Las Vegas with the Little Kids

We've driven right through Las Vegas many times, usually in the middle of the night. The desert is too hot so we plan our roadtrip so that we pass through the high desert during the coldest part of the night; in August that means 90 degrees at 3am. The kids are usually passed out in their carseats while we ooooo and ahhhh over the sight of the lights. And, we just keep going.

This trip, I decided we would stop and really see Las Vegas.  I wanted to see it, Fenna wants to see it (again - she was there 2 years ago), and the kids are too small to understand that it isn't a kids' place. If I am ever going to see Las Vegas, now is the time.

 I found a great deal on a room at Circus Circus for $24 per night plus a $9 facility fee. They had cheaper rooms in their little side motel but didn't know how "ghetto" that would be since I couldn't find a good review for it online.  At $24 per night, the upgrade would probably be worth it, my prediction was spot on! The room was actually very nice.

Everyone I know seems to love a nice soft mattress with a pillow top. This is what they had at Circus Circus. While I appreciate a newer bed that isn't permanently body-dented and doesn't look like a teacup, I'm not a big fan of soft mattresses.  Sure enough, it felt great at first. Ahhhh, but then as I sunk in, I felt like I was drowning in the mattress. It wrapped around me and I couldn't roll over. I kept waking up fighting to get myself out of my hole so I could turn this way or that.

I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's first discuss our arrival:

Driving from California to Las Vegas on a Sunday afternoon, the westbound side of the freeway was clogged and barely moving from Victorville all the way into Las Vegas. Crazy! And yet, good for us. Everyone is leaving Las Vegas and we won't have to battle a crowd. Score!

We got off of the freeway and rounded the corner to find the hotel just fine. First thing I saw was the "Motel Manor" which is where the cheapest rooms are. Really glad I upgraded. The manor did not look appealing in any way! Parking was easy enough too. The parking garage was ugly and the spaces were pretty tight, but I squeezed my big fat van into a spot.

By the way, the super filthy parking garage floor is not the ideal place to rearrange your packed bags. Just saying....

We went down an old filthy elevator where I suddenly found religion. I prayed with all my might that it worked and we'd land safely on the ground floor. And I prayed the rest of the hotel was in better condition.

Arriving in the lobby, we discovered we had to wait in a really really really really long line just to check in to the hotel. I've never seen such a thing! The line went all the way from the check-in desk all across the lobby. We got in line and it immediately filled in behind us. There were a lot of families with children so I guess I'm not the only one who thought Las Vegas was doable with children. It took us 55 minutes to get from the back of the line to the check-in desk. With kids who have been strapped down all day long and they have to go potty, it was a long hour.  We had no trouble checking in but we had a long walk to our room. We had to take one set of elevators up to the Adventuredome floor, walk a long way and then took another set of elevators to the floor where our room was. Felt like a mile.

That evening  we needed a place to have dinner. My brother who lives in Las Vegas met up with us for dinner. The restaurants in the hotel were full and there was a 45 minute wait for a table at the restaurant that we had a coupon for, Rock and Rita's. We decided we'd just eat at the buffet. No waiting and food for any mood. The only thing I don't like about buffet dinners is that I have to be the waitress. I was so tired at this point in the day that I decided to stack the plates on my arm just like I did in my old waitressing days. My arms are fatter and softer now, you'd think I could stack more plates on, but no, three plates is my arm balancing limit. That's ok though, saved me a few trips to the buffet and back. Just proves that when I could stack three hot plates on my skinny little arm way back in the day, I rocked! Another thought, why did they seat us so far away from the food?

Since we  had the buffet, we had to have three deserts each. It's like a buffet rule. Even though we were tired, we had to walk off some of the billions of calories, or at least shake 'em down in a bit more. We wandered through the Adventuredome in the hotel. All we did was wander, there were plenty of rides and games for the kids but Fenna didn't want to ride the roller coaster alone (I am not a roller coaster girl) so we didn't end up doing anything beyond wandering and looking. That was enough fun for me at the end of a long day, but Fenna is a teenager and there is no such thing as "done" when it comes to having fun.

