One part travel blog. One part nerdy history lesson.

Month: July 2021 (Page 2 of 3)

Day 19 – Cody to Casper, Wyoming

This morning, I had to send everyone else to breakfast while I had a work call I couldn’t miss. They walked down to the Irma Hotel- Buffalo Bill Cody’s famous hotel, opened in 1902, in the city he founded- incorporated in 1901. He passed through the area and loved it so much for its proximity to Yellowstone and rich soil, he decided to put a town there. Thus, Cody, Wyoming was born.

William “Buffalo Bill” Cody was quite the character. He was one of those folks that was into a little bit of everything. He was a Union soldier. He was a Scout for the army during the Indian wars, he rode for the pony express, he shot buffalo for the railroad workers to keep them fed- killing so many that he earned his nickname “Buffalo Bill”. There was supposedly another hunter for the railroad folks that was also named William- and he and William Cody had a competition to see who would be able to earn that nickname of Buffalo Bill- in the end William Cody killed 68 buffalo and the other guy killed 48…and he was a part Native American hunter. Says something about how good he was at it.

He became famous in a newspaper article for being a man of the west… and other stories, books, etc all followed turning him into a national celebrity and symbol of the American West. He eventually had a traveling Wild West Show that was seen around the world, showcasing the Wild West of yesteryear to city folks and Europeans looking to get a glimpse of the fabled western frontier.

The hotel has a very cool bar, a personal gift to Bill Cody from Queen Victoria. The Wild West Show had performed in England during the Queen’s Golden Jubilee and had performed for the German Kaiser, the future king George V, etc.

You can see Kegan up there getting good photos for me! ha I hated to miss this piece. But he did good capturing it so I could see it 🙂

Then it was off to The Buffalo Bill Center of the West. If you ever find yourself near Cody, Wyoming- this one is worth the trip. Its 5 museums in one. Plus an active saddle maker, an active lab (that was removing tissue from a grizzly bear skeleton when we were there) as well as shows, demonstrations and other events. I didn’t allow NEARLY enough time to see everything. So we only got the highlights in a quick meander through. When you buy a ticket, its good for 2 days… and I think you could use a full day to really see everything.

We walked through the Natural History museum first

Next was the William Cody Museum that had so many pieces of memorabilia and antiques from his life.

Original roulette wheel from the Irma Hotel.

We went to the Plains Indian Museum next. Again, just tons of amazing artifacts, beadwork, dyed buffalo hides, etc. An amazing collection.

Lastly, we visited the Cody Firearms museum. It was MASSIVE. Like, overwhelmingly massive. If you are super into firearm history, this is THE PLACE for you. Kegan was even like “I cant process any more. I either need all day to sit and go through every drawer, or we need to go” haha

We stopped at another small museum in town called the Cody Dug Up Gun Museum. Kegan made a quick pass through the second-floor one-room museum. Although it was small, it was well laid out and had a lot of neat pieces. The room was filled with displays of found items- guns, knives, belt buckles, etc.- ranging from old west through WWII era. This isn’t the pristine curated collection that you see at the Cody Firearms Museum, but it is interesting to see things that were found. Most are rusty, beat up junk. But that is the draw of it. Someone found a revolver with the hammer rusted in the the cocked position. Did the owner get shot and dropped it before he could fire? Did he get scared by a bear and drop it while running away? Who knows- but it is fun to imagine the story behind all these items. They didn’t allow photos, so you just get narration 🙂

We made one last stop in Cody, at the Old Trail Town Museum- the original planned site of the town of Cody. They’ve moved a lot of old structures from around Wyoming to this site to reconstruct and save these old buildings. A couple of them are famous. One is the saloon where Butch Cassidy and the Wild Bunch used to hang out. There are even bullet holes in the saloon doors.

Kegan showing Norah how to lasso. They were both pretty terrible at it.

After this, it was a lot of driving, just exploring the state of Wyoming…which by the way…is really sparsely populated with a LOT of ranches and land in between towns. We drove a couple hours and I swear we didn’t pass a single house. It was odd.

We found a strange rock formation called Devil’s Kitchen that looked like they needed to film one of those cheesy Star Trek alien fight scenes at the base of it. ha (Norah says Star Wars… to each their own sci fi series. ha)

Next, we drove past a formation called Chimney Rock

Our drive continued through Bighorn National Forest through some nice views and ended at a very high overlook over the valley.

