It was really hard for us to leave our friends and the beautiful Pacific beaches, but it was time to start our drive back east (back to our favorite Atlantic beaches in South Florida! Although we only have about a week and a half left of our trip, we still have so much to see on our way back east!
Our first stop today was Joshua Tree National Park, which was a very unique place and unlike anything we’ve seen before! Once we were in the park, we drove through miles and miles of unique desert ecosystem. We enjoyed seeing Cholla Garden…don’t get too close to these plants because they’re incredibly sharp (oh if that’s not enough, there were hundreds of bees around these plants as well)!
As we continued to drive through the park, we began to see Joshua Trees, the unique tree in which this entire National Park is named. They are really only in this area of the world (with many also in the Mohave, which we later drove through) and are some of the most interesting trees we have ever seen! The Jumbo Rocks that acted as a backdrop for the Joshua Trees were also amazing to see…Skull Rock was eerily beautiful!
After seeing everything we wanted to see on our list in the park, we started heading to Las Vegas, where we are staying for the night. We arrived at the Aria Hotel around 3PM and we quickly got ready to meet my aunt for dinner at Lemongrass (which is one of the MANY restaurants in our beautiful hotel). It was really great to see my aunt and catch up with her! The restaurant we went to dished out modern Thai cuisine, and everything was absolutely delicious, including the specialty cocktails (I definitely recommend the watermelon caipirinha)!
After dinner, we walked through The Cosmopolitan, and it was really cool to see how different and unique the hotels and casinos were! The Cosmo definitely had the old elegant feel, especially with their Chandelier Bar.
After saying goodbye to my aunt, Joey and I walked up the strip…but it still wasn’t dark enough for us to get the full effect of all the lights! We walked to the Bellagio Hotel to watch their water fountain display, and we were right on time for it because it started as soon as we got there…it was magical!
After the show, which lasts only one song, we went back to our hotel to try our luck at the Aria casino! I tried two different slots, but had dim luck…and barely any fun! Joey and I know little about any of the more serious card games, so we tried our luck at Roulette! We specifically chose an empty table so that we can learn more about the game than just red vs. black, and luckily we had a friendly dealer who taught us EVERYTHING about the game! We quickly got the hang of it, and started to really enjoy ourselves…and we even tripled our money!
At this point, I thought it’d be smart for us to call it a game…before we begin to lose it all! It’s so easy to lose track of time when you’re in the casino, and by the time we had finished at the roulette table and cashed out, the sun had long gone down…perfect for a different experience walking the strip and seeing all the flashy lights in the dark!
We even got the chance to watch another water show at the Bellagio. I’m not sure if they constantly change the song for each performance (which is every 15 minutes), but this time we heard a different song, which was accompanied by a different water fountain sequence. After walking around all night, we started getting tired so we headed back to our hotel and are calling it a night! We’re heading back to Utah tomorrow (the southern part this time) to stay at Zion National Park for one night and then off to the Grand Canyon…so stay posted!