So, how did the trip come about? Well, Brock travels to Vegas for conferences throughout the year... add the fact that I had never been before, plus the fact that I had a grand desire for a break from 24-hr. mommy duty and throw in a March conference and you have a trip to Vegas! :) While the trip was going to be 100% work for Brock, it was going to be 100% relaxation for me... And it was... I love my daughters more than anything, but I have to say I truly enjoyed the week of sleeping until I wanted to get up, multiple spa visits, lounging by the pool without the constant underlying panic that keeps every mom's eyes and ears honed in on their children's every move and simply relaxing and enjoying myself!
The trip started with a very early 6:00 (yes, 6 AM!) flight to Las Vegas with a connection in Atlanta. (Because every Delta flight connects in Atlanta regardless of your destination... maybe that will be the topic of a future post.) Anyway, our flight to Atlanta was quick and painless as usual. The flight to Las Vegas was filled with intermittent turbulence that is always fun. :( Brock proved once again how thoughtful and simply wonderful he is by giving up his first-class seat upgrade and staying with me in coach. He travels so much that he gets upgraded quite often and I know that the first-class seats and service work much better for him. So it meant a lot to me when he chose to slum it with me in coach. :) About an hour into our flight, we flew through a massive cloud. The view from the window was pure white. I started thinking that if this was the only thing I could see, then it was pretty much all the pilots could see as well. For a second I had those nagging butterflies doing back flips in my tummy, but looking over at Brock (who was relaxed in his seat with his Bose headphones pumping some George Winston into his ears) made me realize that when you fly as much as he does, things like zero visibility don't concern you too much. And yes, I realize that the pilots don't fly the plane based on what they see, they use their instruments, but still. During the last hour of our flight, the pilot came on the PA and told us that we would be passing over the Grand Canyon and with the relatively clear skies we should have a great view. It was amazing! I hadn't even considered the fact that we would be flying over the canyon so the whole experience was a wonderful bonus. We landed in Las Vegas around 10:30 local time - leaving pretty much the whole day to explore the Hoover Dam.
While planning the trip I had asked Brock if we could rent a convertible for the day we went to the Hoover Dam. I thought riding with the top down and the wind in my hair sounded great - especially since my hair is now getting long enough to blow around in the wind. :) It was fabulous! I also realized while riding to the dam that I had never actually ridden in a convertible before. Brock couldn't believe it... he, after all, had a convertible 442 as his first car in high school. The whole realization made for a good laugh. We got to the dam around 12:30 and luckily it wasn't too crowded especially since it was a weekend. Forgetting my history lessons for a moment, I drew a blank as to why there was a "Nevada" time and an "Arizona" time on two of the intake towers.
Luckily my brain kicked in to remind me that not only does the Colorado river form part of the border between the two states but that Arizona doesn't participate in Daylight Saving Time, which just happened to go into effect that night. We parked in Arizona and walked across the dam to Nevada... ;) That makes it sound like we walked a long way, huh?
Anyway... we walked across the dam and looked at both the upper basin side and lower basin side. It was hard to get the right perspective because when looking over the side at the lower basin, the river seemed so small. I even shared that exact thought with Brock. It was at that point that he told me to look at the cars parked along the side of the power plant some 750 feet below us and to use that to compare the size of the river. Okay, so Wow! The river was actually a very large body of water, but it still looked small from the top of the dam. I have to tell you that it was at that moment that I was beginning to question whether my "Mommy Mush" brain was becoming a permanent condition... :)
We decided to walk through the visitor center before leaving. It was a very good thing that we did because we had thought the dam was closed to tours due to security issues. Not the case at all! YEAH! We chose the Power Plant tour which included a short video (pretty sure it was the exact same program we had previously watched on the History Channel), and a tour of the tunnels used to divert the river during construction of the dam as well as a tour of the turbine room, which is a vast understatement as the "room" is over 650 yards long. The video documented the history of the dam - from construction to today. The tour of one of the tunnels was amazing. Water still runs through the pipes, which are large enough for a locomotive to run through... The scale of everything about the dam was quite difficult to wrap my head around at times. I mean, the construction took place in the 1930's... No computers, no software to run the various plans through, no modern amenities, just hard work and dedication from men who were fighting to survive the hard economic times of the Great Depression. Anyway... as we stood on the platform above the tunnels, the sounds and vibrations underfoot were unbelievable... and to think that water has been pushing through the same tunnels for almost 80 years! The tour continued to the turbine room, which as I said before was unbelievably big. The turbines stood taller than a one-story home (above the floor) and extended thirty more feet below the floor. It was also interesting to learn that the dam is completely self-sustaining financially. The funding comes from the sale of power to many states in the southwest, including southern California. This was ironic since that area is potentially going to be our new home soon.
