Happy New Year!

As usual we had a pretty awesome time in Taos, NM for Christmas. It was snowing a lot there so we got to have a lot of fun playing outside. Of course I always wish we could spend more time there as I really enjoy being with pretty much that whole side of the family. But c'est la vie.

After renting a car Cam and I drove from Albuquerque, NM to Flagstaff, AZ where we stayed in a somewhat shabby hotel called the Inn Suites. Cam had a difficult time getting over the fact that it "wasn't safe" in the beginning but at least we could both use the internet, which for Cam means a lot as he uses it practically every single night. On the 28th we had a pretty awesome day going to the Grand Canyon. I had decided it would be better to take a shuttle there than to drive, even though the roads ended up being perfectly safe (until you got into the park). For some reason the government had decided it would clean the snow off of all of the roads around the park, just not the ones in the park. We saw cars and trucks sliding and struggling the whole time we were in the park, which made me glad that I didn't drive there. Unfortunately, Cam and I didn't really have snow shoes so we didn't get to climb down much of the Grand Canyon, but we did get to go around a decent portion of the South Rim so we got to see a lot. We started at Bright Angel Lodge, where there were quite a number of lodges, restaurants and little shops (gift and a museum or two). Right at Bright Angel it was a bit hard to walk around because there were so many people that the snow had melted into ice. But after we passed that area it turned into nicely packed snow that was really nice to walk on. Cam and I got a bunch of pictures and got to see a lot of people from all over the world there. We talked with a few people but mainly walked alone. We also got to take the shuttle around a bit of the park, which was nice. We had lunch at one of the cafeterias that we took the shuttle to. After a good wait for the shuttle driver to come back Cam slept on the way home and I talked with the driver most of the time. He was an interesting guy who if I had to take a guess I would say was Native American, he was quite a talker. We ran into a bit of traffic going back into Flagstaff for some random reason. That night we had dinner at an awesome Thai restaurant connected to Hotel Monte Vista. It was a bit of a wait but everyone there was super friendly and the food was really good too. If I had to stay in Flagstaff again I would definitely choose to stay in Hotel Monte Vista or Hotel Weatherford as they're downtown and I wouldn't have to drive nearly as much, all of the restaurants and bars are downtown.

On the 29th we drove from Flagstaff to Las Vegas through a pretty hellish traffic jam, Cam and a bunch of people were out walking cause we were at an almost dead stop with the cars. I was a bit worried that I would run out of gas as I only had 1/4 of a tank left but I that ended up not being a problem. Turned out the reason we were at a dead halt was because we were going through the Hoover Dam, almost literally there is a road that swerves directly through it. I had seen the signs on the road and wanted to stop to see the Dam but it turned out that I didn't have to stop to see it at all. It was a nice sight but the traffic jam definitely didn't make it too nice. Also on one side of the Hoover Dam there are tons of parking spaces, but as soon as you pass the bathrooms and get to the other side there is absolutely no where to stop which was a problem as Cam had gotten out to go to the bathroom. Fortunately he managed to find me! That night we went to what I would call a formal strip show. It was a nice show with audiences where you paid for seating and everything, but the women were almost completely naked. I'm definitely glad that I got to see a show like that rather than going to a strip joint. The lights (being off on the audience and dramatical on the women) as well as the music made it much nicer and more artsy which was really good. Not too much for me to see, although there were two breaks where some actors got up and did a bit of performing. We got back to the hotel after taking the monorail at about 2am.

So we didn't get up yesterday until 11am or so. We spent most of the day walking from MGM Grand to the Venetian, which is quite a ways. We took pictures the whole time, got to watch the people and some of the shows that the hotels were having out front on the Strip. We had scheduled a 5:45pm dinner at Tao which we had been to before in New York. It's an asian restaurant with a HUGE Buddha sitting on one of the walls, really nicely decorated in a mix of Asian blends with Sumo wrestlers behind the sushi bar, asian knives in colored boxes on one wall, and pictures of Tibetan monks on the walls as you walk back to the bathroom. The Las Vegas version of the restaurant is definitely more expensive than the New York version, but it's in one of the most expensive hotels on the Strip (The Venetian) and is very well advertised so I guess that's expected. The New York Tao is more behind 5th Avenue and we just happened to walk past it and make reservations for it while we were there. Cam and I had a really nice dinner - we split a plate of red curry cocunut chicken and a side of chinese long beans which were both really good. After such a long time with no Chinese food Cam ate 2 whole bowls of rice (much more than he usually does). We ended up sitting right next to a couple that was speaking English the whole time, a Chinese looking woman and a man. The woman ended up being from Shenyang (which is about a 3 hour train ride from Dalian - the capital of the province that Dalian is in). She complimented me on my Chinese and told me she has been here for 12 years (so her English is almost like mine). After dinner we scheduled ourselves for another show - Stomp Out Loud, which is a music show where they use all kinds of weird things (like broomsticks, keys, newspapers, and plastic bags) to make music. We decided to do a bit of window shopping at the Palazzio before taking the monorail over to the show. They got the audience going a little bit which was very enjoyable and there was a funny little man in the show which was quite comical. I think I enjoyed it a bit more than Cam did but he did enjoy himself. We then took the monorail back to the Palazzio and went to a club there called Lavo. Unfortunately we had to wait in line for about half an hour before paying 20$ for Cam to get in (ladies were free with a card that we had picked up while we were there earlier). But it was a really great party, there were a TON of people there including the San Francisco 49ers and a bunch of other famous people that they were randomly greeting on the microphone. I think it was Cam's first time where you had to dance against people and people were pushing you the whole time cause there were so many people, although he claims that that's what Canton is like (I've never seen it like that and Chinese people are not known to dance close to each other as they have a much larger personal space bubble than even Americans do).

Now I should go get dressed, it's noon but Cam went to bed at about 5am so I decided to let him sleep some as it will be a crazy night tonight here on the Strip. We're staying at Circus Circus which is almost at the end of the strip but has the monorail right next to it and is a nice large casino that's huge. We're up on the 20th floor so we can see a lot of the city too which is really nice.

Happy New Year everyone! Hope you have a great one!