VIVA LAS VEGAS!

I did it! I went on vacation, and I did Vegas with my lifelong best friend!

And if I may say...we did it well.

We had been planning this trip since the summer—her boyfriend's friends were coming out to Vegas for CES, and we were going to join them. I arrived on Monday, after a rushed departure from work and a little craziness at LAX.  When I landed at McCarran International Airport, I was greeted with a text message instructing me not to take a shuttle to the hotel...because they were on their way to pick me up in a convertible. A red Eclipse convertible.

We met the rest of the boys back at the hotel and came up with a game plan.  Night 1: Let's hit the strip!  We all got dressed up—us girls in little dresses, and the guys wore full suits.  Kept it classy, with the guys rolling Entourage-style. First up was the Cosmopolitan, followed by Paris, followed by the biggest slot machine I've ever seen!  We all took turns pulling the big lever, but no big win. Eventually, we ended up taking a limo from Bellagio back to our hotel—with eight people, it was cheaper than taking two or three cabs (and far classier).

Our well-dressed entourage at Fremont and in front of Paris...and giant gambling!

We got back to the hotel and went in search of food—after seeing posters in elevators and billboards advertising steak and shrimp specials, that was my mission. One of the guys headed up my "steak and shrimp" mission...eventually settling on a prime rib buffet. I'll take it!

I filmed Mythbusters again!

Yeah, that's right, again.  In January 2010, I did a crazy 21-hour roundtrip drive to San Francisco to film an episode of Mythbusters at the workshop.  It was excellent...but really not a super smart idea to do it that quickly, essentially pulling an all-nighter-and-a-half.

This time, I planned ahead.  I got confirmation on a Tuesday for a Thursday (September 29) shoot day, and immediately booked a cheap motel room in Oakland for Wednesday night.  I drove up to SF from LA after work on Wednesday evening, and made it easily by 10:00pm. I got to sleep this time!

Driving up in the evening wasn't so bad

My classy, classy motel room matched my bags

On Thursday, I did a little exploring before meeting the crew on Treasure Island.  I drove over the Bay Bridge and found a television icon.

The Full House house!

View of SF and the Bay Bridge from Treasure Island

There were eight of us invited to film...and we did a lot of waiting.  They took us two at a time, apparently a men vs. women experiment.  Those of us left behind kept trying to figure out what we were going to have to do, based on some of our survey questions earlier. Or maybe it was mainly me who was trying to figure it out.  I was impatient.

There's been some press already on the episode, but I still can't talk about the details until the episode airs.  Boo.

Because we wrapped relatively early, and it was still pretty light outside, I did even more exploring.  I tried to find Lombard Street's craziness and the Golden Gate Bridge.  Yeah, should've researched an address or something earlier.  Found 'em eventually, though!

I DROVE DOWN LOMBARD STREET

I finally headed home after that. I got back really late, and probably could have left two or three hours sooner, but I'm so glad I did a little extra exploring this time.