Chicago (2015) (Alone)

We were both home together for a couple of days before I needed to go to Chicago for a work conference. I headed North on Sunday morning which was tough since Jackson and MacKenzie were snuggled in on the couch looking adorable! 

How could I leave these two cuties?!

The drive was boring, but I suppose that is better than being eventful. I hate Lake Shore Drive but could not avoid it due to my hotel's location. It was a pretty day to be stuck in traffic at least. :)

I stayed at the old Drake Hotel in the famous Gold Coast area of the city. The parking was $48 a night down the street from the hotel. It was $68 to park at the hotel. INSANE. 

Lake view from my room

Tiny beds?!

Since this was a work conference I didn't get to select my room. I guess our travel department didn't want me to have a nice, large bed so I was in a room with two TWIN beds. I seriously woke up the first night afraid I was going to roll off!!

Cityscape

The conference was pretty good, but I skipped one session to go for a walk while it was still daylight. The view from the lake shore was pretty incredible.

A stroll along the shore

I love panoramic shots :)

Me leaving a space where Jackson should be.
Fun fact: I also dined at the top of the Hancock Tower that evening!

A few of my other tax friends were at the conference so we went to the ultimate tourist dinner at the top of the Hancock tower. The food was pretty good, but quite expensive. I did pretty well with my fear of heights. It was not until the bathroom where you had to walk up against the windows to get to a stall that I thought my heart might give out. Progress!

Dinner with a view

I had just read a book about a character who was fond of the bar at my hotel. I decided to hop in with an accountant friend from Texas to check it out. She convinced me to have a couple of drinks with her. We had a good time and I eventually stumbled up to my room a lot poorer (they are proud of everything in this city $$) and a little less steady! HA! 

Deep Sea margarita? Yes, please.

Historic bar

I was in town from Sunday until Wednesday afternoon so I also got the honor of catching up with my roommate from IU, Jenna. She lives in Chicago and works at the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business (super fancy!). It was SO good to see her and catch up. She's got to be one of the best things that came out of my short time at IU,

Dinner and dessert with the camera-shy JBH!

The conference wrapped up and I headed home to Jackson and MacKenzie. It was nice to be in the city for a few days, but home with my two loves is always the best place to be!

Last day in "Paris"

We finished up the trip with a trip to one more buffet- breakfast at the Bellagio (not worth it). We had to wait in line and our service wasn't just amazing. We are not cut out for Vegas without my Dad and Diana! 

Trying to capture just how cool the hotel was

The fake Arc is still impressive! 

We got to the airport without much of an issue and returned to Indiana late on Tuesday night/Wednesday morning. We were tired, but it was a fun trip!

Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area

We got up early again and set out to explore the Strip the other way. I'd never made it to the Las Vegas sign so we had to get there. Turns out the sign is much further down when you're walking than it felt while driving. HA! :)

We made it!

Dork.

Exercising by the sign

We are still doing the fantasy fitness challenge at our gym and the challenge of the day was to jump back and forth over a line 50 times in 2 minutes. We thought it would be fun to do at the landmark sign. It was! Jackson did his in front of the sign and then a ton of tourists arrived so I moved to the less populated area to do my exercising. We had to kind of hurry back from that adventure because Jackson had to be on a call for work. Lame. I went shopping with my "winnings" from the night before. It seemed fair to me. ;)

Jackson had to call in for a work thing- ha ha!

Once that nerd wrapped up on his call, we headed out of the city for a hike I'd read about. No trip is complete with a stop at Tropical Smoothie first, though. Sooo good. I love that place. Ok, armed with smoothies we hit the road for about 45 minutes until we got to the park. A small entrance fee and we were let into a paradise. It was amazing. There is a 13 mile loop around the park with all kind of places to pull off to park so you can get to some great trails. We loved it.

Gorgeous hiking view

Gorgeous hiking partner

Petefish.

Yoga pose. Typical.

This place was incredible!

I couldn't take enough photos!

Mid-hike landscape

The road less traveled.. 

Splendor. 

We chose to hike to La Madre Springs. In hindsight some of the other hikes would probably have been a little cooler. Oh well. It was still gorgeous just the "springs" weren't exactly what I'd imagined!

Ok, really? We hiked for this!?

Jackson made one of his "famous" videos. I'm not sure why he turns into a salesman when we record this things, but so be it I guess?!

What Jackson calls an easy hike was 6 miles. SIX. Up hills. Ugh.

Better than the "springs"

NO FILTER. JUST AMAZING.

We made it back to the city just in time to relax for a bit before the hunger we'd worked up hit and it was time to find dinner. Dad and Diana hooked us up with a free buffet (sense a theme? Free food? My favorite kind!) at Planet Hollywood so we headed over. It was a good buffet, but no Rio! Also, we had to wait in line which you don't have to do with Dad and Diana's status (they'd returned home that afternoon) so that knocked us down a notch, too. ;) We've been Vegas spoiled! We did manage to finally catch the Bellagio fountain show that evening. It was lovely. The weather was just perfect all day.