We got to Casper and ate at the Rib and Chop House- which we thought was going to be fairly fancy… and it ended up being Texas Roadhouse without the peanuts on the floor. But- I had a great filet steak with mushrooms and a crab and shrimp stack that was decent. The rest of the group was upset there was no rolls or bread. ha (I guess one benefit of trying to eat keto. I didn’t miss the bread ha)

Norah ordered a kid’s mini corndog meal and insisted she wanted to take the racecar box home “in case we never come back again” haha weirdo.

Off to bed and headed to Cheyenne by way of Laramie tomorrow.

Days 17 and 18-Jackson Hole, Grand Tetons and Yellowstone National Park

Day 17

As we headed out this morning driving north from Salt Lake City towards Idaho, it got increasingly mountain-esque. (I don’t think thats a word)

We ran into a traffic jam of the local residents. There was a herd of sheep grazing on both sides of the highway and crossing as they pleased. As we passed we saw a Great Pyrenees just lounging in the grass. Didnt even care that his sheep were crossing both sides of the highway. ha

Kegan, Norah and I had never been to Idaho (my mother has- but she lives just an hour and a half away!)

We made a gas station stop and found some interesting items. An Idaho spud candy bar, pickled sausage and Indiana popcorn

Verdict: Idaho Spud – Kegan says it was a combo of nougat like a 3 Musketeers and a marshmallow. Pickled sausage was gross and was promptly thrown away because it was stinking up the car. The Indiana popcorn was good and very buttery.

We passed a car wash, so we washed the salt from the salt flats off the Honda so she doesnt rust apart before we get back home 🙂

We passed through a town called Afton that has a huge antler arch spanning the highway through town.

We reached Jackson Hole, which I had high hopes for. They had tons of nice restaurants online (but a lot of them were closed for lunch on Sundays) I honestly do not get the allure of Jackson after a visit. It was packed full of people standing around everywhere. No place to park, every restaurant full… we finally decided on a spot to just grab pressed juice and sandwiches/light lunch, we got to the counter and they were out of bread, so we ordered a smoked salmon salad. Nope, out of salmon. So we got juices and Norah ordered their special on the board- it took almost 20 minutes to get it. Like, they forgot about it and I had to ask what in the world was taking so long for juice.

So…I was quickly done with Jackson. Over priced, over populated, over exaggerated on awesomeness. Personal opinion. Kegan said I got “the look” and he was afraid for the safety of everyone else around me. haha I was very over the crowds and everything being full or annoying. and I needed lunch.

One shining star in town- the liquor store sells Liquor “sloshies” – frozen boozy drinks.

They did have a Whole Foods grocery though, so we ate our lunch from the salad bar there and headed into Grand Tetons.

The Tetons were a bit underwhelming right now. There are fires around so the sky is very hazy. Also, there is almost no snow on the mountains right now. Kegan says it is usually much better than right when we were there…and it was still pretty… but with current conditions I wasn’t sure why everyone was losing their minds over the beauty of the Tetons. It was more like just a really scenic drive towards Yellowstone to me.

This one looked like a watercolor through the haze.
Jenny Lake Overlook

We took the side trip drive up Signal Mountain because we were listening to an audio guide called Just Ahead that gives you a guided tour based on where on the map you were. We did see a baby black bear cub on that drive! So that was exciting!

Also a Moose

We headed on North on the highway and arrived at the South gate of Yellowstone. Lewis Falls was our first stop.

We were trying to get Old Faithful in this evening if we could so we didn’t have to go down the south entrance road again and because I knew that the park would be ridiculously crowded the next day. We saw that it was scheduled to blow at 6:24. We arrived at the visitor center lot at 6:21. We had to find parking… hoof it up to the geyser….we arrived at 6:25… but I knew we didn’t miss it because everyone was still sitting around! ha

Norah couldn’t believe it! ha She loved it.

Turns out they give a +/- 10 minute range and it was at the tail end of the 10 minutes. About 6:35 it blew.

Next stop was Grand Prismatic Spring. I was highly considering hiking to the overlook point because you just don’t get the pretty rainbow tones from the ground level… but it was sunset nearly, so it wasn’t meant to be this trip.

A very cool old school tour bus still taking guests around! I loved this thing!

It was getting dark so we headed out of the West entrance of the park to West Yellowstone where we had the only hotel I had to pay for this trip. $360 for a standard 2 bed room for one night! They have a good thing going….it wasn’t the quality for that price… but it was just as good as a Holiday Inn.

