So for our 15th wedding anniversary we got ourselves a good… 12 hours in the car 😬

Starting from Yosemite, the plan was to go celebrate in mighty Las Vegas in the evening. And sleep in a hotel! With a shower!!

On the way we would drive along beautiful lakes and mountain roads and east-west across Death Valley on 190. Ok it’s a long drive but we should make it by evening to the restaurant Mary had selected, and what better panorama to celebrate an important date! ❤️

So, yes. That was the plan.

And it started rather well, but by the time we reached Death Valley, we realised that 190 was closed so we had to drive around the valley; 2 more hours!

Later down the road, somewhere along the mojave desert, all traffic was stopped for an hour because of a -pretty bad- car accident.

(By the way, « speed limit » is not really a thing in Nevada!)

So by then, Mary’s restaurant plans were already screwed and she was starting to get pissed!

We reached mighty Vegas around 9pm and we could maybe have rushed straight to some restaurant but we desperately needed a shower first, so we stopped by the hotel and got out again around 10pm, by which time most decent restaurants were already closed to make way for the crazy Vegas nights.

We went for a stroll on the Strip and Fremont St to get the vibe of the neon lights and maybe eat something.

We lost some more time trying to park and finding our way around and we got there pretty tired.

By this time Mary was very tired and upset; she didn’t want to eat anymore and more or less hated me! Leo and I had a hot dog with fries.

In our tired eyes (plus walking with a kid who’s not allowed anywhere), Las Vegas looked like a noisy, tacky, vulgar place filled with homeless junkies and pathetic cowboy pimps! And Leo to keep asking why half naked men and ladies were dancing with whips on Fremont St 🫣

We went on to check the big casinos on the Strip. Caesar’s Palace looked much more inspired by an Asterix comic book than anything in actual Rome while the Bellagio’s fake Eiffel Tower looked like a radio antenna.

So yeah, all in all, we weren’t really in the mood. It was « Hélas Vegas » for us 😛

It was 3am already so we decided to call it a day and go enjoy our king size bed instead.

After 20mins of more driving, we managed to reach another hotel, with the same name and looking exactly the same but on the other side of town!!

#fail

So if you ask me the secret for a long and happy married life, I’d say accept when you’re tired and let the storm pass by 🙂