“Sunrise like a nose bleed. Your head hurts and you can’t breathe”
Sleep. Rest. Slowly woke after the show to lay in bed and wonder what we saw. Still wondering. Still unsure of the sensory onslaught of what was The Sphere. Started stirring to go wrangle coffees and nosh for the family. Vegas is a good reminder of your age. Got to the casino level to hit Starbucks, as it was the closest option. Lotta energy still at that time in the morning. Grabbed the grub & got back to the room. The Irish Yeti slept. I mean slept. And he should, it was a long couple days. And sometimes I forget that he is only 14. We drag that kid everywhere we can. With hopes he will appreciate it looking back someday. We slowly put our lives in order and made a game plan for the day. Whatever we were doing we agreed that it would be low key.
We strolled outta the Venetian on to the strip. Made our way towards the Stratosphere. Plan was to jump on the monorail and head up that way and go to Fremont Street. We had never seen old vegas and it seemed like the right move. Stopped in Harrah’s to get up to the Monorail and as we were walking through the missus said “Hey!! That’s Buddy from Cake Boss!!” I called BS. But alas she was right, as usual. He was there at his Pizza Cake restaurant. The missus walked over and chatted him up. She loves to bake and make crazy cakes. She thanked him for being an inspiration. He was very pleasant. So while she was doing that the Yeti and I grabbed a couple slices of pizza. Pretty solid pie for the middle of the desert. Scarfed those down and headed up to the monorail. Made our way to the Sahara, grabbed a uber to Fremont. Holy…….Fremont is it’s own world. What a blast. Solid sensory overload. We had a couple cocktails. Grabbed some chili dogs and a gyro. The Yeti got a temporary tattoo and did a VR experience.
We moved on to a haunted museum experience we booked prior. The Yeti and the Missus have a love of horror movies. So why not do something a little wacky. It was the Zak Bagnans’ Haunted Museum. We did it for our own curiosity and also for close friends of ours who run a Haunted Walkthrough back home. It was a recon mission to let them know all about it. Plus they have plans to come to Vegas in May for a birthday. Yeah, it was definitely creepy in parts. I hate clowns and dolls so I wasn’t really enjoying myself too much. There was a bunch of celebrity stuff in there also. We were glad we did it. I’m not gonna go into much detail. It was about a 2.5 hour experience. Well worth the money and the time. We needed well lit rooms, rainbows and happy music after. So we headed back to the Venetian. T
Traffic was bananas. Of course it was, it was the Saturday before the Super Bowl. Made to the hotel and wrangled our way to grab some grub. We were gonna do sushi, but the wait was not worth our time. We just needed something low key and not pretentious. Hard to do in a casino. But I remembered there was a noodle joint on the casino floor. We walked up and grabbed a table immediately. If there’s anything the Irish Yeti loves, it’s dim sum and noodles. Just picture a 6’3” pasty white red headed 14 year old slaying dumplings. To his credit he’s pretty solid with his chopstick game. We got the dim sum sampler. The missus went kung pao chicken, the Yeti went beef lo mein and I went for my favorite, ma po tofu. There was a lot of food. A lot. We did our best but it was to no avail that we would finish it. Wrapped up dinner and went back to the U2 pop up shop to grab some swag for a memory. Shirts and stickers it was. I truly wanted to buy all the vinyl but I didn’t wanna ruin it in my suitcase traveling. Left there and parted ways with the missus, her palms were itchy and she had some plans on the casino floor. So the yeti and I stopped and got him his obligatory gelato. Strawberry cheesecake. He and I made our way back up to the room and started putting our gear together as we were flying out the next day.
Packing up, we threw on some tv. But then we got some pics and videos from our friends. So we hunkered down with the laptop and watched clips of the show. Next thing you know the missus is back. And she had some winnings in her hands. Good for her. She was feeling it!! Got some late night room service and called it a night. Long travel day ahead to head back to the east coast.
Travel Day-
Boooooooo. No one ever is happy about the flight home. But I’d say we are kinda happy. Vegas is a lot, and we normally live a relatively quiet existence. Plus we do miss the pets. My alarm kindly woke me at 5:30 am. Needed to wake before the rest so I could mentally game plan. Threw on some clothes and made another Starbucks run. Everyone pulled it together by 7:30 and we grabbed an Uber to the airport. Wasn’t overly sure what to expect on Super Bowl Sunday at the Airport. We tend to err on the side of caution and get there earlier than needed. Checked in at the Jet Blue desk, asked about an upgrade to Mint if possible. The lovely person at the desk advised us to ask when we got to our gate. Zipped through security and found our gate. We set up camp next to the desk at the gate, so we could be ready to ask for the upgrade when someone got there. I wandered off to grab some libations and scope out the terminal. Might have hit a slot or two and did okayish. Broke even. I’ll take it. As the gate attendant came up to log on to the screen, the missus looked at me as said “that’s the same person from our luggage check in!!”. People started lining up and the missus jumped in line to see what miracle she could pull off. Long story short, the attendant remembered us asking early in the morning and made a priority of taking care of us. There were only 2 seats up front. The missus and the Yeti took them. I made a point to have them take it. They can rest and relax on a flight. I have trouble sleeping on a plane. The Yeti was concerned for a minute and I assured him that I’d be okay and reminded him that I’m constantly twirling and I always joke that I’m like a great white shark, gotta keep swimming. There was a bit of an awkward moment as a traveler, wouldn’t call him a gentleman, got a little chippy with the gate attendant about how he was owed an upgrade. She stood ground and said that we had spoken with her prior. She wasn’t putting up with any attitude. Well played all around. That isn’t an easy job and we always try to be as polite as possible, we have friends & family in the flight industry. So that being settled we boarded the plane to go east bound. Like usual, the screen in front of me on the plane was broken. Every damn flight. Never fails. Luckily it’s not like it was super bowl sunday and I like football. Oh well. I can always be the creepy guy watching someone else’s tv, but that’s what phones and laptops are for. The Yeti and the Missus got the last 2 seats, not together but at least they got them. And looking back, it is a bit of a good experiment for us as parents to see how he does on his own with others. The flight attendant I spoke with spoke very highly of him. So that’s win for us. While on the flight, the couple from California that we made friends with reached out to see how we were doing and wished us safe travels. If we have learned nothing else over the past few years, it would be that you can meet amazing people while traveling and that is always reflected here on this board. We were talking about how it’s reassuring to meet other people from a different part of the world who you can share a common bond with. Regardless of all the things we hear otherwise.
Flight from LAS to JFK was uneventful. The missus and the Yeti got their rest up front and I relaxed out back. Landed in JFK with 30 minutes to make our connector. We grabbed some grub at a shop and hustled to the gate. Only to find out it was delayed.about a half hour or so. So that puts some undue stress on us. We had tickets to catch the final bus out of BOS home at 11:10. Luckily we landed in BOS with 30 mins to grab our bags and jump the bus. All was good. Made it home around 1:30am and hit the pillow running after a warm welcome home from the animals.
All in all, an amazing experience that I am happy we were able to undertake as a family. Time to unpack, regroup and get ready for another trip in a couple weeks!!
Great trip report, sounds like y’all had blast from start to finish. I agree with y’all, Vegas can drag on you after awhile and it doesn’t take long. In fact it’s so tiresome that we don’t even go anymore. Thanks for the report and the pictures, cool!
