For some reason (probably involving our mistake in not turning on the heat in the treehouse before we went to bed), I tossed and turned most of the night. So rather than the idea of getting up to witness sunrise from Bryce (I’ll just have to go back there again!), I slept in ever so slightly. You know…like 7.
Eventually we got up and got moving. It was cold this morning (like 30 degrees…) and we were not excited about vacation ending. But we did it. We got ready and headed off to Rustler’s for breakfast.
Rustler’s is pretty much what you would expect for the main restaurant in a tiny town out west. It connects to a convenience store and has saddles and such on the walls. The menu is extensive, and inexpensive. Service was a bit western…not the fastest, but the food was excellent. Nick got biscuits and gravy. I had a waffle with strawberries and bananas on it.
After breakfast, we toured through the convenience store to see if there were any interesting snack foods or sodas we don’t find in NH. We didn’t find anything, so we headed back to the treehouse to pack. Packing took awhile, because stuff had multiplied, and because this trip had required a lot of stuff. And I was trying to make things as compact as possible for our anticipated long walk at our next hotel, while still having things accessible for a day of exploring today. Eventually the packing got done, and we spent a few more minutes enjoying the views before we very reluctantly hit the road. We had really enjoyed the Utah part of the trip, and particularly the Bryce part of the trip!
Once we had the car loaded up, we hit the road. We stopped for some pictures in Red Canyon shortly after hitting the road.
After Red Canyon, it was an uneventful, 4 hour drive to our next destination. I enjoyed the 80 mph speed limits, and the scenery. Nick actually stayed awake for a decent chunk of the trip. We thankfully had minimal road construction and no traffic issues.
We eventually arrived at the Valley of Fire. This is a very large state park in Nevada. It was beautiful. Nick did the driving for the scenic drive while I took pictures. I’d like to go back here at a time when I’m not feeling rushed to get to the next place. I was anxious about crowds in Vegas and wanted to make sure we got to the hotel early enough to easily get into dinner, and I had looked at Google Maps too many times to remember how long it was from the Valley of Fire west entrance to our hotel. So my timing calculations overshadowed things slightly. But…this place is beautiful. Add this to your Vegas trips!
Once I’d taken a lot more pictures than is evidenced here (these are strictly phone pictures), we hit the road to Vegas. It was less than an hour away. We stopped for gas, which was a process, because Google had sort of misled me, but we found a place so we wouldn’t have to gas up in the morning. Then we worked our way toward our hotel, which was really a process. The NFL draft had shut down a bunch of the Strip, and security was only allowing hotel guests to park at the hotel. So not only did we have to detour a bit to get to the Venetian, but the line of cars backed up into the road made for a mess when we got there. It was NOT a stressfree arrival and Nick was pretty well done by the time we parked. But, we made it.
Trying to find check in was also a process. Signage to important things like elevators was lacking, and holy wall of drunk humanity. But we made it. Thankfully I’d done mobile check in, so we got to go through the short line to pick up our keys. Then we hiked back to the elevators, and made our way to our room: 10129 on the 10th floor of the Venetian Tower. All of the rooms at the Venetian are suites, and the room was pretty impressive. But why does the bathroom soap dish look like an egg slicer?
We relaxed a bit and then made our way back downstairs for dinner at Black Tap. Dinner here was delicious! We both had burgers (obviously?) and I had a raspberry lime dole whip margarita that was beautiful and delicious. The burgers were excellent too. Then we got our own crazy shakes. Mine involved chocolate chips, and Nick’s involved oreos. Obviously, mine had a little whipped cream fiasco before I could take a picture. But…the milkshakes were delicious, and a fun way to end vacation. Service here was great, and moods improved after dinner!
After dinner, Nick went back to the room to escape humanity. I wandered around a bit to take pictures around the resort. This is quite a place, and actually smaller than it appears. Well…sort of. I think there are two other towers and one of them also has a bunch of restaurants, but…the Venetian Tower itself is smaller than I had anticipated. Easier to navigate too, thankfully.
Picture taking complete, I headed back to the room to pack for real and to shower. It was going to be a VERY early wake up the next morning, so we both got things as ready to go as possible. Then we crashed early, bummed that the overall vacation was ending, but not necessarily bummed to be leaving Las Vegas.
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