One part travel blog. One part nerdy history lesson.

Day: July 9, 2021

Days 12, 13, 14 – Las Vegas, Nevada

Day 12

We left the hotel bound for Vegas- a 4 hour drive from where we were. We broke up the drive with a stop in St. George, UT at the Rosenbruch Wildlife Museum- as absolutely crazy display of taxidermy animals from around the world. Mostly game animals that were hunted for sport in a lot of cases. There was a trophy room with photos of a bunch of old rich white men. Big game hunters claim that they actually help grow the populations of these animals because by regulating the number of animals that can be hunted, it drives up a steep cost for a permit or tag and that the limit allows for population growth and the money contributes to saving disappearing habitat. I personally question it a bit….sounds a little self serving…but I’m not hunting expert by any means.

Some of the highlight photos. There were so many animals!

Norah bought a stuffed Alpaca from the gift shop. Kegan and I tried to convince her to buy the stuffed possum but she wasn’t having it…and it’s her souvenir funds.

The rest of the drive was standard Nevada desert… but surprisingly, there were TONS of Joshua trees. I wasn’t expecting so many.

We arrived to Vegas and did an obligatory Vegas welcome sign photo…but instead of waiting in the line of 40 people queued up for a photo Norah and I strategically positioned her from the side to get the sign in the background and we were on our way to get lunch!

We chose Shake Shack for lunch because its our favorite burger joint and its been a while since we’ve had it. They are starting to franchise outside of New York and just a few locations-so I’m holding out hope for one in Indy or Louisville soon!

We drove down Las Vegas Boulevard towards our hotel viewing some iconic Vegas hotels.

We stayed at The Venetian this trip because it was the only option I could use Holiday Inn points for. I had never stayed there and usually we aren’t that far south on the strip, so I hadn’t explored this area much.

Our room was sweet. Well, a suite. But sweet. 🙂 It had a huge marble bathroom and a separate sunken living room area with a panoramic window. At check in, it wanted me to upgrade our view for an additional $225/night. HA! no thanks. We had a view of the LINQ ferris wheel and the Flamingo. Not exactly great, but perfectly fine.

I initially thought filling 2-3 days in Vegas with a kid might be hard to do… but it wasnt. Tons of stuff around. Not CHEAP to entertain a kid in Vegas… but plenty to do.

First stop- the Minus 5 Degree Ice Bar at the hotel. This was an EXCELLENT choice after walking around outside Vegas. It made the ice bar bearable for longer and truly cooled us down.

This one is going to be fun in college. Watch out, people.

We talked Norah out of an overpriced gondola ride by promising her she could buy extra stuff in a shop instead, so before we left we stopped at Necter- a bath bomb store- and she got some goodies instead. I’m usually all about experiences over purchases but an $80 Gondola ride in the hotel is crossing the line ha

We kept walking in the Venetian through a lot of the main areas.

Norah has asked me for a hot stone massage for her birthday. Seriously. ha She keeps seeing ads for some casino or resort that offers the hot stone massages and she has decided this is what she needs in her life. As we walked through the Grand Canal Shoppes, they had massage chairs in the center and she asked if she could get one. I swear she melted into the chair. haha She’s a fan. She still clarified that she wants the hot stone massage for the full experience. ha

We went back to our room and chilled for a couple hours and enjoyed the space before it was time to walk across the street to Treasure Island for our Cirque de Soleil show we purchased. I have been stalking Beatles LOVE to open back up for months….legit, every 2-3 days checking for updates. They finally announced opening dates on July 2nd- starting in August. Boo.

The only 2 shows open right now are Mystere and O and Mystere was walkable for us, so we bought those so Norah could at least see a Cirque show. Personally, Mystere was the worst Cirque show I’ve ever seen, but that being said- its still a Cirque show, which is crazy feats of acrobatics and strength, mixed with strange conception art. This was no exception. A giant snail showed up at the end of the show and none of us still have any idea why. ha Norah did enjoy it, but it wasnt the over the top reaction I was looking for if she would have seen Beatles LOVE. Maybe next summer if we go out west for our “outer west” trip, we’ll only be a couple hours from Vegas, we can likely add a night in for that.

