Today we woke up a bit earlier than normal so that we would have time to hit the Hoover Dam, part of the Grand Canyon, and head back to our resort in enough time to get ready for the Beatles Cirque du Soleil show. Busy day!
We started by heading to Dunkin' Donuts (duh) and got our caffeine and pseudo nourishment for the day before we headed out to the Hoover Dam, which was only about 40 minutes away.
Once we arrived, we knew we were going to be doing a lot of walking based on the location we parked, but at this point we were used to it. The first thing we got an up close view of was a bottomless hole, that I had a really hard time understanding at first. We pretty much all agreed it was definitely the tunnel the Orcs used in Lord of the Rings.
We elected to not take the Hoover Dam tour, and I'm not much of a tour person so I was happy. It turned out that Darrell was pretty much a wealth of knowledge on the subject, and most of the really cool views were from the top anyway.
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| These two photos would have been a lot cooler... |
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| …if I had walked faster, rendering them exactly 1 hour apart. Sigh. |
After some souvenir shopping, we headed over to the Grand Canyon, but to the lesser-known Western part of it which was located on a reservation. It was a 2 1/2 hour drive, but it wasn't bad and we made good time. There were four different vantage points, and a shuttle would arrive every 10 minutes to take visitors to a different location. On a totally random note, we did manage to get some pretty sweet album covers photographed before we got there.
The first viewpoint was really amazing, but I was a little jarred to see that there were no railings or guards to keep people from falling over the canyon. I was a little freaked out, so I didn't get too close, but Dyllon had no problem getting right up to the edge and giving us all a scare. My palms are sweaty just thinking about it!
We hopped on the shuttle after a quick lunch so we could see the next view, and boy was it breathtaking. It was so much more open than the first, and for some reason I felt a lot safer getting a bit closer. Not as close as Andrew, but closer than I would have thought.
After a few more minutes of taking in the view, we hopped back on the shuttle to the gift shop to grab some souvenirs and hoodies, and headed home. Not before having some Arizona iced teas in Arizona, of course!
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| Andrew LOVES having his picture taken with me. LOVES. IT. |
When we got back to the resort, we changed quickly and headed downstairs to get on the shuttle. We were just about to hop into it when they said, "Headed to Fremont Street?" Seriously? There was a shuttle at the resort that would have taken us there THE WHOLE DAMN TIME?! I sheepishly laughed and we waited for the next one to take us to Harrah's.
When we arrived at the Mirage, we weren't super hungry, so we decided to wait until after the show to eat. The theater that we entered was much different than the Michael Jackson one, as it was more like an amphitheater. The stage was in the middle, and the seats were in a circle. This was nice, because everyone had the same type of view, but from different perspectives. There were some illusions in the MJ show that were missed on our end due to angles. This stage also had a lot of mobility, as pieces moved around the performers like a Tetris game at times. It was pretty fancy. We were also near one of the entrance/exits where the performers got launched out, as we were seated fairly high up in the theater, so that was both mildly distracting and awesome to witness.
I can't decide which show I liked better, as they were both great and so very different, but I was more familiar with a higher percentage of the MJ music, and because I was pretty rusty on my Beatles history, I couldn't follow a lot of the nuances of that performance as easily as Andrew and Deltra Lynne, as they explained a lot of finer points of the story that only really die hard Beatles fans would pick up. Probably my favorite part of the Beatles show, though, was watching Andrew watch the show. He was so into it and just loving every part of the music and performance that I couldn't help but enjoy his enjoyment, as creepy as that may sound. Again, both were very well done, and definitely worth a gander if you're in the Vegas area.
After we grabbed some dinner, Andrew and I had made plans to separate from the group and partake in some action at the Venetian poker room. It had been so long since I had played legitimate poker against strangers, and I was positively excited and nervous.
