Down Under Part 1 The Journey Begins

Isn't there a quote that says something like, "A thousand mile journey begins with a single step"? Well the single step on this journey began when Bri, Caryn, and I got our tired selves up before dawn on November 1 2014 to catch the shuttle from Idaho Falls, Idaho to Salt Lake City, Utah.  It was mostly an uneventful "sorta bus" ride.  They had the heat up to about 1000 degrees and my feet got a bit burned.  We had good weather, and by the time we got to Salt Lake it was in the 60s and sunny.  Pretty nice for Utah/Idaho in November.  We were dropped off right at the airport so we didn't get to do our usual mall/food trips in Salt Lake that I love.  Honestly I was just antsy to get on that plane because I felt like that was the real start.  Then I saw the plane...it looked like a pretty sketchy start.

Do people seriously still fly in things like this?  Guess so because we did.  I loved the fact that the plane was fairly empty.  We each got our own row and the flight attendant (let's call him Stove) was pretty entertaining and didn't seem to care too much about any safety shenanigans which I appreciate since this was not my first rodeo (flight).  We made it to Vegas alive around noon.  I was grateful.

We had rented a car in Vegas, but the rental car place wasn't right at the airport.  We had to take a shuttle to a rental car mall where they had tons of different rental car places and then from there ours was even further so we got on another shuttle (luckily free still) and rode to our rental car place.  It was fairly quick and easy.  Once we paid and probably signed away our first born children to them they gave us a number and pointed out to a lot where our car was waiting with the keys in the ignition.  It was behind a truck so I didn't see it (from here on the car will be known as Beverly) yet.

I'll explain first that we were traveling internationally.  I had a huge bag to check, a carry-on suitcase, and a backpack, Caryn had the same, and Bri was just missing the checked bag.  We also had a couple neck pillows on top of all that.  Basically we had a ton of crap plus the three of us.  When we walked past a truck and saw the car they had rented us I thought we were going to have to strap Bri to the roof. Meet Beverly.

Well we ended up getting all our luggage and ourselves in this little car and headed out for the strip since we only had about a 12 hour layover there.  We parked at the Paris hotel and headed for the Bellagio Gardens.

We also saw the lovely chocolate water fall they have there.  Next we hit up the Cosmopolitan to eat at Secret Pizza.  It's this sweet pizza place that really doesn't have any directions or signs to get there.  You just have to know where it is...or google it.

 It had really good pizza and a neat little hallway to get there.  Not super pricy either for Vegas.  After a little time on the strip we went down to Fremont street.  We got froyo, watched a ceiling light show thing, and saw some people that barely had clothes on.  Neat.  We played $1 each at the slots there since you can still pull the little handle to play them.  Nobody walked away with enough to pay for this trip sadly.

Once we were done down at Fremont Street we still had some time to kill before we needed to be back at the airport so we parked down at the MGM Grand and hit up the M&M store and the Coke store.  The Coke store ended up being the real star of this leg of the journey.  On the second floor they have a little cafe looking area and for about $8 they have a "Coke Tastes of the World" where you get 16 little cups of different Coke products from around the world.  It was so much fun.  I would have to say the highlights were the Fanta Pineapple from Greece and the Bibo Kiwi Mango from South Africa.  The low and by low I mean pretty close to hell would be Beverly from Italy.  Which is how the rental car got the name Beverly.  Beverly is terrible.  The best way to describe it would be to mix bitter with death and add carbonation.  Bri said if she was ever rich...or bored in Vegas she would love to just sit all day watching people taste each drink one by one and wait for the moment they drink Beverly.  I bet that could be a great youtube video montage.

                              

Once we were done there we returned Beverly, made it through security, and camped out until we loaded up for our next flight to Honolulu, Hawaii.