We made dinner reservations at Delmonico Steakhouse, Emeril Lagasse’s steakhouse. We wanted the seafood tower we had seen on posters around the Venetian, but we were a bit underwhelmed by quantity and quality of the seafood for the price tag. Would not recommend that purchase.

However, the steak-what they are known for- was amazing. I had the 9oz filet with seared foie gras on top and it was fantastic all around! Kegan got an 18oz porkchop that he said was cooked well. Norah got the special- potato croquettes with bacon and cheese.

Day 13

Our second day we started out really slow by sleeping in and hanging out in the room for a bit, then going for an early lunch at LobsterME – a lobster roll shop in the food court. I forgot to take photos. ha

Norah had been super excited to do a Virtual Room experience, so we booked noon tickets yesterday because they were fully booked when we tried.

This was a really cool concept. It was like an escape room where you work together to try to find clues to escape or complete the levels. But each person is in a VR headset in their own set up space, but once you have the headset on, all of the people in separate areas are all in your screen, so even though we were all split up, we could work with each other like we were all together in the game.

We got to take a virtual selfie at the end to show that we saved civilization.

After the virtual room, we walked down to Bally’s casino through the LINQ hotel, the Flamingo, a couple others… played a couple slot machines on the way and won a bit! like $40. Norah saw some showgirls with all the feathers and sparkly sequins on the sidewalk taking pictures with people and she was mesmerized. She now wants to be a showgirl when she grows up. ha

We thought Norah would love the Bodies Exhibit. Turns out, she says she liked it, but really I think it just freaked her out to see dead human bodies. She was always walking ahead of us and trying to get out faster. So…I’ll count that as a waste of money since I’ve seen the exhibit like 3 times already and Kegan had seen it, too. I was a little surprised because she is so macabre about different things- but she wasn’t a big fan of this.

Next activity was more Norah’s speed. Twilight Zone Black Light Mini Golf! We had a blast with this one. They were playing doo-wop music from the 50’s and everything had a party vibe. It wasn’t busy, so we could play at our own pace.

The same place had a couple duck pin bowling lanes, so we played some arcade games and then bowled a game.

Our last kid-centric activity for the day had us trekking back to the Venetian and then across to Treasure Island again for the Marvel Avengers: S.T.A.T.I.O.N. exhibit. Everything displayed in this was actual costumes and props used in the Avenger’s movies… so I had high hopes it would be worth the admission. It was fun… but it was crowded and there were so many of their computer screens broken and not working… and so much waiting in line- it was meh. If your kid is super into the Avengers, probably worth a stop. I think we kinda both said anything at Treasure Island in the future needed to be fully vetted before going. ha

Now it was time for our dinner experience I booked 3 months ago! ha I have been wanted to have Hot Pot for a long time, and what better place to try than a brand new fancy, modern, Vegas, over the top, opulent hot pot? We headed to The X-Pot, the newest restaurant at the The Venetian. It was an AMAZING dining experience. But definitely a one-time experience. I can honestly say in the entire time we were there- 2 hours- we were the only non Asian people, so you know it was legit hot pot food. 🙂

