Surprise, we eloped!

Yeah yeah yeah, we’ve been married for years. We did sneak away for a weekend of fun in Las Vegas, minus the chapel wedding.

Day 1: Getting our bearings at the Venetian/Palazzo Hotel

The hotel’s lavish lobbies and gardens were decorated in honor of the Lunar New Year. And Valentine’s Day. And whatever else they could toss in there.

The Venetian’s claim to fame is their indoor canal, complete with singing gondoliers. We didn’t take a cruise on this visit, but only due to lack of time.

This, my friends, is a CrazyShake. The ice cream tasted like cake batter. We’re dead now.

Day two: Death Valley National Park

Death Valley National Park is a two-hour drive from Vegas, a fact that cinched our decision to visit. We only spent one gorgeous day there, but we’re already sketching out plans for a longer visit.

Before we visited, I had roughly a 4th grade understanding of Death Valley. Lowest and hottest point in the United States, right? It’s also gorgeous, especially in winter, with an incredibly varied landscape. As usual, the pictures don’t exactly do it justice, and we were only able to visit a tiny piece of the largest national park outside of Alaska.

Day three: relaxing, exploring more of the Strip, and seeing Kà by Cirque du Soleil

I will see a Cirque du Soleil show any chance I get. Kà was stunning, though I had to take motion sickness medicine about ten minutes into the show because the moving stage made me want to yak. Worth it.

That golden, amorphous blob above us is a golden MGM lion.

We even spent a few minutes at the slot machines! Seriously, minutes — we both burned up $10 in the blink of an eye.

Las Vegas is not a city that naturally calls to us — neither of us drinks much, and we like to be back at the hotel watching Storage Wars by 9:30 or so — but by now we’ve figured out how to find fun in all kinds of places. We had a fantastic couple of days soaking up the sunlight, watching mind-blowing theater, and ticking another National Park off of the list.

(Speaking of lists: now that we’ve visited Nevada, Dan and I are only missing 5! Still to come: Kansas, Arizona, North Dakota, Louisiana, Hawaii.)