Vegas, Baby!

March 12, 2012

On Friday, I joined Wendy, Sandy, Sue Hee, Ashley, and Key at SFO and hopped on a Virgin America flight (what up, not United!) to Las Vegas...you read that right, I went to Vegas for the weekend. Gail also flew in from Denver for the weekend. I have to say, that new Terminal 2 at SFO is pretty dang sweet.

FRIDAY

On Friday night, we flew in around 7 PM, checked into our rooms at the new-ish hotel Aria, and then hurried over to the Bellagio to check out a 10 PM show of Cirque du Soleil's "O". Wow. Seriously.

Night view from the hotel room on the 27th floor (don't mind the reflection of my camera):

SATURDAY

On Saturday morning, I grabbed a coffee and checked out the morning view from the hotel room:

As part of the "classy" weekend in Vegas, we rented a private cabana at the Aria pool for the day. The weather was perfect, and it ended up being a brilliant idea.

After ~5 hours spent lapping up some vitamin D, I headed to the schwanky gym to get a run in before a pretty decadent meal.

Sue Hee, Key and I were having dinner at the Joel Robuchon, the famous chef's flagship signature restaurant in MGM Grand, considered to be one of the finest restaurants in the US and beneficiary of the highly coveted 3 stars from Michelin. It's a pretty big deal, so I'll post a separate blogspot on that decadent meal after this one...

After dinner, we headed out on the strip, checking out the Bellagio night water show on the way to find some cheaper gambling.

Key and I found some fun $10 Blackjack tables at The Flamingo, where we proceeded to spend the next ~3.5 hours. It was super fun and I had a good time re-learning how to play (it had been years). It was nice to win some $ too! On the way back to Aria, we had the sudden realization that it was the conversion to Daylight Savings time, so we had just lost another hour...aiya.

SUNDAY

As much as I wanted to sleep all day, hotel check-ins can really get in the way.

Brunch at Mon Ami Gabi in Paris:

After brunch, we had a couple hours to kill. I found a $5 craps table (sooo much fun!), while Key and Sandy played Blackjack. The other girls went wandering/shopping.

Alas, we said goodbye to Gail and Vegas. It was a fun and "sophisticated" weekend with some fantastic friends. My kind of Vegas.

First Trip to Tahoe...in March!

March 4, 2012

What a weird weather year it has been. The lack of snow in the Sierras has kept me from going up there, but I finally made it up after I flew back from Miami. I missed the storm, but got some amazing sunny spring skiing days at Alpine Meadows and Squaw Valley.

The amazing weather doesn't bode well for the snow that was rapidly melting. Despite the dismal snow year, I have had some great days skiing in Canada (Mt. Washington and Whistler) and at Park City. I hope this means next year will be an amazing snow year!

Miami, Baby!

March 2, 2012

I went to Miami, FL for a work trip for 5 days. I was interested in checking out Miami, as it has been over 10 years since I had been in this city on another work trip with Katharine (oh, the good old days...).

Most of the trip was spent in a conference room at The Palms Hotel in South Beach. However, there was one afternoon where a group of us headed to the Everglades to check out some gators. See the action below...

That evening, we had a pretty fantastic team meal at a restaurant on Ocean Dr in South Beach called A Fish Called Avalon. I was in shellfish heaven!

Our hotel was right on the beach, and I didn't get to spend any time on the beach, but did take a nice walk along the boardwalk and soaked in as much vitamin D as I could.

Miami hasn't changed much, but I sure have. Either way, it was a good and productive work trip.