En Route Travel Day 1: San Diego to Las Vegas

I promised my three future-readers that I would document our road trip from San Diego to DC. For those that don't know the back-story, Uncle Sam authorized nine days for our travel. If you've ever traveled cross-country, you know you can easily do the trip in less than nine days... but if he's giving you nine days worth of lodging, per diem, mileage, etc. why not take the full nine days?

Day One of our trip wasn’t very exciting. There was lots of this:

And this:


So needless to say, I was very excited as we approached Vegas.

We stayed in the West Wing of the MGM Grand, which is described on their website as “non-traditional” Las Vegas rooms. Not being Las Vegas-type people, we thought we'd give it a try. Little did we know that "non-traditional" meant something out of the Real World. (Yes, that's why we're sometimes called Grandma and Grandpa.)

Our room:

The lovely bathroom area:

And the elevator-area on our floor. Too flashy for Grandma and Grandpa!

Soooo not our style, but not bad for $64.95 a night. Especially on Uncle Sam’s dime.

It was just our luck that we were there during Las Vegas Restaurant Week, so I made reservations at Craftsteak. I brought my camera to dinner, but was given the evil-eye by you-know-who, so there are no pictures of dinner to share, but the menu (all family style, to our surprise!) is below:

FIRST COURSE

Shaved Fennel Salad
Grilled Vermont Quail with Vincotto
Buffalo Mozzarella with Red Pepper Caponata
Persian Cucumber Salad

MAIN COURSE

Prime Beef Flat Iron
Angus Skirt Steak
Diver Sea Scallops

SIDE DISHES

Yukon Gold Potato Purée
Sautéed Sweet Corn
Roasted Shiitake Mushrooms

The dinner was good; the house bread and scallops were my absolute favorite.

After dinner we went to see David Copperfield. Yes, that David Copperfield. His show was bad. Really bad. Our 90-minutes of hell started with a ten-minute video on Copperfield back in his hey-day – all clips from the 80’s and early 90’s. That should've been our cue to exit. But we didn't. I won't bore you with the details, but if you're interested, you can read a recap of Copperfield's show here.