. When I mentioned this to Thinh, pointing out exactly where we had gone two nights ago, he said the area was “like night and day”… and then gave me the biggest grin. He loves “dad jokes” and finds their awful humor hysterical… I just sighed and patted his leg as he burst out laughing. I couldn’t help but start laughing as well, though it was because of how cute and ridiculous the joke had been.

Shortly after getting on the highway to leave Vegas after lunch, I noticed that the car was driving a little strange – the engine seemed to have no “get up and go” when I pressed on the gas. I then noticed a warning on the dashboard which stated “engine power level reduced”, which was quite concerning. I pulled off the highway and called Budget to see what they advised. I was told that I could trade the car in at any rental location. Thankfully, there was a Budget location nearby that didn’t require me to get on the highway. When we arrived, the staff were friendly, but they were unable to swap out the car for me; I was told that we needed to do that at the airport (a 20-minute drive back the way we had come). I was assured that the car was fine to drive to the airport, so we drove over there and, after some difficulty, found the rental car return area. The process of actually swapping cars was very easy and quick – soon I had a new car assigned to us and we could get back on the road!

The new car was much better than the first one. It was a mini-SUV and drove much better than the Malibu we had driven since San Francisco. It took us some time to sort out the new display, Bluetooth settings, etc, but Thinh figured everything out so we could head back out on the road. Thinh again played Dateline podcasts for me during the drive and he napped quite a bit.

Our destination today was the Grand Canyon, located about four hours’ drive from Vegas. It was an uneventful drive, but the scenery was beautiful. We stopped to have dinner at a cut diner along Route 66 in the town of Williams, Arizona. Goldies Route 66 Diner is a 1950s-style diner, which was new to Thinh. The staff were all extremely friendly and welcoming. For dinner, Thinh had chicken-fried steak smothered in gravy, while I had a breakfast burrito with a side of bacon. It was all delicious, though there was too much gravy for Thinh’s liking. It was a wonderful place to stop for dinner and I would definitely go back should I ever be in that area again in the future.

We finally arrived around 20:00, well after the sun had set, so we just went directly to the hotel. When we got out of the car at our hotel in Tusayan, Arizona, Thinh and I were both shocked by how cold it was outside! Vegas had been cool, but this was a proper winter cold. Our hotel room for the night was ok – not great, but far from awful. I had to do some work this evening, so Thinh hung out while I did that before we went to bed.