Pages

12/10/2006

The Best Made Plans

I know, I know...what happens in Vegas...yeah, whatever. So, E and I drove to Las Vegas this past Thursday morning to meet up with my parents. My step-dad gave my Mom the trip for her birthday last month. We were all excited to see each other, as it had been way too long (over two years for me). As soon as I'd found out they were coming to Sin City, I promised my Mom that I'd take her to the Elvis-A-Rama museum. I've been feeling a twinge of guilt ever since going there a few years ago with my mother-in-law, knowing how much my Mom loves The King.

We arrived, checked in to our hotel, and met up with the 'rents. Everyone got in my car and off we set. Now, this cheesy little place is off The Strip and E remembered what road it was on, which was different that what one of the hotel maps showed. So, we first searched for and found the wrong road. As anyone who has been to Vegas knows, it is truly The City of Perpetual Construction. It's a mess right now. And the traffic...well, I'll take what I deal with in L.A. any day over that. It's bad. Anyway, we drove and turned around several times and eventually pulled over to call. The number was disconnected, which was not a good sign.

So, we carried on and eventually found Elvis-A-Rama...boarded up with a big CLOSED sign. It turns out that is has been gone since my birthday. It was very disappointing, but we were all able to laugh about it and remark on our tour of ugly, industrial Las Vegas. It's good to see what else is there besides all of the glitter and lights.

Since my Mom had only visited the city two other times, we decided to look around some of the hotels she had never seen. We visited the Wynn, which is very posh. As we kind of wanted to do something "touristy," we decided to go to Madame Tussauds, knowing we'd at least get to see a wax figure or two of Elvis. We had a good time and took several silly photos. Afterwards, we went to the Bellagio to see the garden, which is decorated beautifully for the holidays. I even appreciated it.

There was one more glitch in our day. I was getting very, very hungry and we had settled on getting some dinner at Mandalay Bay. Something felt off when we walked in from the parking garage and I noticed immediately that the flame wall outside of Rum Jungle was "out." To make a long story short, there was a gas line problem along Las Vegas Boulevard and eateries were either closed or serving cold food only. We opted to go off The Strip to eat and it was a good thing.

After dinner we took my Mom to Fremont Street so she could see new "old" Vegas. The light show we saw was a trippy, new-agey one, a little bizarre, but enjoyable nonetheless. We were all exhausted and headed back to crash. I had to work yesterday, so we left after having lunch with my folks on Friday. Even if our time together was brief, it was good, and we had a lot to laugh about. We all vowed to not let so much time pass before seeing each other again.

3 comments:

Jodi said...

Jenn: I gambled...just a little. Lost it all. : (

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the comment today. Hope your 12th anniversary is just as great as ours was! :)

madretz said...

That's so funny that you left Vegas after lunch on Friday - e may have crossed paths in Barstow. We left Barstow Friday afternoon around 3:30 on our way to Flagstaff.

Post a Comment

 

Blog Template by YummyLolly.com