Las Vegas & Environs

Leigh and I went to Las Vegas the last week of August. This was Leigh's first vacation since Christmas and my first vacation since April (I know, I know...). Needless to say, Leigh really needed this time off. We chose Las Vegas because it has hot weather, cheap lodging, and lots of stuff to do. Plus we got to take a day trip to Utah, which was cool. We chose to go the week before my job ended because it was literally the only week we could both get away from our jobs and other plans here in Anchorage before Leigh became too pregnant to fly.

We stayed at the Flamingo Hotel & Casino for a whopping $40/night. The room was pretty nice: clean, comfy, air conditioned, etc. Our only complaints were the our neighbors seemed to think it was OK to smoke in the hall and they were pretty loud too. Oh well.

Vegas itself was pretty cool. We enjoyed exploring the casinos, window shopping, and basking in the desert heat. I especially enjoyed the Paris Las Vegas. It was so cheesy-faux-French. I thought I'd hate it for the same reason, but something about the way the designers took the most typical French/Parisian themes and added an American spin was kind of like being my head when I first arrived in France filled with anticipation, jet lag, and confusion.

Of course we spent an evening downtown on Freemont Street. Somehow it managed to escape me that Freemont Street used to be Vegas in all its glory. When we saw this cowboy guy I flashed back to being 5 years old and watching Honey I Shrunk the Kids and it all started to make sense. Freemont was pretty fun with music, lights, and drunk people falling down. 

A couple days into our trip we rented a car to drive to Zion National Park in Utah. What I did not realize before arriving was how very "Mormon" Zion National Park is. Every sight had a name out of the Book of Mormon and throughout the park are old Mormon settlements. 

 But seriously, don't feed the "wildlife." After 2 years in Alaska I think an animal needs to be large and potentially very dangerous to be "wildlife." At the very least it should be wild, and not prance up to you and politely ask for food, which the Zion squirrels did regularly. I politely denied them each time, mostly because they were incredibly fat.

 I had wanted to visit Zion for over a year when I first read about The Narrows hiking trail. It's one of those bucket list hikes that you just MUST do sometime. Obviously we couldn't do a 13 mile trail in wilderness while incubating a baby.

Leigh at 24 weeks pregnant.

 Instead we did a day hike from the end of the trail a few miles in. This hike is cool because you literally hike in the Virgin River, which winds between steep rock walls through the canyon. Very cool. The water regulates your body temperature in the heat and you can even wade or swim up to your knees or chest at time. It was beautiful and a lot of fun. Zion was about 3 hours from Vegas, so it was a long day but totally worth it. It was great to get out of the city too.

In all, we had a great time. We ate, we shopped, we went to the pool, saw a Cirque du Soleil Show (I HIGHLY recommend it!), and we ate A LOT. We are not Vegas people by any means, but it was a nice getaway. There was so much do to every day that we were actually exhausted at the end of the week and happy to go home to a 3-day weekend so we could sleep off our vacation.