Coming in at 254 miles, the trip to Vegas felt like a walk in the park compared to some of our recent driving days. Our route took us west along I-11 and eventually right by the Hoover Dam. We originally planned on stopping to check it out but there weren’t any obvious RV-friendly pull-offs so we decided to continue on to Vegas and our new campground for the week – the Las Vegas RV Resort.
Located about seven miles east of the Strip, this place is situated in a convenient, yet somewhat sketchy part of town. Thankfully, the resort doesn’t skimp on security and the front gate is manned 24/7 to ensure that the riff raff stays at bay. Although we wouldn’t say this was one of our favorite RV parks, it definitely served its purpose well enough (especially considering the price – $35 a night, not bad at all). The park was dominated by long-term campers who were staying over the winter, many of which had full setups – porches, furniture, decorations, the whole nine yards. Since the weather was so nice, we went on regular walks and jogs throughout the park (it’s big), and everyone couldn’t have been nicer.
Let’s talk a bit more about this weather – it was perfect! Every day was sunny with highs usually ranging somewhere in the 70’s. In fact, a few of our longer-term neighbors were telling us that Las Vegas hadn’t received rain in over 300 days (they finally got some rain a few weeks after we left)! However, Charlotte didn’t seem too worried about the drought. She was a regular in front of the windows while we there.
Given the great weather, it was hard to believe that it was December. Although we didn’t have a ton of room to decorate (much less store the decorations during off-season), we felt like we had to change something up in honor of Christmas. It’s not much, but we were proud of our little wreath.
We also thought of a few other ways that we could get into the holiday spirit.
While we were in town, we were fortunate enough to meet up with Sam’s grandmother (my first time getting to meet her)! She lives on the west side of the metro, on a beautiful property that overlooks much of the Strip and downtown. We had a great time visiting with her while we worked on some jigsaw puzzles with her (if you know Sam’s mom, Char, you’ll know that puzzles run in the family). After a fun little charcuterie board dinner, she was nice enough to give us a tour of her neighborhood and show us around her stomping ground (she enjoyed getting to ride around in the big truck). Getting to meet Sam’s grandmother was yet another reason why we are so happy that we decided to embark on this RV life!
Up until this point, our Vegas trip had been pretty wholesome (walks around the RV park, trips to visit Grandma, etc.), but it was finally time to hit the Strip! We didn’t really know what to expect with COVID and all, but we picked out the Venetian (for no good reason) and made our way over there. There were people out and about, but compared to my previous visit, the place was basically a ghost town. Honestly, it was pretty sad seeing rows and rows of tables vacant and roped off. However, there were some people in there doing some gambling and some of the visuals were hilarious. One COVID rule, in particular, had us cracking up – masks were required at all times, except if you were drinking or smoking. MASKS ARE ESSENTIAL AND LIFE SAVING (unless you’re ripping a cig, the smoke probably kills the virus anyways).
Thankfully, the mask exception also applied to eating. We grabbed a lovely (maskless) dinner at Yardbird Southern Table and Bar, located within the Venetian, before calling it a night and heading back. We wished that we could’ve done some gambling while we were down there, but with all the restrictions, they didn’t make it seem too appealing – and neither of us were particular interested in taking up smoking to get around them.
Since we weren’t going to be gambling, we had to entertain ourselves somehow so we opted to try something a little different. My aunt, Trudy, spoke so highly of the Mob Museum that we had to make the short trip downtown one evening to check it out.
We’re so glad we did, this was a fun little tourist attraction! The exhibits were plentiful and most walked that fine line between being informative without bogging visitors down with too much detail/minutiae. In addition to general admission, we decided to splurge a bit and experience their moonshine exhibit and tasting. This was another great decision, the tour guide so knowledgeable, yet entertaining and we had a blast tasting the different moonshine variants. Looking back, we wish that we would’ve grabbed a bottle while we were there. It would’ve been fun to share it with everyone over Christmas! Oh well.
That pretty much wraps it up when it comes to activities while in Vegas. However, last time I promised that I would give a review/update regarding the desk and newly acquired chairs.
Long story short, we love pretty much everything about our new setup! The space is so much more usable now that we’ve replaced the dinette with this desk along the back wall of the slide-out. Because Sam’s work stuff was usually dominating the dinette, we rarely had an empty spot to sit down and eat. Now that the monitors were on stands and the keyboards/mice were stowable, we had so much more room to sit down and enjoy our meals.
Regarding the chairs, they’re not the nicest but they get the job done and are worlds better for our backs than those old dinette benches. So far, they’ve turned out to be a great purchase (especially when factoring in that they were only about $50, each).
You may have noticed the board running along the carpet line in the picture above. This was a necessary compromise to make this setup work. Basically, there is about a ¾ inch drop from the slide-out floor down to the RV floor. Normally, this isn’t an issue, but this drop off was right where our chairs would be sitting, so we had to do something to mitigate the drop. This board 1” x 12” board was the solution that we came up with. It’s not ideal (we need to remove it each time that we take the slide in or out) but it definitely makes the drop down way less noticeable when you’re sitting in the chairs.
All in all, we are quite pleased with our new desk. Honestly, we just wish that we would’ve gotten around to this renovation long before we actually did, it’s been a gamechanger!
Catch us next time when we detail our trip through Death Valley to lovely Lone Pine, California.