A few weeks earlier, Sheldon had invited me to join him and his friends from Los Angeles on a trip to Las Vegas. When the weekend came, I busted out of work early on Friday and had an enjoyable drive through Utah, Arizona and Nevada to Las Vegas.
There's few things more exciting than arriving in Las Vegas after a long drive through the dark desert. The lights, the people, the energy and the excitement seem to energize and rejuvenate me.
I waited to meet up with Sheldon in the Luxor's casino, which was brimming with excitement because its nightclub was throwing a birthday party for Kim Kardashian. Whatever.
After I met up with Sheldon and his girlfriend, we went up to the suite, cracked open a couple Guinesses and caught up on things for a while. Shortly thereafter, the rest of his friends showed up at the suite. We hung out in the room, drank several rounds of Irish Car Bombs and went down to the casino for a short time before crashing.
On Saturday, we walked down to the Planet Hollywood Casino to get lunch at the Earl of Sandwich. After lunch we walked around the Miracle Mile Shops at Planet Hollywood and then went back to the Luxor to hang out at the pool for a (short) time before it closed for the day.
Later at night, a few of us met up with Mindy's cousin, Jen, at New York-New York's Nine Fine Irishmen Bar for some drinks. I drank 2 or 3 Long Island Iced Teas, which definitely hit the spot.
Later, we all walked to Hooters for a late night meal.
On Sunday, we all just got up and got ready to leave. I had planned to stop at Zion National Park on my way back from Vegas to attempt to hike Angel's Landing. By the time I arrived, however, it was too late to make a full attempt, so I settled for the hiking up the first parts of the trail to get some views of Zion Canyon.
Zion National Park in the fall is absolutely beautiful. The few trees that are there had good fall color, and the place is so very quiet because of the bus system (cars are prohibited in Zions Canyon for most of the year, so you park your car at the visitor center and ride one of the propane-powered buses into the canyon). I got some excellent sunset pictures after I hiked to the top of the first switchbacked section of the trail. On the hike down I ran across a tarantula spider making its own way down the trail, which was kind of cool.
The hike was very refreshing and it helped make the rest of the drive back to Salt Lake a little less tedious than it should have been.
This trip was excellent. It was nice to catch up with Sheldon, and his friends were very welcoming and a lot of fun. And to cap it off with a hike in Zion National Park made it even more memorable.