You’d think by now I’ve seen all there is to see in Vegas, seeing as this most recent trip a couple weeks ago was my eleventh, or some such madness.

Well, you’d be wrong.

This time, I focused on places I’d never been before in Vegas, since up till now I’ve kind of kept to my standard comfort zone (Mirage, New York New York and surrounding areas).

But this time, I went off the grid. Well not really, but I…we…tried some new things.

• Car. I was always afraid that getting a car in Vegas would be a nightmare…but it was just the opposite. It was so nice to have our own transportation and not have to pay a taxi (or the associated fees for using a debit card!) Parking for almost every hotel we went to was super easy to find, too!
• Lake Mead & Hoover Dam. I had never been to the Hoover Dam, and having a car seemed like a great opportunity to check it out! We didn’t do the tour, but we might next time! Sadly, I got more video than I did pictures, but here are some of the better ones.

• Stratosphere. Now, I’m not saying I’m a hater, but…it was only okay. It’s at the far end of the Strip and there was a whole lot more Vegas reality there than I had expected. Some cool things were that if you were staying there (which we were not), getting up to the top of the tower is free! If you’re not guests, it’s a $24 charge each person. We didn’t. We did, however, walk around the shopping mall area, which was deserted, and curiously non-thematic. Well, I take that back. It was non-single-thematic…they had like a bunch of different cultural/area themes going on: Chinatown, Coney Island, Paris…it was kind of confusing. The bathrooms were very nice and clean though.
• Bellagio. I’ve gone through the Bellagio before, but not spent any time looking around. I’m glad I did, but the people…the people running around there were just not my type. I don’t even know how to describe it – too rich? Maybe. Too snotty? Definitely. We did get to see the Picasso art exhibit and seeing the Chihuly ceiling was pretty awesome. Again…more video than pics.

• Penis sign. One of the more astonishing things we saw whilst driving around out and off the Strip was the Erotic Heritage Museum (home of the famous Puppetry of the Penis show!) and Love Boutique, proudly advertised with a gigantic sign with the word PENIS on it. Hey, I never claimed this was a family blog.

• Wilson. For the first time ever, I remembered to take Wilson with me when I traveled! Unfortunately, I learned my lesson…he sustained some serious injuries during his adventures, though nothing we can’t fix with a little model cement. He’s out of commission for the duration, however. And next time we’ll have to fashion some sort of traveling container for him to keep him safe.

So those were the new and different things. Here’s some more random pictures from the trip!