After my summer internship ended, I had a buddy from USC (Christina) come and visit me. So naturally, what can you do when you're in Phoenix, Arizona? Take a trip to Las Vegas! So we packed up my car with all of the junk I brought with me to Phoenix and headed out!
Hoover Dam:
The drive to Vegas was terribly long, flat, and not too varying in colors. Everything had a desert theme to it- cactus, canyons, and more beige/other shades of brown type of things lying around. It made it really easy to almost sleep at the wheel since it was a monotonous drive. However, a bit of that monotony changed when we saw a sign that said Hoover Dam was just a pit stop on our route. So... why not?! We pulled into Hoover Dam, walked around, and took a few photos. The cool thing about Hoover Dam is that it is in between 2 states- Arizona and Nevada. When we walked through some parts of the dam, you can see 2 towers with clocks on them. One was labelled Arizona and the other was labelled Nevada. In between those two large towers is a metal plaque on the walkway stating that where you were standing is the division between the two states. I guess you can be in two states at one time! The view from there was gorgeous!
In the photo above is one of the towers towards the left side of the photo. This is a view from one of the sides of the dam.
Las Vegas:
We continued the drive over to Las Vegas as the sun was setting. Actually, we were far behind schedule- like 2 hours behind schedule. Luckily Vegas was only 20-30 miles away at that point. Upon arriving, it was packed! Christina and I stayed at the Quad since the rates were pretty good at the time, but you definitely had to deal with hoards of people, a confusing parking lot, and on-going construction within the hotel. Then again, I'm sure anyone in Vegas would have had to deal with hoards of people anyways. So we got our room, quickly dumped all of our luggage, and headed downstairs to get a taxi. As an advice to people heading to Vegas in the summer... those taxi lines will take awhile, especially on a Saturday night. Every hotel generally has a line of people waiting for taxis. Some hotels can handle it more efficiently than others, so we walked across the street over to Caeser's Palace and grabbed a taxi there. The Quad had a smaller line, but barely any taxis circulating through there. After some waiting, we got a taxi and arrived at our destination!
Yes, we ended up at the Hofbrauhaus on a Saturday night! Don't judge us for not heading to the clubs as our first instinct. Why wait in a long line at the clubs when you can just get sloshed at a beer hall, am I right?! We were seated next to a couple that was on their vacation and ended up having a full conversation with them throughout the dinner. We talked, ate, and attempted to sing in German with not too much success.
The pretzels and beer were awesome. Here's some food porn above for you. The dipping sauce was good.
And of course... it wouldn't be the real experience unless you had some random man blowing a long horn across the restaurant. People threw cash in the end of the horn too. Throughout the dinner we would hear him playing this horn intermittently. It was pretty entertaining!
On the second night out, Christina and I decided to try our luck with the clubs. Less lines and less people- what a WIN! I guess it was because it was Sunday night, but there was still a good amount of activity going on. We got into The Bank at the Bellagio for free and got 2 free drink cards- more wins for us! So we stayed there for a few hours and then headed back to the hotel. On the way back, we found a wedding chapel. Because of course it wouldn't be Vegas without the possibility of a drunken wedding that no one remembers. And so that ends the Vegas trip and we happily drove back to Los Angeles the next morning. For the record we didn't drunkenly marry.
The End.