This morning we woke up early again, made some breakfast at home and got on the road to Red Rock Canyon. It felt a little cooler out today, which was nice but still pretty hot. We opted to do the scenic drive at Red Rock, although it did allow us plenty of opportunities to get out and walk around and take some pretty cool pictures.

The views were pretty amazing.  We took so many pictures, but pictures really couldn’t do the place justice.

Once we were finished exploring Red Rock we decided today was the day to try In and Out Burger. Don had already had it before and of course Kelsey had too, so I was the only one who hadn’t tried it. The burger was definitely good. I am still unclear if it it was better than Shake Shack…I’m leaning towards liking Shake Shack more, but In and Out is close behind. I think it is better than Five Guys. I was even surprised that the fries were pretty good at In and Out;  I had read that many people don’t like their fries. I thought they were good, better than Shake Shack fries.

After lunch we checked out Mount Charleston National Park. It was pretty awesome. The elevation at the park is much higher than Vegas so it was about 20-30 degrees cooler at times. I think the lowest temperature we saw in the car was 65. We wanted to try a short trail here so we chose Robber’s Roost Trail. It was a very short trail that headed up to a rocky cave like structure. After that trail we went to the Desert View Overlook. The views from there were amazing. It was so cool to see the different landscapes at this elevation. From the overlook we could see the Northern part of the Mojave Desert and some of the old bomb test sites.

We had a busy day and we knew we were about to have a busy night! I had a problem though, my eyes were so dry and painful. Everything was dry: my nose, my skin, and my eyes. My eyes were so painful  I even googled “las vegas painful eyes”, and it’s a thing! It’s called Las Vegas Dry Eye Syndrome. I found so many people on travel forums talking about their eye problems whenever they visit Vegas.  I felt so relieved that other people had experienced this, but I needed it fixed because we were going out to the strip tonight.  It was about 4 pm when we got back and I took out my contacts and pretty much cried in the shower because  my eyes hurt so bad. I can’t remember the last time I cried from physical pain (probably one of my foot injuries in the Philippines). The pain was a 9 out of 10. I laid on the bed with a cold washcloth over my eyes and hoped it would get better, especially because I HATE wearing my glasses. I decided though that I would not be able to wear my contacts this night.

We decided to go to dinner at BJs Brewhouse before going to the strip. I also picked up some eye drops.  I read online that many people recommended the GenTeal Gel Eye Drops so I decided to get those. I also got regular drops because I was kind of scared of the gel. The gel was amazing though, if you have this problem get the gel!

Now for The Strip. It was crazy! I couldn’t believe how big the casinos were! We started at MGM Grand because one of Kelsey’s friends gave us free tickets to see David Copperfield. That guys is crazy, seriously how does he do that stuff?! Good show, glad we went, it started at 9 and wasn’t done until about 11 or 11:30. After the show we were ready to explore The Strip. We started out by riding the tram around to see the strip, then we got off at Caesar’s Palace. I could not believe how big the strip was. I wanted to see things from Caesar’s to Mandalay Bay and  that was a far walk! When you look at the map it doesn’t look that far, but it is, it’s like  2 miles! We tried some roulette at Caesar’s; I’ve never really gambled. After Caesar’s we tried to watch the fountains at Bellagio but we found out that they stopped at midnight. So from the Bellagio we went to Cosmopolitan. Here we wanted to try a drink that has a flower in it that numbs your face. We went to the chandelier bar but we were told the drink is only available upstairs. We decided to just stay here and have a drink; we were getting tired and we still had a long ways to go. But we did get a second wind here at the Cosmo, we had some fun watching my sister play and win roulette. From the Cosmo we went to New York New York. Here we stopped for some NY style pizza and it was pretty good, or I could have been slightly buzzed. All I know is that I was extremely hungry. From New York New York we trudged on. We made it through Excaliber and finally to the Luxor. The Luxor is definitely my favorite, just because it is a pyramid. We didn’t actually go in the Luxor, I just really wanted pictures of the outside. Next time we will go in the Luxor. Around 3:30 in the morning we made it to Mandalay Bay. I wish we could have spent  more time here, but we were exhausted. We got home around 4 am. I couldn’t believe we stayed out that long. Time passes so quickly on the strip! I was pretty amazed by how ginormous the casinos were.