Katie & Paul's Excellent Adventure

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01.06.2010

Day 5: Albuquerque, NM – Las Vegas, NV

A Big Hole, A Big Dam, A Big City

Me and lil Paul at the Grand Canyon

First of all, This entry is a doozy. Very long. I’m bolding the interesting stuff we saw, so you can skip ahead if you want to. I'm also using pictures to break it up a bit. If you want to read the whole thing, well, bravo! Make yourself a nice cup of tea, take a quick bathroom break, and get yourself nice and settled because here we go!

Although today was our shortest day yet (driving-wise, I mean), it certainly was the busiest!

We left Albuquerque around 6am, not out of necessity like our previous early mornings, but out of convenience. Turns out, our body clocks haven’t adjusted yet to the multiple time zone changes. I awoke at 5:30am to find Paul playing on his cell phone. He’d been up for a half an hour. Well, we were both up, we might as well take advantage of it, eh? We packed up our belongings, said good-bye to Giggles, and headed out. For the first time, we had a pit stop on the way to our destination that we would actually be able to see during the day! Pit stop: The Grand Canyon.

Moms and Pops took us to the Grand Canyon back when I was an pouty new teenager and Paul was a super-eager, bowl-headed kid. We took a train from Sedona to the Grand Canyon, and it was beautiful. The canyon, the ride, everything. But, we didn’t think that we really appreciated it as much as we would now.

We made it there by lunchtime. And you know what? The Grand Canyon was well named. It is both a canyon and incredibly grand. I also think Paul and I were right about appreciating it more now that we’re older.

The amazing thing was that there was still snow on the ground! Could we not leave this dreaded snow behind us? We’ve driven thousands of miles going both south, towards the equator and west, towards the desert. Yes, back when I was in Boston, I said that I missed snow. But come on. There was snow even in New Mexico! My thoughts are that no place with the word “Mexico” in it should ever see snow.

Anyway, you can’t say much about the Grand Canyon except for how beautiful and grand it is because no words will do it justice. As we walked around the South Rim, I’d start getting nervous at ever turn that I had just seen the only beautiful view, and whatever was coming wouldn’t measure up. However, each view is gorgeous. And heaven help you if some wildlife starts prancing about. Then you’d just die of beauty.

Snow at the Grand Canyon

After an hour or so of this, I got hungry. Into the car we went to find some food! After having a difficult time finding a parking spot and lil Paul doing some pretty darn amazing driving to get our van out of some snow and up an icy hill, we found the hotel overlooking the canyon where we had lunch back when our parents took us. Excitedly, we marched up there, ready to fill our bellies. Our bodies were celebrating the first exercise they’ve had in days. I think I actually heard my leg muscles go “Yippee” as I climbed the hill. We passed the mules used for tours (very smelly) and the same train tour we had taken with our parents in our much younger days. We marched into the hotel and practically ran to the dining room but stopped suddenly. We had missed lunch by only 15 minutes.

So we returned to our car and I had tuna and crackers as we pointed our van towards Las Vegas.

On the way to Las Vegas, two very nice surprises occurred. The first was that we saw our first In & Out Burger! If you haven’t been to In & Out, well, it is the best fast food ever. Everything is fresh and made with healthy ingredients. Even the fries are cooked in cholesterol-free something. There is butter on the buns. The meat is fresh. The veggies are fresh and taste like veggies! It is pure heaven. We actually saw the In & Out after we passed the exit, and got so excited that we turned the car around so we could have it as an early dinner.

In & Out Burger!

The cheeseburger just about melted in my mouth. The fries were just the right amount of crispiness and softness. Is it bad to want to get a burger from there for every meal until I have to fly home?

Our second surprise was that we got to DRIVE OVER THE HOOVER DAM! We started wondering to ourselves if this would happen. Paul reminded me that it does separate Arizona from Nevada, but we didn’t think much of it. But then, as we drew nearer, we started seeing signs and we started to get excited. We got stopped at a police checkpoint for a few minutes while they checked our truck (probably looking for humans, firearms, drugs or something. Good thing we left all that stuff back in New Mexico – haha! kidding mom!) then BAM! We were on it! I started screaming, Paul started screaming! It was awesome and HUGE! “Wow! This would be so hard to jump over in a motorcycle!” Paul said excitedly.

The Hoover Dam has never been something I wanted to see, but now that I saw it, I’m so happy I did! It is so cool! I’m so glad we saw it at night too (come on, how can you be surprised we saw it at night?) because it was all lit up. The lights made it look powerful and magnificent.

Thirty minutes later we arrived in Las Vegas and Paul turned into the boy in the you-tube video of the boy seeing a lobster for the first time. “Wow! Wow! Can I touch it? No?” He asked over and over. We turned a corner and there it was, lights stretching for miles. We forget that Las Vegas is more than just the strip, don't we? It's a functioning city with a university and homes and everything. It's enormous.

Paul dropped me off at the Luxor and circled while I tried to get us a reservation. (He was also very funny about that. “We’re staying at the pyramid with the light coming out of it? Cool!”) We couldn’t get one online or over the phone because they wouldn’t promise us two beds. The conversation went like this:

“Hi there. I need a room for two nights with two beds.”

“We can do a room for two nights but beds are based upon availability.”

“I see, well are there any available?”

“Beds are based upon availability.”

“I UNDERSTAND that, I want to know if you have two beds available.”

“Beds are based upon availability.”

Luckily for her, you can’t strangle people through a phone.

I got us a room and tickets for tomorrow night to see the Cirque du Soleil show, Love. It’s Cirque du Soleil with Beatles music. Seeing as the Beatles are both Paul and my favorite band, and now Paul just did his final project on the Magical Mystery Tour album, this seems like the perfect thing to end our trip. The next day, we’ll be Los Angeles with the parents and Larry and all of Paul’s friends who have moved there already.

The Bodies exhibit is also at the Luxor. Pretty cool!

So, after Paul parked the van back in what felt like Arizona, we hoofed it to the hotel, got settled, and left to explore for a few hours before we got too sleepy to move. We played some slots (I lost $20 and Paul won $10.50). We’re going to try craps today if I can get my nerve up. I haven’t played in so long, I’m worried about looking like a fool!

That’s it for now! We’ve got the whole day in Vegas, so we’ll have some more stories for you tomorrow!

Our Egyptian-themed room at the Luxor