Bellagio fountains 

Cute boy taking in the show

We were wiped out after that "easy" hike and turned in a bit early. One more day left to hang out before we head back to Indiana...

#Winning

Going to bed early meant I couldn't sleep in very late so Jackson begrudgingly joined me for a 6 a.m. breakfast at a place called, "Hash House a go go."   

Chicken and waffles

The food was pretty good, but the entertainment was better. Being out that early meant there were plenty of people still winding down from a wild Saturday night that became a Sunday morning.

These guys had a rough night!

There were multiple parties in the restaurant who were still drunk and acting foolish. When you're well-rested and completely sober this kind of thing is comical. We decided that such a big breakfast meant we should take a good long walk to we walked all the way to the Stratosphere at the end of the famous Las Vegas strip.

A cloudy day in the desert

We weren't so ambitious that we walked back to our hotel, though. We took the little Vegas tram and enjoyed a different vantage point of the city. We saw the famed Wynn golf course and had more views of the High Roller. 

Wynn's golf course

I'm still in shock that I went up in that thing!

The day turned out to be a rainy one (boo!) so we spent most of the day inside catching up on sleep, watching football and walking around the casinos people watching. That evening we ventured over to the Rio with Dad and Diana for dinner at their buffet. It is one of our favorite places to dine out there. Jackson loves it because he gets all you can eat crab legs with warm, drawn butter. He didn't like that he dumped said butter all over himself. I'm talking his shirt, favorite shorts and flip-flops were all a butter nightmare. (Update: Google to the rescue! Dawn dishwashing soap was able to get the butter out of his clothes. Whew!)

Dad and Diana were nice enough to get us tickets to see Penn & Teller which we'd heard great things about in the past. It was a really cool show! They do magic with kind of a twist. It is very interesting and kind of intellectual. We were a bit thrown when at the end of the show an audience member passed out. We could not tell if it was a part of the show or not. Turns out it was not. He appeared to have just passed out. So odd. The show went on after a brief pause, but our attention was elsewhere by then. Too bad because it was during their big final stunt with guns!

Great, comfortable seats!

We even met a new friend!

While we were at the Rio I looked down and stumbled upon a $100 bill on the ground. I quickly picked it up and ran off. HOORAY! I gave $20 to Dad to gamble for me during the show and he turned that into $46! I left there with $126 more than I walked in with without gambling. I also didn't pay for dinner or the show. Dad correctly pointed out that I was that night's winner! Ha! Thanks again for everything, Dad and Diana!

MONEY, MONEY, MONEY!

Las Vegas 2015

We had a busy week of work that thankfully ended with a trip to Las Vegas! We caught an early flight on Saturday morning and thanks to the 3 hour time difference were at our hotel by mid-morning. We met up with Dad and Diana who had already scored our room for us (thanks again!) for a quick lunch at one of the casinos.

I LOVE sports bars

BIGGEST PIZZA SLICE EVER
(I shared.)

We caught some college football games before heading our separate ways so they could gamble and we could get to the pool. Priorities. :)

The view from the hotel- I like the mountains in the distance

We stayed at the Paris hotel which is just so well done.

Interesting pool view!

Petefish selfie.

We enjoyed the warmth and vitamin D for as long as we could before it was time to clean up for dinner. We wanted to celebrate Dad and Diana's birthdays while we were in town since they were coming up and a birthday in Vegas is already awesome. We went to the #3 ranked restaurant in all of Vegas and it lived up to its ranking. Joe's Seafood, Prime Steak and Stone Crab served us one of the better meals I've ever eaten. And I've eaten a lot of meals!

The table before the onslaught of fine dining

Amazing wedge salad

Dad ate 1/2 of a cow I think

HAPPY BIRTHDAYS!

The steak at Joe's (Jackson got one, too) was the best I'd tasted. Diana and I had shrimp. Nothing was not just amazing. I cannot say enough about how awesome this meal was. Afterwards we decided that nothing offsets a good meal like torture a turn on the High Roller.

Date night selfie

Only in Vegas would a woman pay to have two nearly
naked men hump her for a photo. WOW.

Let's just say that I've had better ideas than the High Roller. This thing is 550 feet tall and I'm afraid of heights. I cannot even blame this decision on alcohol. I'm just getting dense in my old age.

The photographer said to "act afraid"
No need to act, sir.

A "normal" photo
(I was still terrified)

Mild terror. 

The High Roller was missing seat belts and things to hold onto. They didn't have much of a safety briefing before getting on. The whole thing was very Vegas and very terrifying. Thank God they had a trivia game going that kept my mind occupied. I made a small list of things I'd rather be doing while I was up there:

-Giving birth and having to actually raise the child
-Taking a bath in cinnamon scented water
-Getting a root canal

It did offer great views, though

Nearing the bottom, the smile returns

WHY DID I GO IN THAT?!

One last view of how huge this thing was

As it turns out flying across the country, lounging by the pool, stuffing your face and then being scared out of your mind makes a girl exhausted so we retired to our room after the ride. There is still plenty of Vegas for us to explore...