As we headed on foot to the Venetian (and the rest of the group had a sizzling cab ride back to the resort) Andrew and I speedily conversed about past poker experiences, tournaments, bad beats, pot odds, reading players, and good hands and strategies to play. It was such a rush, it reminded me of all the poker tournaments I used to play in college and how much I missed the game, so I was hopeful that I wasn't so super rusty that I would embarrass myself.
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| Flashback to the last poker tourney I was in…winner winner, turkey dinner! |
We went to the cashier and bought a decent amount of chips, though I will not disclose how high roll or low roll we like to start our bank. A good poker player's gotta have secrets, right?
We had requested a table with two available seats so we could play together, although Andrew wasn't keen on the idea at first. Despite the fact that I've often been perceived as the ditzy idiot at a poker table, and have shamelessly used that stereotype to my advantage, I really really wanted to be taken seriously this time...which immediately did not happen. We ended up looking like two fancy pants tourists (we were still dressed up from the show) that were merely looking to throw our money away for a good time. It didn't help that we were playing a cash game of 1/2 kill style limit hold 'em, which I had never heard of before, and kept asking the dealer how the kill worked. So much for a rock solid reputation, haha.
I'm generally not a fan of limit hold 'em, though I could write a whole entry as to why so I'll spare you. Andrew strongly encouraged it for my first Vegas experience, and I'm really glad he did, as I actually enjoyed it.
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| The Venetian is the 6th largest poker room in the world, and the largest poker room in Vegas |
We initially sat and watched a few hands until the blinds got to us, and played pretty tight at first, so we could try to scope out what people were doing. I immediately spotted a (probably drunk) calling station across from me, so I (along with the rest of the table) capitalized on this prospect quickly. He rebought once, busted again, and then left. Andrew was to my right, and to his right was my favorite player of the night, who was Indian. To my left was a group of three Asian players, two of whom were pretty tight, and the female played loose and often.
I wish I had blogged this recently enough to be able to recall hands, but I am so proud of myself that I played every single hand the way I wanted, no regrets. Even on the one hand where I would have flopped a boat, I had crappy pocket cards and had no business being in the hand, and I ultimately would have been ousted by a flush. I also later made a good fold, although some may say I was pot committed. When you know you're beat, you're beat, and luckily for me there were two others in the hand so the winner was forced to show and I knew my fold was good.
My favorite hand of the night was when I had a pretty poor hand on the big blind, and there were a lot of players in on the hand, but no raises. Limping in with my crap hand on the big blind, I ended up flopping two pair, and slow playing my hand because with crappy, live cards, I felt I could maybe throw people off. Someone raised, and I called, pretty confident I had the best hand.
As the turn came, I caught a boat, and I was silently dying inside. There was a really high probability that I was going to win this hand, and probably piss some people off, but luckily I didn't know anyone, and Andrew wasn't in on the hand, so zero damns I did give.
As people raised on the river (it was a bust card, which I was stoked to see) I called sheepishly, and as we all showed our hands, mine ended up winning. In my head, I played the hand well and executed a well-planned strategy, but I've played against those who would have called me out on my decision to play crap cards and catch a boat, so I was expecting some backlash. Surprisingly, just about everyone congratulated me and told me the hand was well played, except for the crotchety Asian lady who yelled, "What, no two pair?" I completely missed this remark, which I'm glad for, because apparently she was mocking Andrew and I by saying we only played hands where we had two pair, which honestly isn't a bad strategy, but she was just butt-hurt because we kept beating her. She left after that, and we played until about 2:30 am, and then we cashed out.
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| My hand was DEFINITELY not this impressive, but you get the idea. |
I had so much fun, but I can absolutely see why people get so addicted to playing the game. I came out $82 ahead of where I started, which cleared me of all my gambling debts of the whole week and gave me some pocket change on the side, so I was super proud of myself. The stupid blonde tourist came out on top…boo yah!
Andrew and I hitched a cab back to the resort, on a massive poker high rambling to each other about the plays we made, calls, folds, and hands. It was, all in all, a fantastic way to cross an item off my bucket list!
Next up, WSOP? Haha, not likely…
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