The restaurant of the future. These carts rolled through the aisles delivering hot soup broth and taking empty plates back to the kitchen. They didn’t replace servers, but worked with them to do the hard part of transferring boiling broth bowls through busy aisles, and the mundane work of clearing tables.
Langostine Sushi starter
Wagyu Tataki
Swan cake with roasted duck and black pepper sauce. The swans themselves were edible. We thought they were decoration but they were filled with minced duck and onion filling.
The chef add-on Wagyu sampler came out with dry ice rolling making it look incredibly posh. It included Beef tongue, filet, a Wagyu sushi bite, and a couple other cuts of beef to try.
Wagyu chunks and foie gras bimbimbap rice dish. We left it cooking in the pot for 10 minutes and it got super crispy rice.
The main event- our soup base broths were delivered. I got the Creamy Lobster base and Kegan and Norah both got the Mushroom base.
They sit the broth bowl into the space in the table and set the heat on the buttons on the side of the table in front of you.
Lots of veggies to add in and cook in the broth.
Wagyu ribeyes slices for cooking in the soup.
Norah didn’t get the tasting menu, she just wanted some pork meatballs to eat with her broth.
Wagyu meatballs we were instructed to cook for 5 minutes in our soup.
Black sesame tofu chunks – to me these didn’t have much flavor… but were interesting to try anyway.
Seafood selection of sea bass, tiger prawns and lobster for the broth.
They had a masked performer come through for a show around to all the tables. As he danced through, he would do a mask change so quick it was magic. It was fun.

Dessert was…interesting… haha. It was a chocolate mousse in the shape of a puppy.

The waiter said to eat the face first so he wasn’t staring at you while you ate him. haha

Norah was a fan.

After dinner, we planned to go downtown to Fremont Street and show Norah the overhead light show… but she was exhausted. She asked if we could go back to the room and make origami Yoda that she has a book about.. haha so when your 8 year old in Vegas asks to go to the room and relax, you go to the room.

We played around with the optical illusion floor off the casino floor while Kegan gambled his $100 he budgeted in a slot machine. It was gone in 5 minutes. haha He said he never even went above 100 once he started. Always disappointing! ha

Day 3

Today was check out day, so we hung out in the room until around 10:30 and then went searching for some breakfast or brunch. The Grand Lux Cafe had an hour wait, Bouchon was closed so we decided the food court was our best option. We just had croissants and crepes to hold us over because the lines were ridiculous for everything.

Norah’s favorite thing was the Virtual Room and she asked if we could book another slot today and do the second escape room …so we did. This one had us in outer space and a temporary or Indiana Jones style. It was fun.We took better virtual selfies this time!

We left the Strip and headed up the interstate a bit to Meow Wolf- an art installation I didn’t know was open in Vegas yet…but after we missed the one in Santa Fe, I was super excited to go to this one!

Neither of us had any idea what to expect at all so it was pretty fun to just show up and enter not having a clue what was going on. Ha

It was weird, like I expected- but really cool. The front of the exhibit was set up like a grocery store and it had aisles and aisles of real products you could buy. I photographed some of the funnier products.

The back of the store had random hidden spots to led back to a labyrinth of crazy psychedelic art areas. There was also some sort of missing person murder mystery storyline some people were tracking and listening to phone calls and opening files on computers… it was a LOT of info and art to process. Ha

Outside they had sculptures in the parking lot leading in so we checked those out.

They had a cool toy store inside along with a restaurant and bar and other side show sort of things you could buy. Norah bought sea monkeys and a toro-flex, some metal thing that she had obviously seen online because she was very quick to grab one! Ha

We grabbed Shake Shack again on our way out of Vegas to eat on the road as we made the 4 hour trek to our hotel via the Extraterrestrial Highway.

To understand why we would drive 1.5 hours out of the way to see Area 51 and Rachel, NV…you have to have Norah background. Ever since 2019 when people showed up to “storm Area 51” after a viral Facebook event campaign started….and it was all over YouTube and the internet, she has said she wanted to Storm Area 51. Haha

So… we fulfilled a dream! haha

Norah “naruto” running into Area 51. It makes you faster according to Norah.

Whew. Longest blog post I’ve ever done! Well done if you read all this! Ended in Cedar City and we’ll head to Salt Lake City tomorrow.

Day 11 – Canyonlands National Park and Arches National Park

Today was all about Moab, Utah and 2 of the “Mighty 5” of Utah’s National Parks.

