Day 6

Of course, the only night we didn't have free wifi was Friday night in Vegas. Which means I didn't fully update the pictures until later (i.e. January 2012!).  We were exhausted Friday night anyway, after having woken before sunrise in Sedona.
The rocks in Sedona were stunning.  They lit up slowly as the sun rose, and the sky turned a lovely rich blue.

Friday was also the first day we checked out of our hotel right at checkout time, because we returned to take a brief nap.  It was tough to find a parking spot.

Lunch at the Cowboy Club was delightfully unique. Our appetizer sampler included buffalo, cactus fries, and rattlesnake meatballs! They tasted like turkey.  Kristen was thrilled with (and stuffed by-she even turned down ice cream after) her chilles rellenos.


After another stop to see the Sedona view and take jumping pictures, we headed to the Grand Canyon to watch the sun set there!

On this trip I have learned how incredibly absent-minded Kristen is.  It is impressive how many things she can temporarily lose in the space of a few square feet in her car.  It is a running joke now--I am gaining the ability to tap into her illogical mindset that leads her to obscure her phone under a pile of random stuff on the dresser, and to scatter socks, deoderant, novels and gum in the door compartments of her car. She also regretfully forgot to put on real shoes as we stopped to run through the snow to get photos of desert cows (they have horns and udders!)

 Doesn't our armadillo mascot look good with a little extra hair?

This is us hitting 3,000 miles!!! (Her trip odometer resets at 2,000 so this is 2,000+1,000). Crazy!

Appropriate:

 After we got to the Vegas strip, it took us at least 45 minutes to park, traipse through the entire casino, check-in, and find our room. Then we had to make ourselves presentable. We didn't spend too long on that, but when we arrived at the buffet it was 10:06 and it was closed in spite of what we read about it being open until 10:30.  We had been dreaming about this dinner, so we were heartbroken! I felt so bad that my research failed again.  We settled on the french restaurant that has a view of the Bellagio fountains and had a fine dinner. If the buffet had worked out, the day would have been almost TOO perfect.

Living statue at dinner:

View from our hotel room at night:

 View from our hotel room in the morning:

Bellagio decor:

We won't talk about the In-N-Out Burger stop and leaving the bags on the roof of the car as we drove toward the airport...