Girls Loose in Vegas!

My BFF from high school, Dalynda, and I wanted to get together to celebrate our big milestone birthday (next month) and schedules worked out for this past weekend in Las Vegas. (We wouldn't have chosen Vegas, but I was already going for work, and she's ony a 4 hour drive from there, and calendars worked, so it was a good meeting place.)

She picked me up at the airport, and we headed into town. We were greeted by the world-famous VEGAS STRIP...which is quite a sight!

One of the days in the 100 degree heat we found refuge in a Tex-Mex place called Senor Frog's. The nice, cool air felt great, but were taken a little aback by a big sign just past the entryway that said "Clothing Optional Past this Point..." but when we mentioned it to the hostess, she laughed and said, "You're okay, it's only lunch time." HA!! So we enjoyed a yummy lunch.

Coming from out of town with plenty of coverage, it didn't take us long to realize that there is a severe FABRIC SHORTAGE in Las Vegas. The 'rationing' must be the reason all the girls are wearing about 1/4 of the fabric they should be wearing!  We kept wanting to say, "Does your MOTHER know you're out in public dressed like THAT?!" We were a bit surprised at the prevalance of the MINI-MINI skirt. These girls were so precariously dressed they need to move v-e-r-y  c-a-r-e-f-u-l-l-y!! But the see-through fabric is in good supply, so it is used everywhere. (We spared you photos...)

Inside the Venetian Hotel - very cool! With the sky-like ceiling, you felt like you were outside!

We took a break from the darkness of the Strip, and did a session at the Las Vegas Temple, which was gorgeous! It sits up against an ugly brown mountain, but the grounds were beautifully landscaped, and it felt good to get away from the YUK of downtown!

We spent a lot of time just relaxing, chatting, shopping, eating GELATO, catching up on each other's lives, and SLEEPING in...something we rarely get a chance to do in the rat-race of our lives! It was fun to talk about the latest goings on, our kids, (my) grandkids, our jobs, our lives "mid-way," the good-ole-days in American Fork, and just anything we wanted to talk about! We even got on Facebook and looked up some old friends for grins.

Huge water fountain shows set to music shot water up taller than the very tall buildings on the strip!

Did you know you can get M&Ms in almost any color in the rainbow? Including gray, maroon, neon colors, navy blue, hot pink,
and all kinds of other colors? That vital piece of information was very good to add to our chocolate knowledge!

We had tickets to see the BLUE MAN GROUP and even though we had read about them on-line, we didn't really know what to expect. They were a fun evening's entertainment! They play all kinds of weird percussion instruments, spray colored stuff all over the audience (our seats were the FIRST ROW behind the "Poncho Zone,") long twirly things come dancing down from the theater ceiling, they eat and spray marshmallows, Twinkies, and Cap'n Crunch cereal out at the audience, and involve the audience with large sheets of tissue that the back row passes up to the front row under black florescent lights, strobe flashing, etc. It's hard to explain, but they were generally just very funny and entertaining, without any of them ever saying one word!
<><><><>

<>

<><><><>

We even got to meet one of the Blue MEN after the show, and tried to make
our eyes as big as his!

Here are some STREET CHARACTERS I can share, because they were fully clothed (haha). The "tree guy" and the "statue" would stand very still, and then reach out and touch an unsuspecting passer-by, and scare the jelly beans out of them! It was fun to just stand there and watch...

On our last day, we had read about a nearby chocolate factory, so we had to go check it out before Dalynda dropped me off at my hotel for the work meeting.

The place was called ETHEL M CHOCOLATE FACTORY, and when we were on the tour, we saw that it stands for Ethel MARS (as in Mars candy bars, M&Ms, etc.) But they were making all kinds of "normal" chocolates like clusters, caramels, etc, and we started collecting a few in a bag -- until we found out they were $2 EACH, and we stopped our collection real quick!

Part of the Ethel M grounds includes a Botanical Cactus Garden...can't say as we had ever seen one of THOSE before, so we had to check it out! It had its own kind of beauty.



All in all, it was a wonderful little getaway with great company and some much needed down time. I don't think we did too much damage (other than some compulsive shopping for clothes and jewelery), and although we didn't love the location itself, we had a great time -- and I'm sure Sin City will carry on long after our departure.