On Thursday, June 13th, I flew to Las Vegas from Reno, NV to meet one of my best friends, Hillary! I met Hillary when I was living and teaching in Monteverde, Costa Rica. We've stayed in touch ever since but this was the first time we were able to meet up in person in over two years!
I landed in Las Vegas around 10am and had a few hours on my own before Hillary got in. I'm a huge fan of Princess Diana and Vegas had a whole exhibition dedicated to her life! Dan's mom had told me about this cool opportunity and I was so excited that I bought my ticket for 11am Thursday morning. If you are in Vegas and even a small fan, I would highly recommend checking it out.
After I finished at the exhibit, I decided to walk along the strip in the direction of our hotel, The Luxor. It was a very hot, typical June day in Vegas got up to over 100 degrees so I took it very slow.
The pictures above are ones I took on my walk to the hotel. This was my first time in Vegas and I was amazed at all the hotels and activity going on on the strip. Once I got to the hotel, it was about 1pm. I tried to check-in although check-in wasn't technically until 3pm. I wasn't able to get into the room but they did let me go chill at the pool. It was so nice getting to cool off and enjoy the pool area.
The pool was so nice and refreshing! I heard from Hillary right around 3pm and decided to head back in so I could meet her and grab the hotel keys!
After I found Hillary, we set our things down in the hotel room and then decided to hit the strip! We were both hungry and ready for lunch. Hillary had a list of restaurants she wanted to try during her stay in the US and towards the top of the list was Raising Cane's! I had never been so we decided to head there.
It was delicious and Elvis themed so I had to take some pictures and send to my dad! Afterwards, we continued to explore the strip. We found a free Stranger Things exhibit that was so much fun! It had a ton of photo ops from the Netflix series and even a gift store too. We had so much fun there!
After we explored the exhibit, we did some shopping and headed back to the hotel around 8pm since we had an early morning the next day!
We set our alarms for around 5am on Friday, June 14th because we had signed up for a day tour to the Grand Canyon! We were very excited but had to meet at another hotel for pickup by 6:45 am.
We grabbed Starbucks and found our tour bus! Our first stop was Grand Canyon West! Dan and I visited the Grand Canyon in March but that was at the national park location. The tour was taking us to Grand Canyon West. It is closer to Las Vegas (about two hours) and operated by the Hualapai tribe. It has a completely different vibe than the South Rim which is operated by the National Park Service.
We had a beautiful time at Grand Canyon West! The tour allowed about three hours for us to explore there. There were a couple different locations that we would shuttle between. We brought sandwiches and snacks for lunch and had an absolutely stunning view! After we finished at the Canyon, we headed back towards Vegas but stopped at the Joshua Tree National Park first. I had never been and it was such a cool environment.
After stopping at Joshua Tree, we had two more stops. One was at the Hoover Dam. We were able to walk onto the Mike O'Callaghan-Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge and view it from there. It was amazing but by this point the heat was extreme and getting to us. We were excited to get back into the air conditioned bus. The final stop was at Hemenway Park where Bighorn sheep are known to hang out at.
The tour was very fun and I would highly recommend. I will link it here. Once we got back to Vegas, we headed to our hotel room to shower and change for a fun night out in Vegas!
We started out with a delicious dinner at Olive Garden! We were starving from our busy day and the food was amazing. Afterwards, we walked around the Strip during night and even saw the fountain show at the Bellagio. After that, we took an uber to Fremont Street which was also a crazy experience. We were there until about midnight and it was one of the highlights of our trip.
The next morning we woke up and headed down to the pool. It was so nice to be able to enjoy together and start the day.
After the pool, we bought tickets for the brunch buffet in the Luxor. It did not disappoint! We got several plates and were very happy with the food.
After our brunch, we headed down the strip for a little more shopping before it was time for me to leave for the airport. I had a 5pm flight that evening.
Overall, I had the best trip with one of my favorite people. It was short and sweet and we packed it all in! I miss Hillary already and cannot wait for our next reunion. Thank you for reading my blog post!
Trust Vegas understands how it now is a bit duller without you there.