West Trip - Day 2

Location start/finish: Vegas
Activities: hotel pool, walking the strip

We saved this day to be a laid back Vegas day before we hit a bunch of driving. The kids woke up with some prompting...I think the previous day did them in!

The hotel pool was first on our list, but our breakfast took a little longer than planned, so we didn't arrive until just before noon. This was a problem because (as we didn't know), those places fill up quick! We walked around for 20 minutes trying to find a chair to store our stuff at. Finally we gave in and paid for a chair and umbrella. (My cheap self did not enjoy that.)

As you would expect in Vegas, the pool was crazy fun. There were five pools in all, including a lazy river and a wave pool. Ruby was too short for the wave pool, so most of our time was spent in the river, which we all loved.

Even though it was warm, clouds rolled in and when the sun wasn't out, it felt a bit chilly. So we spent a few hours there before leaving to explore the strip (with the intention of returning later).

On the way out of the room, Eli noticed the door to the stairs and somehow he and I decided to take the stairs as high as we could. We were on the 31st floor, and we got up to 45 where there was a midway roof access (no more stairs on our part of the building). Then we ran down, and by run, I mean sprint. It was a lot of fun and Eli really got a kick out of it. As fine as we felt at the time, the next few days though, we could really feel it in our calves...maybe not the best choice before a hiking trip!

Big surprise of the trip: the big kids like 'shopping'. At least for fun souvenir stuff. We walked from our hotel at one end of the strip down to the Bellagio, and we must have gone in and out of half of the stores. They were both very tickled by the Bubba Gump store (and restaurant, but we didn't eat there). Eli purchased his first souvenir there: a Run, Forrest, Run button and a BG ping pong ball.

Eli and Lehr rode the roller coaster on top of NY, NY while the girls and I found an arcade. This was a welcomed sign as the kids kept commenting how all of the slots they saw everywhere looked like video games, so it wasn't fair that they couldn't play them. After we left there, we entered the Hershey store where the big kids were in awe of all of the candy, especially the larger sizes. Maddux made her first purchase there: a Jolly Rancher slushie.

We found a local favorite taco spot on the strip that night and enjoyed a very tasty meal outside. It was another early night as we were all exhausted!