12 Years Later...Vegas!

Happy 12 Year Anniversary to my best friend for life, Joanna Claire Noble Lucas.  Turns out these two ruffians first met 12 years ago on a bus in NYC. 

I was lucky enough to join Jo and her new hubby Tom on the final leg of their journey through the Wild West.  We met up for 4 days in Las Vegas!

Tom and Jo picked me up from the Las Vegas airport after being lost for about an hour, although they had a GPS speaking English to them.  I learned really quickly that British people are easily entertained.  Tom immediately took it upon himself to wipe the car windows at the gas station, while Jo watched avidly from inside the car.  Apparently, the small kindness of a squeegee and bucket of gross luke-warm water has escaped the Europeans. 

After Tom cleaned the car, but before returning said car, we drove over to check out the Hoover Dam.  It is enormous, very beautiful, and extremely hot and windy.  Some nerdy engineers in my party wanted to learn the sciency and mathy bits of the dam, which proved mildly interesting to even a muggle like me. 

Our downtime in Vegas was pretty awesome over the next few days.  We got introduced to our king suites at the Encore Wynn hotel.  I don't know if I can adequately put into words how much I loved this suite.  And the fact that it was super cheap because we were staying mid-week.  When I described it to my mother, she responded that I would need to pick up a man to keep me company in that suite.  Don't worry, I reminded her that I'm no hussy. And that it's awkward for her to encourage promiscuity. 

We enjoyed the pools, toured the strip, visited all the hotels, devoured some delectable cuisine and...

...we saw Macklemore chilling in the casino at our hotel.  Macklemore!  As in this guy:

I immediately went into shock.  I hid behind Jo and kept peaking around her to stare at him.  I am a super duper monster of a fan.  But I didn't know what to do!  So while other people were asking him for pictures, I just hyperventilated and cowered behind a slot machine.  Once I got up to my room, I held my head in my hands and felt like a first class idiot. The entire situation was not helped by the fact that Tom and Jo couldn't properly remember his name and continued to call him Mackleroy.  

For the rest of our trip, whenever we walked through the casino we would refer to it as "The Scene of the Crime".  Perhaps it was this timidity in me that encouraged Carmen to make an appearance the following night...