During the Q&A portion of the tour, I was curious about the water levels because the upper basin side of the dam (Lake Meade) appeared to be low. My suspicions were spot on! The water is about 53 feet below where they would like it to be. And we think we have drought issues... Another tour participant was curious just how far we were from the water when we were at the bottom of the dam. The answer: "There is 660 yards of concrete between the power plant at the bottom of the dam and Lake Meade." That's absolutely crazy... Over the length of two football fields of solid concrete!!! The tour of the dam and power plant was very interesting. Our guide was funny at the right times and she was very knowledgeable about the dam, its construction and pretty much anything else having to do with the Hoover Dam.
So after spending most of the day exploring the Hoover Dam, we were now heading to the Las Vegas strip. Since this was my first visit to Vegas, Brock drove down the entire strip so that I could see all of the hotels and casinos. It is crazy how much stuff they can fit into their "lots". Our hotel, The Palazzo (part of the Venetian), was at the newer end of the strip, next to the Wynn. It was beautiful and the perfect accommodation for a week of relaxing "me time"!
Brock and I had some fabulous sushi on Saturday evening and played a bit at the tables before conceding to our "east coast" internal clocks and heading to the suite for some sleep. Brock's conference started bright and early Sunday morning... I woke up when he left (about 7:00 local time, which was 10:00 at home)... I actually felt guilty for not wanting to get out of bed. That's crazy I know, especially since the whole point of the trip was to sleep in and relax, but regardless, I felt guilty and thought that I would compromise by staying in bed (awake) and ordering room service for breakfast. Well... I got the menu and was considering my options when I laid my head down for a second... just a second I swear... but when I opened my eyes again, it was 10:30 local time - that's 1:30 in the afternoon at home! Let me tell you, the guilt set in hard at that point. I felt so lazy. After a debate with myself, I decided that it was the full day at the dam and staying out later than usual the night before that caused the extreme need for sleep that morning... then I realized that while those factors may have had something to do with it, it was more likely the result of no little girls peeking up from the side of the bed wanting me to turn on their morning cartoons and asking what I was making for breakfast. There was no puppy needing to go out for his morning potty session. There was no noise - simply a quiet, (and thanks to the darkening shades) dark room to encourage my sleep. At that point, I stopped feeling guilty and I started enjoying the quiet!
I scheduled a mani/pedi for the afternoon and enjoyed every second. Brock had an hour break in the afternoon, so we met for a late lunch and he introduced me to one of his colleagues, Don, and Don's wife, Diane. She was only staying the weekend and had bought tickets to see the Chippendale show at the Rio. Well, I can honestly say that I had not even considered going to see a dozen men who are in impeccable shape, but it sounded like fun so I bought a ticket and went with Diane to the show. It was hilarious!!! We laughed so much... The guys were in great shape but they were not what I would call "good looking". We joked that even if you cut all of their heads off, there would still be only a few that would be "okay". What surprised us both was the women that were called on stage. Their actions were unbelieveable. I said there wasn't enough alcohol in Vegas to get me to do what some of this girls were doing. But the show definitely gave us a good laugh. We met up with our husbands back at the Palazzo for drinks and had a great remainder of the evening.
