I’m back after a week long trip!
I’d never been to Las Vegas, somehow. Never had a convention that drew me there I guess LOL
I was asked to come along to be part of the booth team for a trade show through work last week, and Chase got to come, too! So I was excited to get to see Vegas for the first time.
Chase and I flew out last Sunday – and when I got to security, I had the delightful moment of discovering my license was expired. Expired on my birthday the week before, and I didn’t get any kind of notice or anything. That sucked.
We had a plane change in Salt Lake City (first time there, too – do airports count as a visit? LOL.) and then onto Vegas. Thankfully we were able to switch the rental car (which I’d rented through work) to Chase’s name so that wasn’t as big a problem as I anticipated.
We stayed at the Palazzo and the rooms were aaaamazing I want a room like that for Dragoncon! My only complaint is that if you’re going to have a big couch in your room, have some blankets as well!
Since the show didn’t start til the next day, Chase and I had that evening to do what we wanted, and we celebrated my birthday. We got a dinner/show package to see the Cirque du Soleil Beatles LOVE show at the Mirage! I was so excited, I remember them announcing that several years ago and me thinking, I’ll never get to see it! But I did, finally!
But backing up a bit, we ate at the buffet there first – which was ok, a buffet is a buffet. I ate a lot of mashed potatoes and some reeeeeeeeeeally good coke. Screw the free beer and wine – that fountain coke was the best I’ve ever had.
And THEN onto the show! Outside the theater they had a Beatles shop and the 14 year old in me was SOBBING. Ok me now was on the verge of it as well, but I texted my mom and told her be glad they didn’t have this back then – they would have had to pull me out there kicking and screaming.
BUY ALL THE THINGS!!!!!!
I was good though. I only got one shirt. I really wanted a wallet too but Chase talked me out of it.
I don’t have any pictures of the show itself. They were pretty strict on that – even before the show began (which is sad because I “collect” pictures of the the stages of the shows I’ve seen), but I didn’t want to watch the show through my camera. IT WAS AMAZING. It was one of the coolest things I have ever seen. I would go see it again in a heartbeat. Made me cry several times, because it was so pretty and sad and powerful and moving all at once.
Then, it had obviously been a long day, so off to bed.
Monday we picked up the bosses at the airport, had a quick breakfast, and set up the booth. Our mascot is an orangutan, and we have a stuffed one that sits at our booth. He’s gotten stolen in the past, so they usually hide him overnight – but I offered to take him to my room and just bring him down every morning. You wouldn’t believe the stares I’d get walking around with this monkey, like people never seen a girl carrying an ape before.
After a quick lunch and change of clothes, we were free the rest of the day! I didn’t think I’d have some free time in the weekday afternoons, so I was excited to get to go over to the Atomic Testing Museum. We unfortunately had to rush through it a bit, but I at least got to see it (and play with a geiger counter).
Then we stumbled up on the Pawn Stars store, so since we were there and there was no line outside, we checked that out, too.
We decided to head over to the Bellagio for dinner. Chase is a big Ocean’s 11-13 fan and since some of the movie was filmed there we had to go see it. They had it decorated really nice for fall.
We ate there, then watched the fountain show.
btw, the Venetian/Palazzo/mall area were HUGE. We got lost several times. Although I did enjoy looking in all the stores with things I could never afford, and the canals were really neat.
And then – tradeshow! I told Chase it was like bizarro land. Because I’m so used to fan conventions – it the same vibe, same crappy food, booths, give-aways, booth babes, even a lot of the same pop culture characters/brands – just all in the wrong context. It was so strange.
I was really sad I missed Lynda Carter by just a few minutes. She was there signing and by the time I heard and made my way over, she was already gone.
After a day of shaking hands and smiling a whole lot, I was free the rest of the night, and, after a little nap, headed over to Caesar’s Palace for dinner/exploring. I stupidly hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast and was getting pukey and cranky by the time we got to dinner – we ate at Serendipity 3 which was pretty good.
I mostly enjoyed the funny Hangover shirts they had for sale at Caesar’s Palace:
And Chase met a horse with the same haircut as him
I was totally exhausted by that point and my feet hurt so we called it a night.
Next day – more tradeshow. I got some free Superman /Clark Kent glasses, which I let the monkey wear.
Although I wore them a lot, too. Chase went over to the tickets tonight place and got us pretty affordable tickets to see Rock of Ages that night – I’m so glad we were able to afford to do both Love and Rock of Ages. I saw Rock of Ages in NYC in 2010 when Constantine was in it and LOVED it… I really thought Chase would enjoy it. I think he did. It was ALMOST as good as NYC. We didn’t have the best seats but since it wasn’t sold out, we were able to move around a bit to at least get a better view. I think part of what made the NYC experience better was that we were third row there and felt much more involved!
(PS I’ve never seen the movie and don’t intend to. It looked stupid.)
Thursday was the last day of the show and tear-down day.
I kept noticing people standing in the walk way at a certain angle would look like they had gremlin ears, thanks to this sign. So I had Chase pose.
>After we tore the booth down and packed everything up, had a quick nap and then went out to a dinner with WAY too much food with the bosses. But look at this view we had!
Then off to bed since we had to be up at 4AM for our flight!
Friday was ALL DAY traveling. ALL DAY. And I was super stressed over having the stupid expired license. We ended up running really late thanks to not being able to find a gas station and then forgetting that the car rental place is NOT at the airport and we had to ride a tram back. SO by the time we GOT to the airport, our flight was loading in a half hour. Yikes!
We checked our luggage and hoofed it to security and thank God an angel smiled on us and there was NO line at security and they didn’t question my expired license AT ALL (everything I read online said they’ll either ask for additional ID and/or make you go through extra security checks). We ran up to the gate just as they were loading. Whew.
It was a big ole plane on our first leg. We had some pretty good movie selections too – Malificent and How to Train Your Dragon 2, neither of which I’d gotten to see yet – but I didn’t want to pay for headphones so I watched X-Men: Days of our Future Past instead since I knew what was happening LOL
Got into Atlanta, and then the bosses had a different flight from ATL-MEM than us! Theirs was an hour earlier than ours. Both of our flights had been delayed but we went ahead and parted ways and Chase and I got lunch. Our flight ended up delayed by about 40 minutes all together, and then wasn’t even full. We got back to Memphis around 6. Then found out that the bosses plane had been diverted back to Atlanta – their plane had a compression stall and they had to go back and land with fire trucks waiting on them! Wow! They ended up back an hour or so after us.
We ran home, threw some new clothes in a bag and headed up to my grandma’s for the weekend. Saw my cousin’s softball game, slept a lot, ate a lot. Came home yesterday, got my animals, went and visited my other grandparents, and played some Disney Infinity.
I’m glad to be home!