I had planned this stop for breakfast in Moab for Kegan… a donut shop serving breaded chicken breasts served with glazed doughtnuts for buns at a place called Doughbird.

The problem is, Erin didn’t read the fine print. They only serve the doughnut chicken from 11am onward. ha So….doughnuts for breakfast were had!

Straight hair and chocolate glazed doughnuts make for a good morning.
Kegan continued his old man doughnut streak getting an old fashioned and a salted caramel cronut.

We originally planned to go to Arches all day- multiple National Parks Facebook groups I’m in had said to get to the park early- that after 6am all of the parking spots are gone and that after 8am or so, they are completely shutting the gates and turning all vehicles away for the day due to overcrowding. But then I saw a couple posts saying that they went around 3-4 in the afternoon and got right in and were able to see everything they wanted… so we decided we liked the idea of hiking from 3p-8p better than 5a-9am haha. So… we decided to visit Canyonlands National Park in the morning.

Canyonlands is odd because you cant just enter the park through a gate and see everything. The Colorado and Green Rivers both cut right through the center and merge. There are no bridges spanning the canyon and rivers, so to see some parts of the park, it may be a 2 hour drive to the other entrance.

We took the first entrance nearest Moab first because this was the path to see the “birthing scene” -another famous rock petroglyph.

We had a beautiful drive along the river.
Someone’s cave house entrance. I want a cave house! We stayed in one in Spain and it was super cool. I have a search saved in Spain for “cuevas” or cave houses. ha maybe one day!
The Birth Stone- petroglyphs on all 4 sides. From sometime between 450-1250 AD.
The birthing scene is interesting because if you look at the “baby”- its feet down. I think they documented this breech birth because it was so odd to them.

We backtracked through Moab on our way to the 2nd Canyonland’s entrance and it was 9:30am-so we could stop in to the Moab Rock Shop! They have some COOL stuff in this rock shop.

Norah purchased a red coral necklace, a polished Calcite heart and a couple of other small rocks she found interesting.

We continued on to Dead Horse Point State Park, where we literally paid $20 to see a lookout. ha BUT… it was a cool lookout. It supposedly got its name because a bunch of cowboys rounded up wild mustangs onto this section of cliff because there was a narrow 90 foot neck and surrounded by canyon drop off after so they could corral the horses. Supposedly, they selected the horses they wanted, then left the rest to die there with no water. This is just legend as far as I know..but it explains the name.

You could see potash ponds from here as well. Potash is mined from deep underground, pumped up with colorado river water, then held in these bright blue dyed ponds that speed crystallization and evaporation in the desert heat and sun to make fertilizer. They look pretty 🙂

Whale Rock. It sort of looks like a whale. ha It’s deceiving how big this actually is. There were tiny little specks of people walking on the top of it as we passed.
This was an overlook in Canyonlands into The Maze.
We got out at Mesa Arch to walk back to it and the crows were even too hot today. ha Walking around with their mouths open to cool down. I feel ya, crows. I feel ya.
Mesa Arch

Next we had more time to kill before we could get into Arches because as we went by in the morning the signs outside said “Park full, please turn around”…so we went to a place called Moab Giants that I really didn’t know anything about.

If you had small children who were REALLY into dinosaurs, it may have been worth it. But it was a pretty lame excuse for a museum, theatre, aquarium, etc…and it was NOT cheap. I think it was like $130 for all 3 of us…and we were done with everything in 1.5 hours. and when we went to the cafe, which was fairly empty to get Norah some dino nuggets for lunch, they told us it would be 50 minutes for food. ha for frozen dino nuggets. no thanks.

The coolest part was this Paleo Aquarium they had. I assumed it was a real aquarium with some sort of fish that were really old species or something… but it was a VIRTUAL 3D aquarium, but set up like a real walk through aquarium… so that was super fun, but we had some mumbly old man guide that you couldn’t understand and about 15 screeching toddlers and children who were old enough to know better. ha

We walked past about 12 different “tank” viewing windows that showed whales, and some ocean dinosaur species and the video was so well done you really did forget for a bit these weren’t real animals you were watching! ha

Their museum section was tiny, but it did have some fossil skeletons and a a few good exhibits.