Ok, so now it's Monday in my travel timeline... It had only been two days since I arrived and I was already feeling rejuvenated. My day started with sleeping in (without a single iota of guilt), then I headed to the spa for an aromatherapy massage, which was heavenly. The spa was great. It had everything you could want. The restaurant in the spa was also amazing. They had homemade sodas, which were to die for! I love ginger ale, but I have never had anything like theirs before. They start with real ginger, add an organic syrup and then soda water (all in front of you so you know that it is 100% fresh). It was GREAT! I had lunch there everyday! The food was all natural and well-portioned so I didn't feel quite so bad when I made all of the my dinner selections, not to mention the extra calories in all of those Cosmos! But, while being good at lunch helped, I caved to my guilt and signed up for a Pilates class on Tuesday. It was so much fun. When I was leaving the gym, I noticed that they had a rock wall... a 40-foot rock wall to be exact. Those of you who know me know that I have a pretty bad fear of heights so the mere thought of climbing to the top of a 40-foot rock wall made my knees shake a bit. But this year I have been trying to do things to better myself and taking a step toward overcoming a fear falls into that category. So before I could change my mind or overthink it too much, I booked a rock climbing session for that afternoon. I got to my session about twenty minutes early... didn't want to back out at the last minute and I figured if I was already there then there would be less chance of me walking away. Matt was my instructor for the session and he was awesome! He was extremely patient and very encouraging. The wall consisted of four ropes, each with a different degree of difficulty. Rope 2 was the easiest, then increasingly harder with ropes 1, 3 and 4. I got all of my rope climbing gear on and started up Rope 2. I just kept concentrating on the holds. Right hand, left hand, right foot, left foot... sounds like a Dr. Seuss book... but it worked. I was to the top before I had a chance to become scared. Matt released the tension of my rope and I walked down the wall to start on Rope 1 - Easy, Peasy as Claire and I like to say. Now Rope 3 was a bit more challenging because the face of the wall began to angle out requiring more thought about which holds to use. But as they say... a picture is worth a thousand words...
Well, it's now Wednesday in the travel timeline and I don't want to bore you with the next two days because fortunately for me they were filled with the same pampering as the previous days... sleeping in, going to the spa, a bit of shopping and dining with my husband and friends at some great places... But I will tell you about Thursday evening... Brock and I went with Eric and his wife, Leslie, to the Bellagio for dinner at Prime, which was amazing! We moved to the outside patio for coffee and watched the Bellagio fountains... I captured a short video for the girls so they could see what it looked like...
We finished dinner and coffee and then went to see "O"... It was my first show experience and it was AMAZING! Inspired by the concept of infinity and the elegance of water's pure form, "O" pays tribute to the beauty of the theatre - from the simplest street performance to the most lavish of operas - where anything is possible and where the drama of life plays itself out before your very eyes. World-class acrobats, synchronized swimmers, divers and characters perform in, on, and above water to create a breathtaking experience. Definitely a show to see if you happen to be in Vegas! We toured the conservatory after the show which I was told that the theme changes every month. March's theme happened to be tulips, which also happens to be my favorite flower! Simply stated, Brock and I had a great time...
So how did the trip end? Well, I had a great time... but then again, I was pampered and only did what I wanted all week long... Brock, on the other hand, worked the entire week... pretty much from early in the morning to the wee hours of the night... I now appreciate even more how much time and hard work he puts into his career and also realize how draining it can be! Now he is the one who needs the week of pampering!!!
(L to R - Jamie, Amy, Cathy, Kari and Carrie)
The whole retreat was so much fun... we enjoyed great scrapbooking (of course) as well as great conversation between old friends! We went until 1:30 on Friday and well after 2:00 on Saturday. Those time are AM!) Although we didn't get a lot of sleep we seemed to be functioning well. On Saturday night, we had a chocolate party and it was YUMMY!
Amy & Jamie
Amy & Cathy
The Crop Room
Our Crop Table
The Cabins
