Weekend in Vegas…

So, I think I now understand why most people don’t stay a week in Las Vegas:

After about 4 days, their feet fall off.

(I take that back: I am pretty sure my mom could do all the walking I have done today and then go run a mini marathon. As you know, my mother cannot be stopped).

Yesterday: Kicked Gene out of the hotel room to go to his class. Later, Gene comes back to the hotel and we have lunch at a Mexican restaurant in Mandalay Bay (Shrimp tacos = delicious). I decided I was up for an adventure, so after Gene and I parted ways at Mandalay, I start walking. And walking. And then I walk some more just to prove a point.

The map from the hotel claims I only walked about 1.5 miles but I know it was more like 50. Here is a map of the Las Vegas strip so you can follow my adventure. I started at Mandalay (#1 on the monorail map), then walked the strip (all the time thinking “I bet in about 8 hours a hooker will be walking where I’m walking now”) to the Luxor (#2). Proceeded to gawk like the Mayor of Hick City (“Gawwwleee, we ain’t got a pyramid you can live in where I’m from!”).

Honestly, I can’t remember if I went into the Excalibur (#3) or not because I walked through about 20 hotel/casinos in the last 2 days and they are a blur. (Seriously, each of them has a Starbucks, a hot dog place, 50 places where you can buy a 3 foot tall glass of frozen margarita and 11 trillion slot/video poker machines). Next: New York New York (#8) and the MGM Grand (#6) for reasons I can no longer remember.

Saw the Bellagio (lucky #13) down the street, decided it “wasn’t far” and that I’d go there next. Watched the fountains and talked to Mom. (Saw the fountains again today and they did their routine to a recording of “All That Jazz”). Remembered that I wanted to go to Caesar’s Palace and it “wasn’t far” even though my feet were tired and I was definitely getting dehydrated (I knew this because I had considered asking the tourist pushing the Bugaboo stroller to hold my purse so I could jump in the Bellagio fountain).

Walk walk walk walk waaaaaaalk. Finally make it to Caesar’s (#18) and join their club (so I could get a $5 discount on their all day buffet pass – they also gave me $5 of free slot play which I have yet to use). The other thing I wanted to accomplish at Caesars (and in fact, the only thing I really wanted to do in Las Vegas entirely) was to find the Vosges Haut Chocolate store in the Forum Shops at Caesars Palace (#23 – and the fact that the hotel and the mall are different numbers on the map should have been a clue!).

(Fun fact: Actually, they are entirely different stops on the monorail, too).

Proceeded to walk through a mall (“The Forum Shops in the same state as Caesar’s Palace”) so fancy that they should not have let the likes of me in. Walked past 10 or more Louis Vuitton stores (more about that later), which is impressive since there are only 6 in all of Nevada. Perhaps I actually walked to a neighboring state. (That explains a lot). Found Vosges and bought chocolate (yes, I did). Nearly delirious, I ask the cashier (a hippie who I’d disturbed from writing in his dream journal and who clapped every time I selected a chocolate) where do I go to get a taxi. Right before I walked out the doors to the taxi stand I found a Mexican restaurant and bought a huge Diet Coke to go.

I think the taxi driver thought I was a drunk the way I slumped in my seat and desperately sipped at my gigantic (non-see thru) cup. Limped up to the room, headachy, filthy and d.o.n.e. Popped two Aleve and ended up taking a bubble bath and felt restored, albeit wrinkly.

Dinner was In-n-Out Burger, a fast food restaurant. (I explained to Gene that people out here love In-n-Out the way I love White Castle and he wasn’t in the mood for a fussy meal anyway).