Laughlin & Vegas: (Conquering) Fears and (Eating All The) Foods

Currently on the road to Laughlin.


A bit of a back story: On Tuesday as we were gearing up for the trip, I left work to find my check engine light on and the transmission ka-thunking at me when it shifted gears.


Well, fuck.


Long story short, mice had chewed through some stuff on the underside my car and it being a paid off 2007 car that we have been talking about replacing for a couple of years now, guess who got a new car for Valentine’s Day?


We started out yesterday in my new-to-me 2023 Honda HRV at the ass crack of dawn (actually it was still dark) and headed out to San Luis Obispo to meet up with a dear friend and her family at Zoro’s Cafe & Cantina.


Fantastic breakfast burrito. Sorry no pic, I was starving.



After hanging out for a bit, we got back on the road and fought horrible traffic into and through LA to get to a friends house in San Jacinto that we haven’t seen in several years, where they were lovely enough to put us up for the night and feed us homemade chili and cornbread.


Up this morning and back on the road by eight.





We are currently about 2 hours out from the Walmart in Bullhead City where we are going to do a pick up order for supplies for the trip.


The plan is to spend the next two nights in Laughlin at The Edgewater and then drive into Vegas where we will spend two nights downtown at the El Cortez and then spend the rest of the trip (five nights) on the strip at the Flamingo.


Going from memory, our plans thus far are pretty loose for Laughlin and for Vegas we are hoping to hit up Le Thai, Hennessy, Bacon Nation (though it doesn’t appear that they do the Mac n cheese tacos anymore so we might skip it), Public Us and Bad Owl Cafe downtown. That’s very ambitious for two nights, but after being on a diet the better part of the last three years, I am up for the challenge!


Other plans include indoor skydiving, Fontainebleau, Durango, High Roller (for the first time, I’m afraid of heights, but with this and the indoor skydiving, I’m trying to conquer some fears), Kimchee Korean BBQ, Tacos El Gordo, our usual White Trash Breakfast™ at Circus Circus, Peppermill and running the 10K portion of the 1/2 marathon.


I wasn’t sure where to put this TR as it won’t officially be in Vegas for two days but that will be the bulk of it, so mods feel free to move it accordingly. I’m not sure how to do that.


Looking forward to some much needed relaxation mixed into everything. It’s been a rough couple of months.


Can’t promise to be exciting but I’ll post more as stuff happens.

 

Have a great trip!

 

Love your plans!
I keep meaning to go on the High Roller but have not yet ticked that box.
Looking forward to your thoughts on it (hopefully all good ones lol)

 

Sounds like a fun trip you have coming up, looking forward to following along! Good luck on the high roller, you got this! Everyone I've ever heard from with a fear of heights that tries the high roller always says it's not so bad

 

Current situation:


I’m so sick of sitting in this car. I’m getting cranky.

Next stop is a hobby shop next door to feed my husbands RC Car addiction, then on to Laughlin!

 

Bad mice! Enjoy your new car and look forward to following along on the trip!

 

I really fucking hate posting from my phone. I turn into a total grandma about technology.

Ahem.

Just checked in at got settled at Edgewater in our King Riverview room.

It ain’t fancy and the shower looks rather grungy but we aren’t fancy people and I have stayed in far worse.



Plan for tonight is to walk around “town”. Either hit up the mall or the car exhibit and grab some food from the food court.

After two days of traveling on very little sleep we are planning on an early night unless we happen to catch a second wind.

Currently lunching on extra toasty Cheez It’s, so I will require more sustenance soon.

 

In a way it's a good thing that your old car acted up before your road trip.

Enjoy the rest of your trip!

 

The food at Bikini Bay gets rave reviews. Same with the newish pizza place at The Pioneer.

I absolutely LOVE Bighorn Cafe at Laughlin River Lodge. But you may not make it down there on Cheez It's.

 

Glad you made it safely to Laughlin. Have a super trip!

 

Is that a Keurig I see in your hotel (bath) room?!
That brings the room rating up at least 2 stars!!

 

Yay to a new car and a road trip, including a trip to Laughlin

I just booked a trip to Vegas and plan to arrive tomorrow so hopefully meetup sometime?

Have fun!!!

 

Have a fabulous trip!

 

So yesterday after we got settled into the room we headed off across the street to see what the old Laughlin Mall was looking like.

The last time we were there it was around 2004. The only thing I remember about it was that it was pretty busy and that they had a Quizno's in the food court. The reason I remember that is because Hubs and I were on a low carb diet (Atkins was all the rage back then) and they had low carb wraps so I had my first "sandwich" in like a year and thought I was in heaven.

Well, there is still a food court...sort of.
It is no longer a thriving mall by any stretch of the imagination. In fact it was quite sad to walk around this little shopping area and see all the closed up shops. There were maybe a total of 5 or 6 stores that were actually open and the place was just deserted. There were easily more employees there than shoppers.



It was rather sad and depressing but I guess that is just the way it goes. I still managed to somehow drop 80 bucks, so there is that...

Once we were done there we hit up the dispensary next door and headed back to our hotel.

After imbibing in the spoils of said dispensary, the sandman and munchies hit pretty hard to I headed down to Capriotti's and grabbed a couple of sandwiches and we holed up in the room for the rest of night eating and watching TV before getting to sleep by eight PM like a couple of grandparents.

That leads us to now at three in the morning where we are sipping some coffee and getting ready to head down to a hopefully deserted casino to see what kind of slot machines we can partake in.

Plans for today will almost surely include a nap, but also the car exhibit at Riverside and a jaunt down the riverwalk to see what's shaking. Also, Pinkbox donuts and I'm thinking either Bikini Bay or River Rick's Pizzeria thanks to the recommendations by @AllenAndRossi

Guess I should go get dressed and see what kind of trouble we can get into.

 

Ugh at the deserted mall. It's certainly a theme in many cities. But you're looking good in those sad mall backgrounds!

 

Looks like a great start already. Have a great time, looking forward to the Bad Owl Cafe review.

 

Those dead mall pics, wow! I used to love a good mall visit, see all the stores. Sad that’s gone away so many places.

I LOVE your outfit! The black v-neck and jeans is so cute, I’m gonna copycat.

 

We finally made it down to the casino this morning around 3:30 or so. As expected, it was pretty deserted. Played around a bit and ended things up by about 100 bucks which is really good for us low rollers.



On our way back up to the room we inquired at the front desk about the fitness center here at Edgewater and were told it didn't open until nine but that the one at the Aquarius was 24/7 and they could print us up a key card to access it if we wanted. That sounded far more reasonable to me so I took her up on the offer and then after a quick change up in the room headed over there to get my work out on.



The fitness center over there sure does beat the one here at Edgewater. It is much more full service while EW has a small room with 1 treadmill, 1 eliptical and 1 bike along with one weight station machine. I mean, it's better than nothing, but it doesn't try too hard.

This is the Aquarius:


VS Edgewater:


I'm now back in the room where the Hubs is napping and I'm about to catch a shower and believe it or not, head back over to the mall. As sad as it was, the Maidenform store was having hella good clearance sales (I'm guessing they will be closing soon as well) and I'm going to go pick over some more of their stuff to see what I can score.

Once I'm back and Rob is done napping we are going to head down the river walk and do a little casino hopping and see about getting some lunch. I'm pretty sure we landed on pizza for what we were wanting but I'm open to anything that might catch my eye.

I’m so freaking tired. If I don’t manage a nap at some point today I’m going to be tucked into bed early again tonight.