Had a fun time in Vegas. I'll go day by day and try to be brief because I'm really tired.

We left Wednesday morning and arrived in Vegas late afternoon. After getting to our hotel room and settling down we ate at a nearby restuarant called Bahama Breeze. It was okay, I got a kindy pukey seafood pasta dish.

After that we went back to the hotel (it was about five blocks off the strip... rooms on the strip during New Years are $300 minimum) and drove along the strip. After taking it in and my dad getting frustrated with traffic we parked at Treasure Island and looked around. My first time in a Casino, and well... it wasn't anything special. They all looked alike, but I guess maybe if I could actually gamble I'd be more interested (heh, I'm so cheap I probably wouldn't anyways). We picked up our tickets for the show we were going to the next night, Mystère, a Cirque du Soleil production.

Mystère Website

The next day we woke up and headed towards Hoover Dam. Little did we know, thanks to 9/11, it took more than three hours to even get to the damn dam because they search every car that tries to go nearby it. Anyways, we didn't go down the dam road because the dam line was too long. We decided to cancel the dam sightseeing and ate at a nearby town. We wandered around the town before heading back.

We then went to the show, it was really neat and we all enjoyed it. Afterwards we walked the strip a bit, looked at a few more casinos, then called it a night.

The next day was New Years! I slept into one and we didn't head out until about four from the hotel room. Actually my parents went and did crap while I laid in bed and watched TV. Muhahahaha. We then took a shuttle to the strip and had to kill EIGHT HOURS. It was bad... we were sick of casinos and had NOTHING TO DO. Reminded me of the Civil War, we left a little too early for that one as well.

Anywho, we ended up having two meals during that time and finally it was time for the celebration. We headed towards the street and joined the 300,000 on the street to countdown the New Year. The crowd roared as the fireworks went off to signal 2005. It was fun to be part of, second largest celebration short of New York itself.

After that we waded through the throng of drunk people to get back to our hotel. Everyone was pushing and shoving, it was pretty intense. Too many people, too little space. At one point a fight broke out right next to us, police with riot gear came in, pretty soon police on horses, and everyone panicked. Was pretty scary getting shoved around in the commotion, little kids were getting crushed and people spilling their cocktails all over everyone. We all lived and walked back to the hotel room and slept.

The next day, today actually; we woke up, went to the airport, and came home. The Las Vegas airport has slot machines in the terminals (see picture) which is pretty sad. Anyways, great to be in the Nortwest again and see actual trees.

Rant about the Insight bowl tomorrow probably.

Pictures:

http://www.zolknetwork.com/misc/thomas/Vegas