We went to Firehole BBQ around 9:15pm and they are “open until they run out”. Kegan watched them run out of smoked turkey and brisket while waiting in line. Kegan ordered a rack and a half of ribs…and the guy behind him got the last of the ribs. Whew. Close call! ha

Day 18

Our morning started out slow. We didn’t leave the hotel until about 8:30. Then we had about a 30-40 minute wait in traffic to enter the park. Then we had about 20 miles to go to reach our first major stops for the day. So a lot of scenery.

We made a stop at Artist’s paintpots. Geothermal vents and bubbling mud. Super cool area.

We continued on towards the visitor center because we didn’t see any parking at the Mammoth Hot Springs.

Outside the visitor center, we found a big group of Elk just lounging!

Had to walk by them to get Norah’s National Park Passport stamped in the visitor center! ha
Excuse me, ma’am. We’re going to need to get in that Honda, please.

We swung back through Mammoth Hot Springs area and this time we were able to snag a parking spot.

The terraces are super cool.

We drove out to the north entrance because I wanted to see the famous Roosevelt Arch.

For the benefit and enjoyment of the people.

We were able to find parking in both upper falls and lower falls viewing areas as we passed through, so we got lots of good photo points of the falls.

Let’s keep it real on the blog…that picturesque photo of the waterfall at artist point? So scenic and serene? Yeah… this was a photo of the viewing platform to see it. There are a LOT of people there right now.

As we left the falls area, we descended into Hayden Valley and got our bison sightings in!

We stopped off at Sulphur Springs, Mud Volcano and Dragon’s Mouth Spring.

Unexpectedly, Kegan is telling us how when he was here 14 years ago, there was a bison like 10 feet away from them on this boardwalk… and……

We also had a bison very close on this boardwalk! haha Kegan thinks it may be the same damn bison. haha

The last stop inside the park was a view up to a lookout point over Lake Yellowstone. It was huge! We had no idea it was so big.

This led us to the East exit from the park and we would continue on the Buffalo Bill Scenic Highway all the way to Cody, Wyoming for the evening. Beautiful formations along the way.

Our dinner was super uneventful. Wendy’s salads. ha

We planned to eat at a German restaurant in town-they are closed this week. Then another restaurant we called had over an hour wait… so Wendy’s closed out the night.

Tomorrow we’ll check out Cody and end in Casper, Wyoming.

Days 15 and 16 – Cedar City to Salt Lake City, Utah

Day 15

Well, this morning started off with a bang! ha

Kegan got up, flushed the toilet, went about his business and all of a sudden we realized, the toilet is overflowing and still running out into the floor! Kegan rushes in, opens the back tank and holds the fill float up to get it to stop! He first tried the shut off valve, but it was stuck shut… and the flapper stuck open because it was old and in poor repair. So, I called the desk…maintenance wasn’t in yet at 7:20am. So here is Kegan, holding a toilet together in his underwear. haha The desk lady brought us a plunger… and we were able to get it to go down, even though we didn’t do anything to clog it….so we left a wet pile of towels in the floor holding back water in the floor and got our stuff and left. We had some tweaker lady checking us in the night before who was incredibly high…and we weren’t fans all around. We were done with that particular Holiday Inn!

We headed to Delta, Utah to see the Topaz Museum. This was a museum I was really hoping was open for the trip. It is dedicated to preserving the history of the Japanese Internment camps in the United States during World War II. I am a big believer that people who know history and are aware of things that have come before us go forward in the world in a totally different way that people ignorant of our past. I admit I didn’t know a TON about this… I knew we rounded up Japanese Americans- most of them US citizens and forced them to stay in camps for the duration of the war, but the museum did a great job of highlighting the details and educating.

The US Army thought a West coast war was eminent with Japan after the attack on Pearl Harbor. They also thought that Japanese ancestry might make it hard to determine loyalties and they would have to worry about spying….so they ordered the evacuation of all persons of Japanese ancestry off the west coast. They had two weeks to evacuate. If they had a place to go East, they could go to family or friends…but if they didn’t have anywhere to go, they had to report to a station in two weeks time to be relocated.

A lot of them were forced to liquidate businesses and overhead…a lot of money was lost by Japanese immigrants and citizens with this order.

Racism and hatred was boiling over at the time, too- so they were getting no sympathy from their neighbors and no help.

