Weekend in Vegas Part I

So last weekend, I took a fabulous trip to Las Vegas to visit Becky. It was my first time in Vegas (aside from passing through the airport) since I was three years old. Of course Becky had fabulous non-touristy activities planned for the three of us (Becky, Mary and I).

So Friday night, out flight got in at about 10pm and we went to Becky's place to change for a night out on the town. (I know-- I'm usually going to bed about that time...)
The first place we hit was Firefly Tapas Lounge where we enjoyed appetizers and a pitcher of Sangria. (When I relayed the tale of the evening to my mother, she heard me wrong and thought I said Firefly TOPLESS Lounge... Oh dear. Not that it would surprise me if there was such a place...)
Next we hit a bar that Becky said was a locals sort of place where the "hipsters" hang out... It was called the Downtown Cocktail Lounge. Nothing particularly special-- typical bar environment, low lighting, music that's way too loud--it's more about the company than the place. The most unusual part was the bathroom-- the bathroom stall wall is a one way mirror, where it's a mirror on the outside, but when you're inside you can see out. Kind of creepy, actually. Anyway, here we are hanging out at the Downtown Cocktail Lounge:











Next we hit another bar, just around the corner called The Griffin. More of the same-- loud music, low lights. Good thing we were only having one drink per place, otherwise we'd be in BIG trouble, eh? Especially since there was still one more place to hit. The last place we visited was called the Beauty Bar-- apparently sometimes they do manicures in the bar-- and this is where the real trouble began. They have a courtyard in the back. According to Becky, there's usually a band playing there, but on this particular evening, they were renting out roller skates instead and people were skating around the courtyard... Yes, I knew that this was a bad idea-- but I let Becky talk me into it. Tipsy roller skating would be bad enough-- but to make it EXTRA fun, the courtyard was not flat. It had kind of a slant, so on one side you'd be skating uphill, and on the other side you'd be coasting down hill. Here is a picture of Becky and Mary skating (No picture of me skating-- it's bad enough Becky put one on her Facebook):











That was the end of Friday night. It was after three by the time we got back to Becky's and we all crashed pretty quickly.
Saturday we slept in and when we woke up we took a trip out to Red Rock Canyon. We took the scenic loop and stopped along the way for a short hike. Here is a picture of the prickly pear that poked both Mary and Becky, after which they both proceeded to flip off the prickly pear (but I thought that picture would be inappropriate for blogspot!):









When we got back from our trip to Red Rock Canyon, we got ready for Becky's dinner party-- she invited some of her Vegas friends plus her dad over for dinner so that they could meet Mary and I (if they hadn't already). The Thai food Becky made was fabulous and the conversation was-- well, interesting. The husband of one of Becky's friends kind of monopolized conversation, so there was a lot of sidebar talk going on... There was also some toilet trouble that resulted in everybody having to fill up the tank using a giant pot before they flushed... Poor Becky.
After the dinner party, Becky wanted to take us to a bar at Circus Circus called the Horse-Around bar-- It is a bar that was built on the carousel in the midway, and it apparently was mentioned in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Unfortunately the bar was closed, so we went to another bar at the Artisan. It was a classy sort of place with art on the walls and outside the bar in the lobby sort of area there was a nice fountain and tables and more art... I would have preferred to sit in the lobby area as it was much quieter, but it was nice, none the less...
We were home a bit earlier Saturday night, so we got a proper night's sleep, at last!