Las Vegas Vacation wrap up and Our New Family Member

If you enlarge this you will see that this place offers a free meal to anyone who weighed more than 350 pounds. Both of us mentally calculated whether we would have ever given a free meal and then both felt conflicted by the whole premise of the place. Needless to say burgers and fries cooked in lard momentarily sounded good. We managed to pass on this one and went to an Irish pub across the street.


A Pizza place owned by Mario Batali. We had lunch here on one of our days. The crust on the pizza was really good :) You can also see much of the square at the Venetian.

The indoor canal at the Venetian. We did take a romantic ride but it was very short. I imagine a real one in Venice would be better :)

David drinking his wine at the pizza lunch.





Dinner at Robuchon. A fancy resturant at the MGM Casino. David was dying to eat here. I did not look at the bill and I don't want to know how much it was but the food was excellent and I managed to eat a 16 course tasting menu. I also tried my first ever frog leg (good), enjoyed caviar for the second time (hated it the first time liked it this time). Only one course was nasty. They served us sea urchin. It tasted like butterscotch pudding and looked like it too. I do not know if this is what urchin usually tastes like but I would prefer real butterscotch pudding I think. I only managed one bite of this and then passed it over to David.

I did manage to eat the 16 courses by taking bites mostly and making David eat the rest :). There were only a few things I ate all of (mostly the best bread I have ever eaten in MY LIFE!!!) :) I even had to give up on the dessert

On Wednesday we rented a car and drove out to the West rim of the Grand Canyon. Along the way was The Hoover Dam.



We stopped and hiked up to a really nifty bridge that provided a great view of the dam and was full of mathy plaques about the bridge construction. The bridge is located on the Nevada -Arizona border and very windy.



The West Rim of the Grand Canyon is awesome. From what I understand from the bus driver that there is a little intrigue going on with the observation deck builders and the local Hualipai Tribe. I haven't had a chance to search the web for the scoop but the gist of the story is that the builders were trying to take advantage of the tribal members. The tribe sued the builders and are now running the place. The result is that building and development has slowed down considerably. Instead of plunking their money into the attraction the tribe is using the money earned from the more than 500,000 visitors to put in water lines. According to the bus driver even today the tribal village does not have a stable water source. Every winter their current system freezes and fails. The down side was the walkway was still under construction. The walkway itself was built well and it was rather cool really because you could still see the raw construction of the attached building. You can see the walkway behind David. It was really cool to see both the tribe taking such an active role in running the place and looking through a glass window to the Colorado River and cliffs under your feet.

After we drove back from the Grand Canyon we popped into Morels for a drink and snack. This is probably the best place at the Ventian. The food and drinks was great and we could sit on the patio in the warmth of the evening and watch the people walk along the strip. There was also a great view of the hotel arches and walkways. We did go on Wednesday night and the clubs were a bit noisy so I would highly recommend going on Monday night when the clubs aren't open :)

Before our last dinner in Las Vegas we took a walk around the outside of the Venetian. The outside walkway was lovely at sunset. Note the dress-I finally bought a wrap dress. I have wanted one as a reward for hitting goal. Little did i know I would finally find one I liked after hitting and rebounding up the scale again. Eek.
Dinner on our last night in Las Vegas. David and I went to Bouchon another fancy place owned by Thomas Keller (another of David's chef favorites). This was at the Venetian but in a nice quiet floor away from the mall madness of the main part of the Casino and mall. The restaurant overlooked a garden like swimming pool.


David and our newest family member: Kokomo. She will mostly be Grace's responsibility. The poor friendly kitting has been sitting up for adoption in our neighborhood pet store window for at least a month. The store has a program where they take in an adoptable cat from the local pound and sell her for a minimal price. We waited until after spring break and she was still in her window so today we adopted her and rewarded the pet store handsomely with the purchase of a cat play set, litter box, food and a toy.

She is settling in nicely and has taken turns sitting on each of our laps. She is also quite comfortable surfing the web :).