The museum was a donation only entry fee and the guy at the front said we could walk through and then pay what we thought it was worth. We started in a small room where we watched 2 films. One was about the city of Topaz that was established near Delta, Utah where over 100,000 Japanese lived from 1942-1945. It showed the remaining site today – where its just a field full of building foundations and some chunks of concrete. They auctioned off all of the buildings years ago. Someone bought the land and preserved the history of what took place there and then they opened up this fantastic museum to really tell the full story.

The 2nd video we watched was a “contraband” home video filmed inside the camp by Dave Tatsuno. It’s one of two home movies in the Library of Congress. They had the actual video camera he used on display, donated by his son.

Also, in this room were some amazing art and jewelry pieces made by people living in the camp. They were all made of found fossillized shells from the Utah desert. They would sneak through the barbed wire and go out hunting for shells, fossils, arrowheads… they would clean and dye the shells and make amazing pieces of jewelry and art.

After the video, we entered the actual curated museum. So many artifacts from family members of the camp. What I admired about this is that even though they had everything taken and were being forced into barracks, they still managed to smile in some photos. They had a school, a hospital, a dental office- all ran by doctors and teacher residents. They planted food that they could… they made art and furniture, they kept living as best they could under the circumstances

They had an actual barrack house that was used by one specific family in the museum. That was eye-opening to see- the lack of space or amenities for a family of 8.

A suitcase of a Japanese Immigrant with characters that say “going to America!” The irony of this just so few years later to be used to pack up to go to a barbed wire encampment that America mandated.

Norah got to pick out a paper origami swan on our way out. Such a good museum. Highly recommend if you are anywhere near the area.

Our next stop was in Provo, Utah for carryout lunch at Black Sheep Cafe.

Kegan had Pork Jowl tacos, I had a bunless burger and Norah had a chicken and goat cheese quesadilla. Very good stuff.

Next up was a stop at Utah Valley University to see the Roots of Knowledge stained glass exhibit.

AMAZING stained glass and art showing the Tree of Life and the progression of humans in the world over the centuries. I could talk about it ad nauseum, but if you have any interest you can go to:

http://www.uvu.edu/rootsofknowledge/tour

and there is also a UVU Roots of Knowledge iPad app that walks you panel by panel through the project. So cool. So Intricate. So well done.

After trekking it back across campus to the parking garage, we headed to the Museum of Ancient Life in Thanksgiving Point to see some dinosaur bones.

This took us to time to check into the hotel, clean the car… re-organize and shower ourselves(since this morning’s bathroom debacle threw a wrench in that!) and go pick up my mother from the airport. She was estimating getting in at like 7:07p, but it ended up being a bit delayed and then she had a 24 minute walk from where they came into the terminal… we were a little nervous we’d miss our dinner reservations for 8:15.

But, we didn’t. We made it. We reserved Pago even though they had a very small menu because my first choice of the Copper Onion was all booked up. We had a cheese board, Kale caesar salads that had pickled fennel, I had some flank steak and Kegan had a Marionberry cider and pork chop and my mom had scallops with a risotto.

Day 16

Today was a day for exploring Salt Lake City. We started the morning out driving across the city to the Eastern mountains to see the Heritage and Pioneer Park. We started seeing a Pony Express monument.

The Pony Express was a service that ran for less than 2 years (I didn’t know this-it only ran April 1860 to October 1861). It was designed to increase the speed of communication between California and St. Joseph, Missouri before any telegraph lines were ran out to the West.

The way it worked, there were about 190 stations, every 10 or so miles for a 1900 mile journey where riders would ride one horse at a gallop, then hot transfer to a fresh horse to continue riding as fast as possible throughout the day. Each station had an attendant that would feed and water the horses and ready them for the next rider to pass through.

There were about 80 riders…the most famous being Buffalo Bill Cody. (which you’ll see a lot more about in a couple days when we leave Yellowstone and go to Cody, Wyoming.) He joined the riders and famously made the longest ride recorded when we reached a station only to learn his relief rider had been killed. 322 miles in 21 hours 40 minutes using 20 horses.

They made a replica of a Pony Express station house for the 2002 Summer Olympics that were hosted in Salt Lake City to showcase some of the history associated with the area.

In the same area was a monument to the Mormon Volunteer Battalion honoring the 500 soldiers and their families who volunteered to trek west to California as part of the Mexican America war in the 1840s. It’s significant because it’s the only religious battalion ever recruited and labeled as such in the military’s history. It actually was very self-serving…but it was still volunteer military service. At the time, the Mormons were being run out of Nauvoo, Illinois for their “blasphemy” and polygamy. Brigham Young, the Mormon leader at the time, wanted to move the Mormons west…but hadn’t been able to formally start the migration plan yet. So, government-funded Westward movement, with money paid per week to the families and additional tithes to the church… well, this just seemed like a plan from heaven! He encouraged many many men to enlist and volunteer…and migrate west and he began and led the rest of the community westward, eventually landing on Salt Lake City as the chosen and prophesied place.

