I went to Vegas for Safari Club

A couple weeks ago Forrest and his friends decided we needed to go to Vegas for the big gathering at Mandalay Bay for the Safari Club. Check out the link if you're not familiar with this gathering of hunters and animals of all shapes and sizes. Apparently it's a big deal. True I was in Vegas, but I didn't actually spend my Saturday walking around the convention. Instead, I spent it shopping in the Venetian and at the spa!

The first night we spent at the MGM Grand. We enjoyed happy hour and oysters at Sea Blue then headed over to Nobhill Tavern for a quail appetizer and rack of lamb. Our friends weren't arriving till the next day so we enjoyed walking around the casino and tried to go to bed early, knowing we needed some rest. I'll leave the part about losing money out.

Feeling rested, we got up Friday morning and headed to the gym. If you've stayed at the MGM Grand, you know that just walking to the gym itself is a workout. It was time for a water break before we jumped on the treadmills. Vegas is such an interesting city with all kinds of people. As we made our way through the casino at 9am, we noticed people who had obviously been up all night still dropping their quarters into the slot machines.

By that afternoon, our friends had arrived, we were checked into the Palazzo, and we were getting lucky at the craps table! I always thought maybe it was spelled "crappes" or "crapes" or something else, something more classy, but no, it's craps because if you roll a certain number (it changes depending on where you are in the game) you literally crap out. We did crap out a couple times, but overall, I walked away with about $200 that I later used at the spa!

As we went on our afternoon stroll...we ran into this guy...

Newt Gingrich

That night we ate a delicious meal at Joe's (not to be confused with Joe's Crabshack) then stood in the entrance of the Palazzo and couldn't decide what to do! We debated...do we go to sleep, do we try our luck at gambling again, or find a club. Trust me, I was leaning towards sleep, but you're only on vacation in Vegas once (although I had a hard time writing that bc I feel like I'll be there again) so we picked a club, Lavo. We danced until my feet hurt and the dance floor was so crowded we couldn't move anymore.

After little sleep that night, the boys got up and headed to Safari Club and the girls made their way to the spa for a relaxing morning of lounging in the salt grotto (this amazing artificial salt cave) and getting a massage! Our afternoon was spent shopping, well, more like window shopping.

After re-capping our trip through this blog, I'm not sure how we had the energy to do one more night in Vegas. Some of us did catch some z's during the show, so I guess that is how we rallied. Our last night in Vegas we saw La Reve at the Wynne Hotel. Awesome stunts, cheesy storyline! After that we headed to a dueling piano bar and requested a little David Alan Coe, You Never Even Called Me By My Name!

Congrats to the happy newly engaged couple!