Vegas Day 6
If I thought yesterday was beaming with light waking me up...well you haven't seen nuttin' yet! Today was bright and the sky was beautiful and it would be another beautiful day in Vegas. Today's temps would be 61° and sunny.
Since we knew there were plenty of options close to the Linq, we decided to catch the bus and head that way for breakfast.
Yep, we managed to get front row seats on the second floor for our short ride down the strip.
After looking at our options, we decided to try out Maxie's.

The building was actually bigger than what I thought inside and we were seated in a booth and began to scour the menu for what goodies they had to offer.
The hubby and I ordered the Breakfast Burrito. It came with eggs, cheddar jack cheese, potatoes, bacon, and sausage wrapped in a flour tortilla with a side of pico de gallo, sour cream, salsa and guacamole. Yep, it was super yummy!

Sakari ordered the Biscuits and Gravy meal with scrambled eggs and Karl got the Waffle Stack. Total was $104.91...definitely not your McD's price for sure but very good.
They advertised that you get a free souvenir picture if you eat there. A photographer comes around to take your picture...then of course comes back later to try to sell you a bunch of them with various backgrounds. Nope, no thank you. I'm eating at a restaurant. It's not really a "gotta have it memory moment". They did end up giving us the "free" version, which of course consisted of such a small picture of us and large advertisements for them. ;)

After breakfast we put on our walking legs and headed out to explore some more. Yesterday Sakari wanted to go to Hollister when she seen another girl with a Hollister bag. We looked but had already walked too far down, in the opposite direction, that we figured we would try again today. So, down the street we went.

We headed across the street to the mall at Fashion Show. We went in and walked and walked and walked and even when looking at the mall "map", it wasn't there. We would stop and ask some of the workers at the mall and they had never heard of it there or they didn't know or....they would send us on a wild Hollister chase and we never found it.
Finally when my legs were about to scream and give up...there was SOMEONE that pointed us in the right direction. Where do you think it was? Right below where we had come into the mall at! Can you believe it? Sakari purchased her some clothes for Christmas from us and the hubby bought some new shoes from Vans and now it was time to head back to the hotel...carrying all the goodies.
Treasure Island looked to have some type of Pirate show with the pirate ships moving in the water. I'd never heard anyone mention any shows but we never got to go back to see if they actually had one.
They even had a mermaid ship!
We heard a loud noise and I screamed "Look" and pointed out to the street. It was the giant shopping cart ride! It is called Cartzilla. It looks so neat and fun. I had thought about doing this. It's $59/pp for an hour tour down the strip. It used to be a Chevy Suburban vehicle and took 2 years to build. It has a whooping 400hp LS1 engine in it. So cool. Maybe next time!

Passing by Caesars.

We finally made it back to the room and we were all exhausted. We watched a bit of our "Alone" show and the kids fell asleep. Eventually the hubby and I went downstairs to donate some money to the casino.

No luck what so ever. These slots are not loose or forgiving at all.
After the kids woke up I broke the news that tonight would be the night we would give the High Roller a try during the evening.
As we headed out, the kids had to stop at Cinnabon for some sugary drinks.
Once we arrived at the bus stop, IT WAS CROWDED. We waited and waited and by the time the Deuce actually came there were so many people waiting that it could have filled 3 buses. Yep, we weren't getting on that bus that was for sure.
Cartzilla passed us again:

Hmm, I was almost positive that waiting on another bus would just bring more people waiting so we decided to take the monorail down. We would wind around the MGM and eventually come to the monorail station. It is $6/pp for a one way ride.
We headed up to the monorail and I made several attempts to find some caffeine since I forgot to grab some from the vending machine before we left the hotel. It was unsuccessful and empty. Ugh!
The monorail arrived and off we went for a very fast and short ride.
We got off and now came our journey of trying to find our way to the High Roller. It was a LONG winding walk to find our way out. In the end, I'm almost sure we would have been able to just walk there faster AND probably saved steps. It just took forever.

Finally we were on the walkway and almost there.
We used the kiosk and paid for our $33/pp tickets for a total of $147.96 for this ride and then we jumped in line outside. We quickly made it inside and the line moved pretty quickly.
What I didn't realize was that once we winded around and around....we would continue on upstairs as well.

Now we were in the Sky Lounge where we would find more lines to maneuver.
Then we finally made it to our destination. Whew! I believe it was around a 20 minute wait from start to finish. So, like I said, the line moved quickly even though it was a very long line downstairs and upstairs.
These things are REALLY HUGE inside. Like you don't even begin to realize it until you are inside one. Yes, the picture below is inside of it.

Of course I immediately went to the side by the sphere. It was so beautiful.
There were so many colors on the High Roller and it made it so pretty.
Beautiful Vegas was all lit up and so pretty at night. You could see everything.
Over on the other side it was even prettier.

Of course I was still fascinated by the sphere:
It was truly a beautiful site up there. I guess it was worth the price to take the ride. It was also a pretty long ride as well. Once at the top, you would be 550 feet in the air and is the tallest observation in the world. The wheel has 28 spherical cabins on the wheel and can hold up to 40 people. It is a 30 minute ride although I swear it seemed longer.
I did notice that the water show was going on and we had a great view...just no music. ;)
As we came back down, I would need to get one last picture of the sphere.

We had arrived back to our starting point. Boo Hiss.

We loved our experience but man were we hungry. We walked along the pathway from the High Roller for the best option for us and came across a BBQ place called Virgil's. The menu looked good and we asked to be seated outside along the walkway. It was still a nice temp out and even though we didn't sit beside one, there were some outdoor heaters available.
A look at the menu:

The hubby and I decided we were going all out and share what they called The Pig Out ($70.95). It would come with 2 Memphis Style Pork Spare Ribs, Brisket, Carolina Pulled Pork, Barbecued 1/4 chicken and served with cornbread and 2 sides, which we picked cheese grits (because I'm from the south and haven't had grits in forever) and mac & cheese.

Sakari wanted the "Get Your Green On" salad with protein ($25.90) and Karl ended up with the Pulled Pork Sandwich ($23.95).

Everyone enjoyed their meal but if I had to rate it, I honestly like our BBQ place here a lot better (City BBQ). Our total bill was $158.88 plus tip. Whew. What a meal and what a price! It was very filling though.
We decided we had learned our lesson taking the monorail here and decided to just walk back to the hotel. Hopefully we would catch the water show in person along the way.
Once we made it to Bellagio we would find a spot for the show along the railing and wait for the show to begin.

Across the street was the Paris Eifel Tower, remember not as big as the Strat (lol) but it has a light show as well.

It is so pretty twinkling all the way up. Here's a video (click):
The Bellagio Show began and it was definitely beautiful and well choreographed.
We continued down the road back to the hotel.

We had seen a sign that they had an ice skating rink on a roof top at the Cosmopolitan and had tried to go the other day to check it out but it was closed off. So, since it was along the way back, even though our feet were killing us, we were going to attempt this again.
Inside the Cosmopolitan:
We were in luck, they were open tonight and up we went on the escalator to the top.
Once we arrival it was CROWDED up there. The ice skating rink was a lot smaller than what I had imagined. There were a lot of people on the rink and we watched for awhile only for the kids to decide they did not want to participate due to the crowd.

We headed back down and back to our hotel for the night. We arrived at 10:30pm and whew...what a long day of walking. This would be our "mileage" and "steps" for the day. Can you believe it?????
