Hoover Dam & A Sliver of Vegas

After all of the driving we've done this week, I have to say that most of it was really not that bad. Until today. The ride from the Grand Canyon to Las Vegas (about 4.5 to 5 hours) sucked. OK, I take it back... most of it was OK, too. But the last hour or so, and especially the stretch from the Hoover Dam to Vegas? OH.EM.GEE. I just wanted to get out of the car. Out of the car NOW.

As always, we got up early, packed up the car, and left as quickly as we could. We arrived at the Hoover Dam around noon, and well, we were out of there in about 15 minutes. The Hoover Dam? I'm sorry, but it was B-O-R-I-N-G. I had totally overestimated what this thing would look like in my head, and when we finally saw it, I was completely underwhelmed. Oh well.

(ETA: Thanks to a commenter, I'm now aware that we were in the wrong spot for pictures. We were at the back, and somehow completely missed the front of the dam. In hindsight, I still don't see how we could've accessed the front from where we were. Oops! That makes a lot of sense, though, because Michael and I kept saying that it looked nothing like we thought it would. Come to find out we were just on the wrong side! Amateurs' mistake.)

Still, we parked for a few minutes and took a few photos, simply because we were there.

Once back on the road, we hit a lot of traffic on our way to our hotel in Las Vegas, which was a Westin located about a block off of the strip on Flamingo Road. After suffering a bit longer in the car, we finally pulled in and were able to get out of that stinkin' car.

We were immediately taken aback by the OVEN that we had driven into. The forecasted high in Las Vegas today was 97 degrees. Yowzers.

We took a bit of a break in our air conditioned hotel room, but then decided to brave the strip for a little while. We applied a ton of sunblock and hit the streets.

Given the heat, we didn't go too far. We got to the strip and cut across the street to position ourselves in front of the Bellagio fountains. There were a lot of people standing around waiting, so we figured we were probably pretty close to being able to see one of the fountain shows (which we now know occur on the hour and half-hour, in case you're curious).

While we waited, we busied ourselves with more photos:

In the meantime, Nora fell asleep. So cute, but even in the photo you can tell she's sweating!

How cute is she, gripping onto her little rubber ducky that the Westin gave her upon check-in?

Soon, the fountains began to do their thing:

After the show, we ducked into a hotel/casino for some air conditioning. While we walked through, Nora woke up (the girl can't pass up a chance to people watch!). Once back outside, we were immediately hot again. There's not much you can do when it's freakin' 97 degrees.

Nora was a champ drinking water out of the bottle.

By this time, it was later afternoon and we were starving, so we started to look for the nearest place to eat. We stumbled upon Margaritaville and we went with it. A frozen drink + a gigantic pulled pork sandwich later, and I was a happy camper.

After eating, we didn't feel like we really had anywhere else we wanted to go (especially not with a baby), so we went back to our hotel. Michael wandered around with Nora while I played a few more penny slots--and I won $10. Woohoo! :)

Once again, I just have to comment on the cuteness of summer clothing. Tank tops! Shorts! I die.

Nora was EXHAUSTED tonight, so we made sure to get her to bed early. She was actually sleeping a little bit before 7:00. Yes, you read that right--we were in our room for the night by 7 p.m. We clearly do not belong in Vegas. :)

Although this has been a great week, I think we are just about ready to go home. Up and at 'em early tomorrow morning...