Day one. Part Two.

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Driving down the strip was exciting, even during the day, but nothing looked like we expected that it would. It wasn’t grand, or beautiful, but crammed and mis-mashed, and everything was under construction.

We arrived at the hotel, and after two times around the parking lot finally figured out where we could wait for Gary to go in and register us. The plan was to check in, get the room key, then head out for something to eat. We were all tired, hungry, jet lagged, and needles to say, grumpy. Gary went into the hotel and I swear it was a week before we saw him again. I was handing out fruit snacks and granola bars, but it just wasn’t cutting it.

Finally Gary made his way back outside. I had googled directions to several key places, one of them being "CiCi’s Pizza, pasta, salad, breadsticks, and dessert buffet, all for around 5 bucks". We got on the highway and drove for three days in heavy traffic.

The food wasn’t bad, and the salad was actually really yummy. They had one made with romaine, tomatoes, bacon and ranch. Mmmm.

At one point, the kids stepped out of line for a minute, then when the stepped back it looked like they stepped in front of some people. The kids couldn’t see this from their place, but I could. The people behind them made a comment and I pretended not to hear. Later it began to bother me that WE were the rude ones, so I went over to their table and began babbling about how we had just stepped off of a plane and hadn’t slept in two days and maybe even something about medication and please forgive us for our terrible manners. I’m sure she was impressed!

After eating things looked a little less bleak, and we went back to the hotel where we took a nap. I would have preferred to sleep thought the night, but the damn sun would not give up. We woke up after at least an hour of sleep and it was only 1. I began to think that we were in hell, and that the sun never set here.








Off to the thrift store to procure appliances. I was hoping to get a griddle, but they didn’t have any. We did get a coffee pot and a crock pot. Score! Then we headed out to find a grocery store. We bought an overpriced cooler, milk, sandwich fixings, some crock pot meal ingredients, and cream for our coffee of course. We spend about $70, which damn near killed me.

We went back to the hotel and I ran up to the in house McDonalds to get us all dinner. We walked around, explored the hotel, midway, and circus a little. We tried to get our Krispy Kreme fix, but the donuts were not made at that location, and when they said HOT, they meant, “reheated hours ago”. I was not impressed.







I just LOVE this picture of Katherine. These contortionists were absolutely amazing to watch and you can see that clearly on her face.




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