Vegas Weekend Recap

Well I'm back from Primm/Vegas and glad to be! Vacations rule, but coming home to my own bed and The Grizzle makes me super happy too. I had sooo much fun hanging out with my mom, aunt Staci and Katie, though. :)

My mom, Katie and I left at about 8 AM on Friday morning and met up with Staci in Salina. After stopping for gas, food and WalMart (no trip would be complete!), we arrived in Primm about eight hours later. Primm is a small casino-town on the Nevada/California border. We stayed at Buffalo Bill's casino - home of the what-used-to-be the world's tallest roller coaster and the world's biggest buffalo-shaped pool. Yeah...I'm not making that up. LOL! This being a girls-only trip, we immediately hit the outlet stores to shop! Yeah! It was more of a mini-mall with a food court in a neighboring casino, but we still managed to find some good deals. After shopping, Katie and I decided to partake in some awesome Nevada beer and hit the casino. After way too much beer (and maybe some vodka...), we both lost about $50 gambling, went for a walk around the casino, and then retired to our room. The time? About 10 PM. WOOOOO! Party animals!! LOL!


Saturday morning we slept in and then headed down to the casino to find food. The casino was great in that it had a small food court in it too - unfortunately nothing opened until 11 AM. While we waited for food, my mom and I rode the roller coaster. It may not be the world's tallest anymore, but holy crap - it was still BIG! After screaming my face off down the initial drop-off, I laughed the rest of the time - mostly because my mom was laughing so hard! Lordie I love roller coasters! After we ate, we all headed down to the buffalo pool to enjoy the warm Nevada sun. The pool wasn't heated so it was a little chilly, but it still felt great while I swam back and forth, trying to figure out if a dude in a speedo was Ronnie Dunn from Brooks & Dunn. Because I wasn't sneaky enough to get a picture, we'll just say he wasn't. LOL!



After the pool, I started getting ready to meet MIRANDA LAMBERT! AHHHHH! I wasn't really nervous until I started getting ready for the night, but once I started getting all done up, freak-out set in! Although, I couldn't help but laugh at the fact that I was getting really, really dressed up to meet...a girl. LOL! I had to be down to the arena (which was conveniently hooked right to the casino) about an hour before the concert. After waiting in line (and staring at the older Blake Shelton groupies), they took us backstage (YEEE!) and lined us up to meet Miranda (AHHHH!). They had a little awning set up outside where she came out and stood under so they could take our pic with her. Thankfully my nerves settled down a little when I actually saw her and realized she was just a normal person - imagine that! LOL! When it was my turn, I walked up and she told me she really liked my shoes - the leopard-print high heels have never let me down! I told her we'd drove down from Utah and were super excited for the concert. She signed a card thing for a picture frame I made and my camo hat. When I told her it was my deer hunting hat, she said, "A deer-hunter that wears cute shoes - we should be best friends!" My reply: smile like an idiot and nod! LOL! With a last - "Thanks for coming and enjoy the show!" - it was over. It went really, really fast, but it was still great to meet Ran. She was super nice and sooo cute in person! I'll be a Ran Fan forever!

After the Meet & Greet, I booked it back to the room to meet up with the girls for the concert!! Ran opened the show and yeah...SHE ROCKS! I haven't seen her in concert for about two years, so to say that I was excited would be an understatement! She played a few songs, then left and Blake Shelton came out. I've read interviews and seen videos, so I knew BS had a great sense of humor, but yeah - he was hilarious!!! When someone opens a show saying, "I won't lie - I have been drinking tonight! Get your cameras ready as my big butt goes down these stairs!", well you just know it's gonna rock! LOL! After his set, he and Miranda did a little acoustic set together, sitting on stools on the front of the stage, just playing their guitars and singing. LOVED IT! Ran then came back out and did some more songs, then BS came out and did some more, then they closed the show together with, "The South's Gonna Do It Again". When I first heard about the format of the show, I was a little put off, but I have to say that I loved that it wasn't just the regular opener & closer. It was an AWESOME show!! Oh...I should mention that before the show even started, an old man jabbed me in the back WITH HIS CANE when I stood up to take a picture. Yeah...I about went postal on a geriatric! If the dude would've just asked me to sit down, then no worries. BUT HE POKED ME WITH HIS CANE! GRRR! Lucky for him, he and his wife left. I was able to still enjoy the show after that. :)

After the concert, me, myself and I decided it was time to drink some more awesome Nevada beer. Katie, being a hungover wuss, let me do that alone. LOL! After we gambled some more (and won a little money!), we grabbed a delicious $1.00 hot dog from the bar. We decided to head out back behind the casino to stare at Ran & Blake's buses and see if anybody was out milling around. On the walk back, we realized we didn't have a camera but figured it wouldn't matter since nobody would be out, right? Well no one was out. We stood by the fence while we ate our hot dogs, waved to the bus drivers, then headed back into the casino. Right when we walked through the back doors, BAM! MIRANDA'S BAND - Aden (bass player), Alex (electric guitar) and Chris (keyboards)!!!!! Fueled by alcohol and hot dog, I walked up and said hi! They were all sooo cool! They shook our hands, made a point to find out our names and complimented Katie's hair. We chatted for a few minutes with them before other people noticed them and came up for pictures. Yeah...we didn't have our cameras. :( But, they were all really awesome and it was fun to meet and talk with them!

Sunday we headed back into Vegas to play on the strip. We spent the afternoon walking the strip, shopping at the mile-long mall, and checking out the Coke & M&M stores before heading to our hotel. We were going to go swim, but we were all pretty tired so we took a nap before we headed back to the strip again. We went and had dinner at a fancy sandwich restaurant at the Mirage. These sandwiches were boasting some serious MEAT! After that, we headed to the Emporium to get some delicious dessert at the Cheesecake Factory. I'm just going to mention how smart we all are here and how it only took us about EIGHT tries to find the freakin' entrance to the shops. YEESH! We got our cheesecake to go and headed over to the Bellagio fountains and just stood to stare for about a half hour. I love the fountains. I don't know how anybody couldn't. The water, the lights, the music, the beautiful, lit-up building behind them...I can't help but to just sit and stare in awe every time! We headed back to our hotel around 10 PM. Katie and I had planned on gambling that night, but three days of playing took it out of us and we crashed.



We came home on Monday. The trip home only took us about six hours this time. We were all pretty tired and just ready to get home. I took a lot of pics, but I'm still trying to re-group so I'll post them in a few days - in the meantime, thank Lou for letting me steal these.

I had sooo much fun! Meeting Miranda was great, but hanging out and laughing my butt off with the girls all weekend was the best!! I hope we can do another trip like this again!