our uneventful vegas visit

we woke up in flagstaff with our route to vegas already planned and mapped out. breakfast at biff's bagels there in town to keep ourselves full for our four hour drive through the desert. while eating breakfast, we still felt as though we could spend more time in the mountains. there were people on bikes everywhere you looked, vegetarian specific restaurants on nearly every block, and the crisp mountain air was wonderful. however our schedule, mostly our budget, encouraged us to our next stop.

the drive to vegas, like the drive to flagstaff, was most boring since we were landlocked in the desert. the one stop we made on this drive was to get drinks at a gas station. tyler surprised me with funyuns (!!!) and less than five minutes within him trying his first one ever, we were pulled over. the cop seemed fairly nice about us going 10mph over the speed limit. but honestly, who wouldn't go 10 over the speed limit driving through the desert? the cop was inquisitive about the "just married" graffiti all over our car. asking things about where we were going, if he wanted to kill me yet, and also if we had any drugs in the car. after clearing our names, and being really confused about what "registration" is and why we needed to hand it to the officer, we left with a warning.


something tyler was really looking forward to on our trip (and something i was pretty nervous about) was going over the hoover dam suspension bridge. as we are nearing the bridge, tyler was telling me that the bridge swayed, that it is so terrible and horrifying that they had to open the regular bridge back up due to some passersby refusing to cross it... i'm trying to be a good wife through this and keep his camera open to take photos for him, and here comes the bridge. we round a corner, and we go over a bridge with high cement walls. so high, in fact, that i was unsure if we were crossing the hoover dam or not.


i couldn't see water, a drop off, or anything actually- only the mountains ahead of us, and these ginormous cement walls. within seconds we have crossed this bridge that i've been dreading. i sort of looked around, confused of whether or not we had actually gone over the dam, but the water behind us was proof, i assume. as i am sitting here telling tyler which part i am writing about, he whimpers and frowns haha. the disappointment lives on.

after the dam, we were roughly fifteen minutes from vegas. we could see the skyline from a distance, and soon enough we had arrived on the strip. the kayak app on our phones has been most helpful on this trip. we found a hotel in vegas, the excalibur, for $45. there were even cheaper ones here, but we thought that we couldn't pass up a hotel for that price in the middle of the strip. we checked in around 2, got settled in, and went to eat a las vegas buffet- another thing tyler wanted to do while here. coincidentally, there was such buffet in our hotel! we paid way too much money for a buffet that was literally like 1/4 the size of golden corral. we picked around at our food, quickly deciding that it was not all we had thought it up to be.

the luxor, where tacos & tequila is

our hotel, the excalibur

we walked off our subpar food around the strip, exploring the bars (that i got kicked out of for not having an ID), the high end shopping stores, and both of us refusing to decide what to do that evening. after enough walking around the strip in these stupid sandals that i own, my feet started hurting, my lips were chapped, i was thirsty, as well as hungry, and i'll admit- i became a grump. we had to walk back down the strip to get to this restaurant called tacos and tequila we had a coupon for. approaching this restaurant, my mood started to lift, thankfully. we sat down, almost instantly had our food, and i nearly chugged my iced tea.

the rest of the evening was all pretty uneventful. we had this plan of going out on the town, looking at the mirage fountain, all of the lights, all of the drunkards on the strip. but instead, we were asleep by about 9pm, i think. i woke up this morning around 2:30, noticing that our hotel window's blinds were wide open, showing me that it was still around midnight with the lights of our hotel shining in. for a brief moment, i thought maybe i would wake tyler up and go out and look at everything. soon after, i crawled back into bed and we slept until 6:30.

check in is approaching now, and we have only a few plans for today: drive by and see the pawn stars pawn shop (which is only ten minutes away) and make our way to los angeles. the beach is what i've been looking forward to this whole trip, and i cannot wait to be there. but at this rate, we will probably check in around 9pm like an old couple and sleep until sunrise.