Outside in the middle they had a dinosaur playground and a walk through dinosaur trail with models of dinosaurs.

So, overall review was- if you don’t have small kids that are dino obsessed, probably not worth it. If you do, probably will be the time of their life. Just order your dino nugget lunch ahead of time 🙂

This took us to 3pm though… so it was time for the main event- ARCHES! I was excited to see these…but turns out other people are WAY more excited about arches of rock than I am. ha I like them, they’re cool but some of these visitors are just completely crazy town over these rocks.

Our first stop was a viewpoint called Park Avenue. Such a cool point.

Balanced Rock
An arch from the car. No hiking needed! ha

Kegan had been to Arches before- on field camp- in college for his Geology degree. So he said if I was going to do one arch- Double Arch was well worth it for the short walk back to the arches- so that was our first trek. He was right and Norah loved it.

Our next viewpoint was Delicate Arch lower viewpoint. I assumed it would be closer…. but it was SUPER far away…but the 3-4 mile hike to go back to it Kegan had done before and with 105 degree heat, he said that was not a hike Norah and I were up for today. Fair enough! So next trip out, maybe.

Our final stop was at the backend of the park at Devil’s Garden-a 7.8 mile loop of multiple arch trails. We decided to do the 1.8 mile down and back to Landscape Arch which seemed like a good one to see and it was the end of the day and the sun had gone behind some clouds…

So, we filled our water bottles for like the 100th time. Seriously. I think I drank 7 liter bottles full.

We purchased this Stanley cooler for the trip for just this sort of thing… it holds 2.5 gallons and I would highly recommend it for making sure you have enough water during the day for being out in the parks and doing any hiking. We’ve emptied it a couple days so far. We take it in the hotel every night and fill it up with ice about 2/3 and the rest with water. By the end of the next day it’s still cool but all liquid, even sitting in the hot boiling lava car. It might even still have ice if you were in a slightly cooler area.

One of the first sights on this hike was a small slot canyon with a powdery sand floor.

A bit into the trail, there was a cutoff for Pine Arch and Tunnel Arch, which added .8 miles or so to the total. Kegan was mouth-wide-open when I veered off to the arches. hahaha. Couldn’t believe I was voluntarily adding more hiking.

Pine Arch was well worth the steep uphill climb back to the main trail.
Tunnel arch…well, you’re only like .1 miles from it there, so might as well get it in, too.

We continued the hike on back and about 2/3 of the way there, the blazing sun popped back out and that sun is brutal! The photo below of landscape arch isn’t great… the sun was shining right on my camera, so this is the only proof you get that I hiked it 🙂

We walked back in the hot sun, putting a wet handkerchief on Norah’s neck to keep her cool. We didn’t expect it to be so hot and sunny the whole way back when we set out… so I was a little concerned about her making it back. She was pretty red and I knew I was hating life, so we shaded her and kept her in rock shadows where we could and Kegan saved some of his water bottle back to keep wetting her down. He’s a good daddy 🙂 She did better than I did in the end. ha My hiking day was done. Arches were no longer worth it today and our water jog was empty. Time to pack it in! ha

After leaving Arches, it was just a boring 3 hour drive across Utah to get us closer to Vegas for tomorrow! A fun little 3 day detour from national parks and hiking to lights, sounds, food and ridiculousness. 🙂

We got to Richfield after dark and the town was setting off their July 4th fireworks on July 5th, so Norah watched them from the Walmart parking lot while Kegan ran in for some random supplies. We had salads from Wendy’s. Which-by the way, if you haven’t tried the Southwest Chicken Salad they have with southwest ranch and a big dollop of guacamole, it was really good!

I’m going to wait and combine all 3 days of Vegas into one post, so it may be a couple days before I post again!