Vegas Trip Day 1...Are We There Yet?

I am sure my title makes you think I am simply talking about the travel to get from here to there but oh no actually my title refers to one word...monorail. I will get to that part later. Vegas day one started ridiculously early. I had to get up at 2am (okay so some would argue I did not HAVE to get up that early) in order to pick up Steph, Jodi and Jenny to head to the airport and catch our 6am flight. Jodi was actually on a different airline but same time, so it worked out. I like to be early and well....we were early. I was the only one checking a bag and when I got in line to do so, I realized I forgot my purse. Luckily I had only forgotten it in the car and not at home. I ran (literally) back out to my car to get it. Still I was in line 20 minutes before the Delta staff even came in for the morning. I would say the trip to Vegas went smoothly. We were all so tired but nobody slept on the plane. Jenny and Steph mostly read. Jenny is on a mission to read 65 books this year and now that the year is coming to an end she is trying to pick up the pace to meet her goal. Lucky for her, she is a speed reader. Stephanie and I were actually reading the same book called Left Neglected. So far so good. I was the only one who chose to watch the in flight movie on our longer leg. It was Crazy Stupid Love. I saw this one night at the movies by myself. It was still good the second time. I think I entertain Steph while watching movies b/c she always talks about how she loves to hear me just giggle away while watching. It was funny and I laugh....out loud apparently:) Once we arrived in Vegas we made the mistake of taking a shuttle to our hotel. Mistake not because it took forever but b/c we realized later that a cab was much cheaper.

We were the first of the crew to arrive at the hotel. We felt very lucky to get all the rooms together. Based on reviews of the place we were staying, I thought this would be an impossible task. After we ditched our luggage, we decided to go out and grab some lunch while waiting for everyone else to arrive.  We walked down the strip some and settled on Hard Rock Cafe for lunch. It was perfect. I wanted a sit down place with decent food. We got just that. Here is a picture of Steph and Jodi at lunch.

Here is a picture of me, Steph and Jenny walking back to our hotel

Here is Stephanie and Jenny in front of our hotel....Excalibur. Yes you read that correctly..... I stayed at the Excalibur. NO I did not pick the hotel. We left that up to Keith, and Keith had one goal in mind when picking. He picked something cheap.  I was prepared for the absolute worst. I say this b/c I usually stay at nice places and last year I stayed at the brand new Aria. This was  a 3 star old hotel. I had read the reviews and was nervous to say the least. I am glad to report, it was not as bad as it could have been. When we pulled up we all sort of had the same reaction. We thought at least our kids will think we stayed somewhere cool b/c it looks like a castle. The rooms were nothing fancy but in the end we didn't spend much time in there. All in all we had 4 rooms for all of us. I would say from the sound of it, my room might have been the best. We had a toilet that flushed correctly and a shower that drained. The others were not so fortunate. The location was fine for what we needed.  Jenny brought her sheets from home!!

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Here is a picture of  Ry, Keith, Jayda, Shane and Becky at the expo

Here is a picture of me and Stephanie at the expo

Stephanie, Jodi and I left the expo together while everyone else stayed longer. It did not take us nearly as long to get back but we still had several wrong turns and back tracking. It was like you could see where you wanted to go but actually getting there was all but impossible. Once back I finally got to get cleaned up. By this point it was so late that half the group just wanted to go to bed. Jenny was part of the hitting the hay early crew. I was not. About half of us went out and decided to have a little fun. We got some drinks and gambled a little. For the most part we stood at the poker table watching Keith and Shane gamble. It was entertainment enough just watching them. At some point, we decided we were all hungry. We ended up at Hooters for wings. By this point most of us were feeling the effects of all the drinks. Hooters was just a ball of laughs. We didn't care at that point that the Hooters kitchen was having some major malfunctions and basically you could not order anything off the menu that was not fried. Essentially they were down to wings and fries. That what we got....that and more drinks that were just enough to push me over the edge. I went from a happy drunk person to a feeling slightly ill drunk person. We spent some time on the slot machines before heading back. Somewhere around 12:30 am after having been up for 40+ hours Stephanie, Jodi and I called it quits. The rest (who had later flights), kept going. It was a fun night!!!

Here is a picture of Jodi, Jayda, Keith, Becky and Shane. Smiles all around:)

Steph and I

Jayda and Shane

Jayda, Shane and Keith (do you see what I mean about Keith's infectious smile......he is just the happiest person.....EVER)

 Becky and Stephanie

So I am done with my day one Vegas post. I am late to pick up my daughter so no time to re read. I may end up changing things later but for sake of at least posting my day one pictures I will publish now and if I get the chance, change later. If you were on this trip and would like to add your own version or funny stories from day one.............do so in the comment section. I would love to hear your version.