The next day was our only full day in Las Vegas. Whatever we are going to do, we're doing it today! We showered and put on fresh clothes and fresh smiles and went out into the stinky air of Las Vegas. You know, the city really smells awful. People smoking, body odor of the all night party crowd lingers in the air, greasy fast food, car exhaust all amplified by the  heat. I'd sure hate to smell this place in the summer.

We started by trying to find the amazing Circus acts that the hotel boasts. After a big long search, we found it and we arrived just as it ended. It didn't look like much though; I don't think we missed much of anything spectacular.  Fenna and I decided it didn't look like it would be worth waiting around for the next show time. We had lunch at McDonald's in the hotel before we set off to see the sights. Yes, McDonald's again. Blech. This is where the people who do not win big eat.

We got a map of the strip and realized we were at the far end and it would be quite a long hike to walk, although it didn't look too bad. We got the van out of the parking garage and drove about halfway down the strip. Oh my goodness, it is a long way!  The street was closed so we had to turn around and since we didn't find a place to park we ended right back in the Circus Circus parking garage. Got a better parking spot this time. Well, that was not what I had in mind when I thought we'd go see the strip. A better idea: let's ride the public transportation and then we can ride it back again. Why didn't we think of that before?

Once we finally got to the strip where you could see some sights, we walked.  And walked and walked and walked. We wandered through a mall. It was beautiful!

After that we wandered outside, walking further south along the sidewalk. We saw beautiful buildings and were grateful for the nice sidewalk bridges.

 

Much to Gracie's delight we saw the Eiffel Tower. She was very excited! She wants to go to Paris France to see the real one, but this fake one was good enough to satisfy her. And, this is the only thing she told her school teacher about when we got back after a 10 day trip.

Walking along we intermittently went through beautiful and ugly. I couldn't wait to get off that sidewalk and away from the crowd! Fenna and Gracie were whining about it being too far and too hot and too disgusting.  Agreed. It was. There were people openly drinking and smoking everywhere, and this wasn't even the nightlife crowd. Yuck. On every corner there were at least three or four people handing out pornography advertising. Luckily, they didn't try to hand it to the kids but they did try to hand it to Fenna. She just walked on by and didn't take anything.  There was a lot of these advertising cards on the ground on every corner, so if the kids looked down they saw the pornography. There was also a lot of advertising on signs and on passing trucks. Gracie is just learning to read and she could read the words "Hot Babes". Guess we should have made this trip last year before she could read short words. We saw lots of scantily clad people, plenty of ugly tattoos, and a variety of people dressed as characters. The characters were not the type you'd want your children to go near. This sure wasn't Disneyland. 

My brother met up with us again and he walked with us to M&M World and the Coke store. Those were nice! We had a lot of fun looking at all of the M&M and Coke merchandise. In the M&M store we saw a 3D m&m movie which was very cute. We bought some m&ms and had a variety tray of Coke afterward. Lots of sugary sweet fun!

We caught the bus back to the hotel and Fenna thought maybe we could come back out after dark to see the lights and hopefully see a free pirate show at Treasure Island. I told her no, we aren't going out on the street after dark. I didn't want the little kids out in the sunset crowd. The daytime crowd was bad enough.

That evening my brother's roommate invited us to dinner at the restaurant where she works so we drove across town and had a nice dinner with him and his friend and her little boy. We ate at Chili's. Good food, good company and the residential side of Las Vegas is clean and nice!  It was great!  

This ended our tour of Las Vegas. In the morning we loaded up, checked out and hit the road. Off like a herd of turtles!

I am glad I got to see a little bit of Las Vegas. Now I can truly say "I've been there".  But, I think I only experienced a taste of sin city, and that's all I need to experience. I told the kids to say good bye to Las Vegas because they won't be back for another 20 years, at least they won't be stopping. We're going right back to just driving right on through on the interstate in the middle of the night. Smelly Las Vegas is not a place for little kids.