Las Vegas

Kraig and I left for Las Vegas on December 20. Since we have been away from each other workng, we decided we should go on a little mini vacation. We love ourselves some Las Vegas, and I got a really good deal- so off we went. We flew out of South Bend (something we have not done in awhile) and Kraig actually knew one of the people working for the airlines. She told him that she had ridden the bus with him when she was a little kid and had given him flowers. How cute! On the way there, I started off my usual gambling streak of losing. There was a raffle on the plane for money and Las Vegas show tickets. So I lost my first $10 somewhere over the Southwest US.
Kraig knows Las Vegas like the back of his hand- so we rented a car and headed for the Sahara. The Sahara is Kraig's favorite casino. He even did his Las Vegas happy dance when we got there. We had an awesome time there because they were having some really good promotions. $1 Blackjack $1 Beers $1 Shots and $1 Hot dogs. We spent a lot of our time in the casino partaking in these (especially the $1 blackjack). They actually had an entire floorspace dedicated to these tables. It was really fun. By the end of the week, we both lost money (even with these small minimums), but we had a lot of fun. The casino people knew us and a lot of the other guests knew us too. When I would come down to the casino without Kraig they would ask where he was and vice versa! We sat at the tables with a lot of interesting folks. I made friends with a nice group of lesbians. I was in with them when I said on the second day. Crap, I'm out of money, and I am not supposed to take any more money out of my purse. Then in the next second, Oh well! I work and I do what I want. If I remember correctly, I won with that money for a long time. We also met some guys that knew every single 80s song and who sang it, a crazy and very loud girl that was playing blackjack with a little pocketcard of how to play the game, and a drunk, possibly homeless man that said he was meeting up with 3 girls later but wouldn't mind meeting up with me... My friend Shannon even hung out/slept for a little while during her overnight layover in Vegas on her way to San Francisco. That was pretty crazy and cool! I also learned the basics of craps. It is really fun, but you can lose money very quickly. The first time that I rolled the dice, I rolled them off of the table. ooops :)
Aside from the gambling we got hot dogs and shots at the bar. On the first night in Vegas, we went to the Stratosphere and ate at their buffet. You have to start Vegas out with a buffet. Our casinos buffet was closed so if you were a "Club Sahara" member you got a complimentary $5 to spend on casino food every single day. It was great and I like to think that it slightly offset the amount that I had lost gambling.
It was pretty cold in Las Vegas so we did not walk up and down The Strip very much. We did check out the Bellagio fountain. When we saw it, the water was choreographed to Carol of the Bells. I love that fountain, and I love it even more when it is set to Christmas music!

Another highligh of the trip was getting to see Phantom: the Las Vegas spectacular. It was a fast-paced, glitzy version of Phantom of the Opera located in the Venetian hotel. It followed true to the musical, and the singing was outstanding. I have always wanted to see Phantom of the Opera on Broadway, so I was very happy to see this show. The stage was really beautiful and the chandeleir drop made you jump. Kraig (yes, kraig too) and I really enjoyed it.

One of the days we ventured off of the strip to a restaurant called Souplantation. It is a soup and salad buffet restaurant. We discovered them in CA, and we have been missing them- so we hit up a healthier kind of buffet in Las Vegas. It made us miss CA a little bit.
I think we could have easily stayed in Las Vegas for a few more days but we needed to get back home for Christmas.
The flight home is another whole story. We were very close to missing our flight. Our flight was scheduled to leave at 6am on Christmas Eve. We underestimated the amount of people that would be there at that time of day. Also, we refueled our rental car and I had to turn in my $2 worth of chips at the casino. These things added into our lateness. We showed up at the airport at 5:35 am, and the airline barely let us get our tickets because we were 5 minutes past the deadline. We ran to the plane. I was already crying that we were going to miss Christmas once we hit the security line.. but a few nice people let us cut to get through faster. Once through security we were running again- but then had to wait for the tram to get us to the part of the airport where our plane was. We got off the tram running again... This time up a giant escalator. I imagine us looking like the family in the Home Alone movie when they almost missed their flight. We were running, darting in and out of people, shouting excuse me, and trying to miss people with our carry ons. I am sure it was annoying to the rest of the travelers, but in the end- we made it. Kraig is faster than me and made it there first. It was his job to hold up the plane!
Lucky for us, our flight left 20 minutes late anyway and people were still boarding when we got there. As always, Kraig actually knew someone in line- a friend from his Union Hall that currently works in Vegas. I got on the plane high on adrenaline and happy that we had made it. I then managed to sleep the entire way home!
We had such a great time and can't wait to go back. We can only hope that $1 blackjack will still be around in the future.