The migration west for the Mormons was not easy. Most people carried their belongings and walked, or they used handcarts..only some had wagons. Brigham Young had rocky mountain spotted fever at the time they crested the mountains east of the Great Basin. He pulled back the curtains on the wagon he was riding in, said “This is the place, keep going” and they continued on into the Valley to set up their “Zion” city. There is a giant monoment on the high land above the city commemorating this event.

We walked around to other small sculptures and read the plaques.

Seagulls have a funny history with Mormons. The mormons believe that when locusts/grasshopper swarms were killing their crops in 1848, that their prayers were answered because seagulls came out and ate all the grasshoppers, then regurgitated their carcasses and continued eating until they were all gone and saved their crops. So they have lots of monuments and references to seagulls as an answer to the divine prayer to save them.

Once done, we tried to go to the Natural History Museum of Utah…but it turns out you have to book advanced tickets- you cant just walk in! what the heck? ha so… all tickets were booked and we didn’t get to go, so..instead, we headed downtown to see the biggest first temple of Mormons.

Only problem was all the grounds were closed and the building was covered in scaffolding for major repairs.

On our way to our next stop was the old train depot.

The original Union Pacific train depot built in 1908

Next up was a spot for Kegan- the Land Cruiser Museum!

He thought it was a really good museum and way more jammed into it than he expected. Most people around us are Jeep people- but Kegan is a land cruiser person 🙂 He hasn’t sprung for one yet as a driver for himself… because they are SILLY priced haha But maybe one day. If we can decide what country we want to live in forever. haha We gotta know whether to buy right hand or left hand drive! ha

He loved the fact that they had some of the early 20 series that you NEVER see. There are only like 3000 ever made of the MEGA CRUISER (only 133 sold to civilians)…and they have one there. They had Japanese models, Brazilian models, Australian fire trucks. It was super cool.

This one had my favorite paint color (because #girlthings)
This was a custom pop up camper tent added to the top of this one for an Australian model and the very back was outfitted with a custom small kitchenette.
The one Kegan wants to buy for himself.

Next up was the Clark planetarium downtown. A very cool and totally free space museum mostly geared towards kids, but we enjoyed ourselves too. It was fantastic!

We bought tickets there for the IMAX show on Antarctica and while waiting we noticed that at 10:15pm, they were going to be doing a Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon Laser show in the planetarium dome theater…so we bought tickets to come back at night!

We ordered Lobster rolls from a place in town called Freshie’s Lobster. Good lobster rolls

We booked 3pm entry tickets into The Leonardo. A small children’s museum based on Leonardo DaVinci’s passions and achievements.

They had a piano that said “Please play”, so she did…
They had an entire C131 aircraft the kids could go up into the cockpit and then slide down the back end.

The museum was cute and fun for Norah for a while… they had a big Lego table that she dug around in for while… but in the lobby on the way out is this cabinet of rare books from a local book seller. And Kegan spotted something he knew I’d have to have. And he was right.

Sitting unassumingly in the case was this signed first edition of Mostly Harmless.
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy book series is easily my favorite series of books and I love Douglas Adams work. This was a fantastic find!

This led us to our last stop for the day in the Salt Lake area- the Bonneville Salt Flats. They weren’t exactly close… it was over an hour each way… but we had to fit it in. Because I had life changing plans for the little one in the car 🙂

The chariot needed a bath after driving on straight salt.
One happy girl feeling very very grown up. We got her a hat to commemorate the event 🙂

We ordered Red Iguana mexican carryout because they were all booked up for dining and delivery and they were a very highly rated local family restaurant.

I forgot to photograph the food! But we had fish tacos, carnitas and some stuffed jalepenos.

We left my mother and Norah in the hotel and headed back out to the Clark Planetarium for the pink Floyd show. Let me tell you. I am officially old. Everyone there was like 15 years younger than me and on WAY more drugs. ha But I enjoyed myself none the less- even being old and straight edge. I was a nice 30 minutes of kicking back and listening to my favorite album of all time with a trippy 1998 Windows Media Player visual with lasers. ha

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!

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