Josh loves doing the model face now...
We rode Dolly around for a long time. Josh was much braver and actually ran her, but I mostly let her eat grass and walk around slowly.
Later, Joy showed us their tack and explained differences between Western, English, and Australian saddles. It started to rain so we went inside... and then realized that Dolly had wandered away. Joy, Rich, and Jason left to drive around the countryside and search for the horse, but told us to not worry about it since it's happened before. I felt pretty awkward being so useless in the search, but Josh didn't mind and he just played with their other cute pets :)
We hit the road for Nevada and along the way got a text message from Joy informing us that they had found Dolly in a neighbor's barn, so all was well back in Tehachapi... but things were getting a little scary for us, because we started to see a huge cloud in the distance along the highway. It looked like someone had blurred the sky!
It was just an enormous dust cloud, but it was still strange to drive through. We made it to Nevada, and the first place we went was the Hoover Dam! It was extremely windy all through Nevada but especially on the new Memorial Bridge that overlooks the Dam.
Josh LOVED the Hoover Dam and didn't want to leave ...
... so we stayed there for a very long time, driving across the Dam to the viewing areas on the other side. Josh took a ton of photos ... ! He really lives up to his engineer stereotype since he loves man-made engineering marvels.
I was craving Chinese food so we picked up some take-out on our way to our host's house in Henderson. We met our host, Emily, her oldest son, and her German exchange student "daughter." Her husband and youngest son were out, so we didn't have the chance to meet them. Emily showed us her photo album from their trip to Germany, Italy, and the Czech Republic. Unfortunately the kids weren't very social... I would've liked to hear about her son's experience as an exchange student in the Czech Republic, and learn about Germany from their current exchange student!
We headed out for the Las Vegas Strip! We parked in a very sketchy parking garage (reminded us of Miami...) and walked around. Our first stop was Caesars Palace.
We quickly learned that most of the casinos had been decorated to celebrate the Chinese New Year, so there were lots of red lanterns and beautiful real flowers everywhere!
Next we visited the Bellagio. They had the red lanterns as well... and also a huge, creepy, realistic bunny.
Paris Las Vegas looked very pretty, and Josh and I made a bet on how big it was compared to the actual Eiffel Tower. Josh said that their version was almost as big as the actual structure, and I guessed that the real one was three times as big. Josh ended up being correct just because he was closer... the replica Eiffel Tower is half as big as the real structure, but we were both pretty off!
We stopped at the Fountains of Bellagio and watched a water fountain performance to the song "Big Spender," very appropriate for Las Vegas!
Erik from Clovis told us about a $10 bucket of beer special at Bill's Casino, so we headed over there and learned it was just a $7 pitcher special... I think we were both imagining an actual bucket full of beer rather than a regular pitcher, but Josh got it anyway.
Since there are no open container laws on the Strip, we enjoyed our pitcher outside of the MGM Grand and New York-New York.
We couldn't take it into the casinos so Josh finished the rest, finding a very creepy spot to chug the remainder...
We went inside the MGM, New York-New York, Excalibur, and Luxor. They were all pretty interesting inside; I liked that each one was a different land... like Disney World! We got back to Emily's extremely late and tried to make as little noise as possible before falling asleep.
Josh's high for the day was the horse ride in the morning, and my high was seeing how happy Josh was at the Hoover Dam, like a little kid. :) Josh's low was when Dolly got lost, and my low was the "porn slappers" on the Strip who slap escort cards together to get your attention. So annoying! Josh's "ho" was this Lego chair that we saw on the Strip... yes, it's $71,000:
My "ho" occurred at the Hoover Dam. We pulled up to a viewing area and saw a man in a black and white striped t-shirt... Josh said, "Let's ask this French guy to take a photo of us." He ended up actually being French, and if you Google image search "French guy," that's exactly what he looked like!
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