New Year in Las Vegas

Bacchanal Buffet

Jerome

Nellie Bly

Fireworks on the strip

Our plan was to spend New Year's Eve in Las Vegas, so on the morning of the 31st, we left Sedona to go farther west. First, we stopped by Jerome, a former mining town turned ghost town turned artist community. The fog was thick due to the rain last night, and as our car wound its way up the hill to Jerome, it did look a bit weird and eerie. 

There were several boutiques with impressive glasswork, including glass jewelry. I bought some pottery from local artists, and we visiting Nellie Bly, which is the largest kaleidoscope store in the world. I have never been to a kaleidoscope store at all before, but it is a lot of fun. They had kaleidoscopes of all sizes and type. I bought a necklace with a small kaleidoscope of on it, which is made with shards of gems from gem shows. It actually works as a kaleidoscope! I like it because it looks like a plain silver necklace with an Alice in Wonderland design on it, but it sort of has a secret--that you can look inside the tiny lens, and see all of those jewel tone colors.

We stopped by the Mine Cafe for a fantastic breakfast. The waitress convinced me to get a blackberry mocha latte, which ended up being the best latte that I have had in my life. 

From Jerome, we continued about four hours to Las Vegas. We rented a condo that overlooks the strip. 

For dinner, we went to the Bacchanal Buffet in Ceasar's palace. The price was marked up because of the holiday, and we had to wait about 45 minutes, despite their kiosk system. Their kiosk pretty much let's you take a ticket, and they will text you when you should come back in line, during which you still have to wait about 45 minutes. Not the best system, but I suppose it could be worse. The food was phenomenal. The crab legs and bone marrow were my favorite. Their impressive dessert bar made me feel like a wimp, since by then I was so full that I could only try three desserts. 

That night, we walked along the strip, which was entirely closed to traffic. It was like one giant block party, since apparently 300,000 people are on the strip for the New Year. There was also a random parade of zealous religious folk, who were yelling about how everyone there would be going to hell, and Jesus was alive and watching them. 

We left earlier to watch the fireworks from our hotel. Since it overlooked the strip, we had a great view of the entire performance. 80,000 firework were shot from seven of the casino rooftops, choreographed to music. It was a fantastic display.