Read more about our trip:
Things I’m looking forward to when we get home:
- The cats
- Our library
- Unrestricted access to coffee
Things I’ll miss:
- Our bed
- Care/cat hair-free living
- Impeccable service
I told Kevin last night that I feel like I may have lost my ability to live in regular society. We’ve been in Vegas so long that I don’t know if I’ll be able to fit back into a life where bells aren’t always ringing, where the ambiance isn’t a perpetual balance between total darkness and obscenely bright lights or where there isn’t a constant stream of people moving in, around and past you in complete anonymity or where stores and services actually close.
Yesterday, I posted about the Rock ‘n’ Roll 5k race that we did on Saturday night. As I noted, it was good, fun energy and we had a night out with friends afterwards. Unfortunately, we never really connected with anyone from that group for any length of time again. They’d all just flown in and we were hit the week marker on our stay. They were wanting to explore and we were wanting to lay low. They were fresh faced rookies, we were seasoned veterans. And that about sums up the tail end of our trip.
On Saturday night, we’d started planning a pool party in our hotel before the half marathon on Sunday. We were going to rent a cabana and have everyone over to chill and hang out, freshen up our legs in the pool and relax. Mother Nature had other plans and brought a windstorm into town instead. It was sunny, but by all accounts it was also very windy. Having been at the pool on just a slightly windy day on Thursday, we knew the searing pain of trying to get out of the pool and into the wind and how impossible it had been to get warm and we weren’t going to risk it. So those plans went bust.
Instead, we went for breakfast with Lesley and then tried to wait out housekeeping to get access to our room again. Eventually, we went back in there and started to prep for the race. By this time, Kevin had made the (in my opinion) wise decision to drop out and tend to his injury instead of pushing through it. We still have another half marathon on the books before the end of the year and it’s better for him to focus on that instead of risking further injury now.
At the eleventh hour, there was a great development in my race story: I connected with my friend Courtney who was also in town for the race. Since we were both doing the race solo, we decided to meet up before we went to our corral. From there we were mostly inseparable for the remainder of the night and that was such a good thing. I’ll write more about the half marathon some other time, maybe tomorrow.
Once the race was over, we hung out with Courtney and her boyfriend Jeremy for a while then retired to our room. We picked up some takeout from the Burger Lounge in our hotel and I don’t know if it was the post-race vibes or what, but it was REALLY GOOD.
By the time Monday (aka yesterday – I am SO out of it) rolled around, I was ready for some isolation. Kevin had wanted to take part in a poker tournament all week and he finally did it that day so I stayed mostly close to home, luxuriating with a Lush bath bomb, Pressed Juicery and some reading. It was our last night in town so we reviewed the things we’d wanted to do for any that we’d missed. Fortunately, there was only one: the Bellagio buffet.
After Kevin got knocked out of his tournament, I was back in the room so we got ready and headed up Strip. On our way, we tried playing the one game I’d been eyeballing all week: horse racing! Fun fact: I spent a LOT of time at the racetrack when I was a kid and I know a thing or two about racing. My brother and my dad are definitely the experts, but I’m no slouch. I don’t want to give any illusion that betting plastic racing horses requires any sort of skill, but I am going to tell you that it turns out I am good at it.
We did that for a while, had our dinner and played it some more.
Eventually, we got back to our room and packed, cleaned up, prepped our stuff for travel and watched Monday Night Raw. When that was over, we went back downstairs to the casino to have one last night of that kind of fun. We played slots together, cashed in on some My Vegas rewards and checked out our favourite parts of the property.
This morning, we pretty much just woke up, showered and headed to the airport. As we were leaving, the extravagant Christmas displays were starting to appear and I’m thankful that we caught a glimpse of a few before we left.
As I publish this, we’re sitting at the gate of our connecting flight from Seattle home. As always, I’m sad our vacation is coming to an end, but at least we have cats to look forward to. ????
