Hi everyone,
Less than a week until vacation time and I’m starting to panic. I’ve Xeroxed everything I can think of and put it all in an organized binder. I have our itinerary, all of our campsite reservation confirmations, our car rental confirmation, our airline confirmation, copies of the Google maps to every location, maps of the national parks and directions to some of the restaurants we’re going to. All of this in one binder and I probably won’t need half of it. But we’re going far from home and I just feel more secure having it all with me. Especially because, dammit, I put so much time and effort into planning this trip – I don’t want to forget anything. I know I’m starting to sound crazy and yes, even a tad hysterical, but I just had a fight with my 12 year old daughter over the clothes she can pack. I swear I don’t think that girl has one pair of matching socks anywhere in her clothing repertoire. And now she tells me none of her bras fit except for one. I just bought her three more about a month ago. WTF? Okay, focus , focus. Oh wait, before I calm down I actually overheard my husband saying to same daughter that she needs to get her stuff in order because he’s getting really worried we won’t be ready on time for this vacation. WHAT? Maybe if he’d actually lift a finger to help he could relieve his deep concerns. We may never get on this trip because I may kill them all before next Saturday.
Okay, I promised to talk a bit about Las Vegas. There’s only a bit to tell. I was told there are all these great deals for hotels if you don’t stay on the strip. This hasn’t been my experience at all and I used all those advertised budget travel sites – Expedia, Travelocity, etc. After not seeing the rates I wanted – and I wanted something under $79 per night for all 4 of us – I decided to check out the rates at Circus Circus hotel and casino. I remembered going there when I was on my whirlwind teen tour I mentioned in my first entry. They had a lot of carnival-style games for kids and they’re just about on the strip. I was pleasantly surprised when I put in my dates and came up with a total of $119.25 for the 2 nights with breakfast included. Yeehaw. Booked it!
So after we land in Las Vegas, pick up our car and get our stuff from Wal-mart, what should we do? This is the only stop I left unplanned. I know we’ll go to the strip with the giant mall. We’ll make our way through the giant casinos and see the awesome water display in front of the Belaggio. I did want to go to a show, though. Hmm, what to see when you’re in Vegas and with your kids? I decided on Cirque de Soleil. They have a family show called Mystere
which they perform in the Treasure Island casino/hotel. It looked really cool from the web site so I booked it. I’ll let you all know what we thought afterwards. Note, you have to pick up your tickets no less than an hour before the show so I thought we’d get to Treasure Island, pick up the tickets and then have dinner there. We’re going to Gillys BBQ or the pizza place – we’ll see what we’re in the mood for. No buffets - we're just not buffet people. Ok, we did check out the buffets in Amish country but that'll be another trip blog.
