This year's vacation: Las Vegas

[jducoeur]

Got back from vacation last night. We weren't quite comfortable planning for a return to Europe yet, so we decided to do something we've been talking about idly for years: a trip to Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon. We'd each only been there fairly briefly, and were curious.

So that's where we spent the last week or so, in a few parts:

• Two days staying at the Golden Nugget in Downtown Las Vegas (aka "Glitter Gulch", the heart of the classic stereotype of LV)
• One day staying at El Tovar in Grand Canyon Village on the South Rim
• Three days at the MGM Grand, the third biggest hotel in the world, one of the ones that define The Strip (the stereotype of "modern" LV)

plus one travel day between each of those -- ten days total, including two in the air and two driving two and from the Canyon.

As usual, I'm going to do a series of posts about various high points, rather than a chronological travelogue. So let's get into it...

Planned entries (I'll come back and edit this as I add stuff):

• Spring Mountain Road
• Fremont Street
• The Fancy Restaurants
• Headache, and the Joy of CBD
• O
• The South Rim (and dining experiences good and bad)
• The Strip

Comments

[hudebnik]

We DID go to Europe this summer, picking an itinerary that wouldn't involve a lot of crowds or close interaction with other people indoors. Wales is largely about outdoor scenery, and a lot of it you can only get to by car. So we wore masks on the plane, and on the coach from Heathrow to Cardiff, where we rented a car and didn't need to breathe anybody's air but one another's. We stayed in B&B's and ate in restaurants, but things were generally not crowded. And two weeks was almost enough to do it justice (Wales is about the size of New Jersey).

Never tried Las Vegas myself: I look forward to reading about it.

[jducoeur]

We tend to be city folk, especially when traveling, so the Covid concern is always with us. Rural trips are nice, but we usually don't do them for an extended period.

Mostly, though, this decision was based on where things were at the beginning of the year (when we were making the plans), and we just weren't confident enough about it then. Next year, we're seriously talking about Barcelona...