Parks and Trekreation - Day 10

#parksandtrekreation
#katieandkristagowest

Day 10 - April 2, 2016
The End

Waking up in a large and cozy hotel bed was delightful. We showered and packed up in preparation for our flight home, including the tent (pretty perfectly on the first try, which is a feat in and of itself), then checked out of the hotel. I realized I had forgotten to tip the maid, so Krista went to get the car from the valet while I ran back in to remedy my mistake. It took longer than I expected because I had to basically check back in to get a key, go all the way to the 19th floor, leave the money and then check out again.

Apparently while Krista waited for me in the passenger seat, a brigade of maids passed by on their way in to work and when I opened the door to get in the driver’s seat, Krista was startled, thinking I was one of the maids. Once she realized it was only me, we drove to the Hard Rock Hotel to have breakfast at Culinary Dropout.

The food was delicious. The decor was very hipster-like. We sat by a fire, drank fancy Bloody Mary’s, and ate smoked salmon and biscuits and gravy. It was so lovely that we could have stayed all day (which our beautiful, 80’s retro hip-hop waitress informed us was quite alright), but we figured we should give up our table and explore at least a little bit of Las Vegas.

We went to Fremont Street (the old downtown area) and walked amongst some Las Vegas style crazies. I think I prefer the New York style crazies that I’m accustomed to. Krista wanted to go into a largely Native American souvenir shop which had nothing of interest, but we stayed in there for far too long anyway. We stopped at a grocery store to buy coconut water and a blast from my past - an Original New York Seltzer in Peach flavor.

Then we stopped to watch an 8 year old “Wonder Kid” who sang a Christina Perry song to the crowd as her parents informed us that they were engineers who were not profiting from their daughter’s tips. But a crazy, homeless man yelled death threats anyway. We took that as our cue to move on.

Trying to escape the madness, we had the bright idea to circumvent Fremont Street by going through the Golden Nugget but ended up just getting lost in there. Add casinos to the list of places we cannot successfully navigate. After that debacle, we found ourselves at the “adult jungle gym” that our waitress told us about. Lies. It was most definitely a place for kids, but with stores and restaurants surrounding it. To kill time before our red-eye flight, we just browsed some shops, made friends with a chatty jewelry store worker from North Carolina until new customers came in and she lost interest in us, then we sat in some chairs until we realized we could just go back to the Harrah’s pool and be more comfortable.

Thanks to Aunt Joanie and our casino host, Bruce, we spent the rest of the afternoon in a poolside cabana.

After we got kicked out at closing time, we went to Sushi Way to have dinner. We still had some time to kill, but decided to just head to the airport anyway and return the rental car. The signs were not well marked and if not for GPS, we would still be driving around Las Vegas. Finally we said our goodbyes to our good little car and found our departure gate.

I had a moment of panic when I thought I had left my ATM card at Sushi Way, and after speaking to the restaurant staff for several minutes, I found it in my back pocket. Shoot. I’m turning into my mom. Then we took face swap photos on Snapchat while we waited for our flight. We laughed so much and so hard until we couldn’t take it anymore, irritating our throats and surely our fellow passengers as well.

Once on the plane there was a medical emergency one row ahead of us, but thankfully for us ( and of course for the one having the emergency) it wasn’t so critical that we had to make an emergency landing, though it was an active situation for the flight attendants for the duration of the flight.

But we made it back to LaGuardia safe and sound, where my mom was kind enough to pick us up and drive us home.

This trip was beyond epic, completely surpassed our expectations, and will live on as one of the coolest experiences I’ve ever had.

Here are some Boyz II Men lyrics to serve as a slightly ridiculous farewell to #parksandtrekreation:

It’s So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday

How do I say goodbye to what we had?
The good times that made us laugh
Outweigh the bad.
I thought we’d get to see forever
But forever’s gone away
It’s so hard to say goodbye to yesterday.
I don’t know where this road
Is going to lead
All I know is where we’ve been
And what we’ve been through.
If we get to see tomorrow
I hope it’s worth all the wait
It’s so hard to say goodbye to yesterday.
And I’ll take with me the memories
To be my sunshine after the rain
It’s so hard to say goodbye to yesterday.
And I’ll take with me the memories
To be my sunshine after the rain
It’s so hard to say goodbye to yesterday.

Actually, better to just let them sing it.