Vegas was insane. Not only is it a town that never sleeps, we had to work every day and pretty much all day. We were there for 8 days and believe it or not I only gambled twice!
We arrived in Vegas on Sunday and checked into the Excalibur hotel. It was one of the only hotels that had rooms available for our eight day stay.. Surprisingly, it was a great hotel...our rooms were huge suites with a veiw of the pool.
We were able to chill by the pool on Monday and then late Monday we left to California for the night because we had early an early media opportunity with The Dr. Wright Show out of Riverside, CA. There, we did a couple retail stops so they could get some live screenings for their show. This was my first media experience and since Carolyn did one before, I had her do this one so I could see how it went. It's a very small show so it wasn't really a big deal. But some exposure for the brand is good!
After the shoots on Tuesday we drove back to Vegas and didn't get back until late. In the meantime, our boss called and said they had a last minute booking on CBS for Wednesday morning. We had to be ready for an interview at 5:45 am. We drove out to the taping location and Carolyn did this one as well...after this one I felt comfortable enough to take my own stab at it. Wednesday we had interviews with CBS - Good Morning Las Vegas. This time we had to be there at 4:45am! As we were leaving at 3:30, people hadn't even gone to bed yet..and here we are in our uniforms hauling around in our RV. Definitely not the typical Vegas lifestyle!
The reporter ended up interviewing me about 5 different times for different spots throughout the morning. Surprisingly, I wasn't too nervous..after the first one I was pretty comfortable. It was live so that was probably my biggest fear..saying something stupid live on the air, or saying the wrong word since there are so many things we can and can't say regarding Novasoy. Health issues are always picky on wording. But, everything went well! My uncle actually taped the segments and gave me a CD of my first media interview! Unfortunately, it's too big of a file to upload here, however, he was able to pull out a handful of still shots from the interviews..check it out!
The craziest part about the whole media experience is that people actually recognized me from tv! "You're the girl that was on the news this morning, right?" I had to laugh.
Well, at this point in the week is when I started my lack of sleep. Thursday, Friday and Saturday we had to work from 8-5 conducting screenings at a Vitamin store and then again on Sunday from 12-4. My boss, Erin flew in for the weekend and we ended up going out. Thursday she got in and I had previously gotten tickets to see Jason Mraz playing at the House of Blues. What a great show and we had great seats too! Then after that we hit Hard Rock til the early morning hours. I ended up leaving down $40 after hitting the blackjack tables. After getting only two hours sleep, I had to work a full day again.
Friday night, Carolyn was ready to go out. So, we decided to go to Ghost Bar at Palms which was an incredible bar if you haven't been! You "Real World" watchers know it's a bar that's on top of the hotel...what an amazing view and great music too. Here's a few pics...
So, after another night of not enough sleep I had to work on Saturday again! Saturday night Erin wanted to take us out to dinner for our hard work for the week...we got to choose so we went to Chinois - a Wolfgang Puck Chinese restaurant. We were running late for our reservation so we hopped on a bike taxi..it was hysterical! It was a fabulous meal and then we went to Vbar at The Venetian and Rum Jungle at Mandalay Bay. Another late night!
We had to work again on Sunday but not until noon so for once I got to sleep in! Since the last "Bachelor" was on Erin, Carolyn and I opted to stay in for a night to watch the show and catch up on paperwork. Bachelor and American Idol are so big out here..you can vote in the casinos...not betting money though.
Our plan was to sleep in on Monday and stay the day and then hit the road for San Francisco and split the 10 hour drive in two days. So we head out about 4pm and I remembered I had to go back to the Hard Rock Hotel and cash out some chips..so we packed up the truck and stopped there on our way out of town. Hard Rock is by far my favorite hotel in Vegas and I always want to stay there. Well, Carolyn had never seen it...and we got in and grabbed lunch and just decided that we didn't really want to leave..so we wanted to get a room there for the night. They were booked, but we already had it in our head that we were going to hang out there that night, that we opted for a Comfort Inn room across the street! So, we dropped our stuff and then went over for dinner.
The reason the hotel was sold out was because a lot of country bands were staying there since the Academy of Country Music Awards was happening Wednesday. We saw a bunch of bands which was pretty cool. And the best part was I ended up being hot at the blackjack tables and at one point I was up $250 and ended up walking away plus $185. A little extra cash is never a bad thing!
Monday we finally headed out of Vegas and decided to tackle the drive to San Francisco in one day. The only bad part about this was that we were going to miss the final American Idol showdown..and our whole Novasoy team are reality tv junkies! By chance we decided to try to stop for dinner at 8pm and hoped they had a tv so we could watch the show. We were in the middle of the desert and then 10 minutes before the show out of no where there's a Petro Truck stop...we go there and not only do they have a tv, they have a theater with surround sound! We were laughing so hard we were crying..what are the chances. We even got a few of the truckers to watch too!
So, we arrived in SF late Tuesday night. Today we slept in and had to get the truck washed (which is always a huge task) and after we hit Pier 39 and Fisherman's Wharf to get some sightseeing in. Tomorrow we signed up for a 9 hour tour of the Napa and Sonoma to visit the wineries! This week I'm also hoping to do a few bike tours as well.
Our boss is comping us for our long hours last week, so I don't have to work until Saturday! Sweet! Finally some time to sight see!
