Today is the last day of Spring Break 2011. During my four years of college-proper, I never did anything but work over spring break. I used those days to work 40-60+ hours at 1-2 jobs. This was my first ever spring break that was used primarily for travel and entertainment, and it was awesome.

On Saturday, we set out to drive from Denton, TX to Las Vegas, NV. We made it from Denton to Flagstaff, AZ in 14.5 hours in one day. New Mexico was by far the prettiest of the states that we drove through.

On the second day, we drove from Flagstaff to the Hoover Dam and stopped there for 1-2 hours and took lots of pictures. Then we finished the drive from Hoover Dam into Vegas.

When we went to check into our hotel room, we were offered an upgrade to a larger suite that had a view and a jacuzzi (two things the room we originally booked didn’t have) so we took it. Definitely worth it. After hanging out and relaxing in the room for a bit, we went to downtown Vegas for a few hours. (It’s the street they used in “Honey, I Blew Up the Kid!”)

The next day, we walked the whole way down the Vegas strip on one side, stopping wherever it looked interesting. We went up to the top of the replica Eiffel Tower, and we went into M&M World, and all kinds of other fun places. That night we went out to dinner and went to the Beatles’ Love Cirque Du Soleil show, which was really impressive.

Our last day in Vegas, we took a cab to the other end of the strip and walked down the other side that we missed the day before. We saw the Bodies exhibit in the Luxor, and other various sights to see in Vegas. The weather we had was perfect the entire time. It was upper 70s and lower 80s every day. Utterly beautiful.

Unlike my trip to Atlantic City a few summers ago, when I more than doubled my money, I lost every penny I gambled in Vegas. Yuck. I didn’t even really win a little then lose it then win a little then lose it all. It was just like dropping all your money down a hole. I was coerced into playing slots, which I’d never done before, and I wasn’t all that impressed. I’ll stick to my favorite – roulette. Yes, I know it’s the worst odds in the casino, but at least I feel like I have some control over how I’m betting. There’s a little bit of strategy in guessing what you think will come up next. Unlike in slots where it’s pretty much completely random and you have no control.

I only had two drinks the entire time I was in Vegas, so it wasn’t a classic drink-and-gamble-all-night trip. Still, we had a blast and it was really cool to walk around to all the places I’d heard of but never been before.

We left Vegas Wednesday morning for the Grand Canyon. It was just as gorgeous as it’s made out to be, although it was a bit chillier than Vegas. It was lower-to-mid 60s, so I was whining a bit about the cold. Still, I’m glad we went the week we did. If we’d gone just a few days later it would be SNOWING! So I guess I’ll take 62 degrees over 30 degrees. 🙂

We took a TON of pictures, and most of them look completely fake. Even when you’re looking with your eyes directly at the canyon, it doesn’t really feel real. It was really impressive, although the flocks of people around were kind of annoying. But oh well, when you visit touristy places, unfortunately there will be tourists there.

While we were driving, we kept track of what states’ license plates we saw, and it was really an impressive/successful venture. We saw 46 of 50 US states (didn’t see RI, DE, WV, or LA… or DC for that matter), and we actually saw 5 of 10 Canadian provinces, plus one Mexican state. And we played the alphabet game where you look for signs with words starting with each letter of the alphabet in order. From TX to Vegas we got to Q and then we were stuck for a while. But on the way from Vegas to the Grand Canyon we got up to X. Then between Albuquerque and TX we got X, Y, and Z. We rock at driving games!

Also, the time was totally messed up the entire time. We left from the Central Time Zone on Saturday, crossed into Mountain Time Zone in NM and AZ on Saturday. Saturday night Daylight Saving Time began, but Arizona doesn’t observe it, so everyone else in the country moved ahead an hour, but we stayed in normal Mountain Time (which, coincidentally is the same as Pacific Time during Daylight Saving). Then on Sunday we crossed into real Pacific Time in Nevada. On the way back on Wednesday we crossed back into AZ (which was no time difference because Nevada was on Pacific Daylight Saving Time and AZ is in Mountain Time but didn’t “spring ahead”), then on Thursday we crossed into Mountain (Daylight Saving) Time in NM, then back to Central time on Friday in TX. This whole mess resulted in me never knowing what time it was, which honestly isn’t that much different than usual. Even my phone was wrong half the time (it didn’t seem to recognize that AZ doesn’t use Daylight Saving). And just now as I was typing this, I realized that it’s actually 6PM here and my watch said 4PM. It’s okay; I fixed it.

Hmmm. Okay, I think I’m done recounting all the little details now. I really have to get some math done. I got nothing done while in Vegas or at the Grand Canyon (surprise, surprise!) so now I have some catching up to do before going back to class tomorrow!