Wanna hear about Vegas, finally?

I went to Vegas for the first time, oh, three months ago?

So sure. It's probably about time to start telling you about it. Don't worry ... it should only take four or five posts. We should be done by Christmas.

I'm thinking if I tell you about the first day, that will FORCE me to follow up and tell you about the rest of them. Right?

Logic. It is our friend.

I flew out in early March to attend a conference with my manager and friend, Vanessa. We flew Southwest, and I checked in early so I'd be sure to get a window seat. When I fly, if I don't have my nose in a book, it's pressed up against the window.

As we closed in on Vegas, the landscape got more interesting to me. Never having been there before, I was fascinated by this part of the country.

I wasn't sure if I'd see any water at all, but I spied some.

It seemed like literally one minute we were over that terrain, and then we banked to the right, and we were flying over this:

And I even saw some green!

When we landed at the airport, I thought it was hilarious that they had little replicas of the casinos at the end of the runway. I was trying to figure out if they were 2-D or 3-D when I realized that they were THE REAL THING.

I mean, we picked up our rental car, turned out of the airport and were practically ON The Strip.

Our conference was at a large convention hall, but they'd reserved a large block of rooms at The Palazzo, which is where we stayed. (It's part of The Venetian complex. And we, in fact, started OUT in The Venetian because we didn't realize which of the identical parking decks we'd driven into.)

Nothing in Vegas is understated.

Everything is, in fact, overstated.

They even had a giant oil painting featuring boobies and buttcrack right there at Check-in. THIS PAINTING WAS LIFE-SIZE, INTERNET.

It was a lot to absorb, my first five minutes in town. While we were trying to check into The Venetian, when we were staying at The Palazzo. Confused? KEEP UP, INTERNET.

After parking in the wrong deck, taking two sets of elevators to the wrong lobby and check-in desk and attempting to check in at the wrong hotel, we were finally directed one city block behind us to The Palazzo. Mind you, the hotels are connected. By elevators and hallways.

But if we hadn't gone back the way we'd come, our car would have ended up one city block away from us, in the parking deck of the wrong hotel. So we went back down and retrieved it, and moved it over to The Palazzo.

Its lobby was nothing to sneeze at, either.

Oh, and something that's not confusing AT ALL? The big Vs inset into the floors in both hotels. INCLUDING THE ONE THAT STARTS WITH A P.

Every room in the hotel is a suite. So when I opened the door to my room, I was like, "WHAAA?" It was nice.

The bathroom had a true double vanity (not just double-wide, but with two sinks!), a soaking tub and a frameless glass shower.

The water closet had a different wallpaper in it than the rest of the bathroom ... it reminded me a little bit of Joy Cho's line for Hygge & West.

The suite included a sunken living area with a sectional couch, TV, desk and a little dining table.

The bedroom portion of the suite had another nice TV and two double beds.

I used the bench at the end of one of the beds as a luggage stand.

When I opened the curtains to look at my view, it was really stunning!

If I looked all the way over to my left, I could see the Wynn hotel and casino, which was right next door.

We'd arrived late afternoon, so we made plans to freshen up and then meet downstairs to find some supper and look around a little bit. If you're familiar with Vegas, you know that you can't simply "cross the street." You have to use pedestrian bridges, so getting to this CVS "right across the street" took us 15 minutes.

And then once we finally made it there, IT WASN'T OPEN YET. It was under construction, and it merely APPEARED to be open. That's when we saw that there's a Walgreen's roughly the size of a Publix right on the ground floor of The Venetian. Back across the street.

Bygones.

We kept walking, figuring we'd catch Walgreen's on our way back to our hotel.

We tried -- rather unsuccessfully, I might add -- to take an ussie on one of the pedestrian bridges that first night. When I saw this picture later, I decided I MIGHT want to invest in one of those Selfie Sticks I'd seen at Walgreen's.

After walking around for a little while, we eventually made our way back to The Palazzo. (And no, I didn't buy a Selfie Stick. THAT night.)

We stopped and watched the gondoliers escort their passengers around the "canals" in their water taxis, and I was surprised that they sang as they steered the boats.

They had really beautiful voices.

We didn't stay out late, because we had to get up early for our conference the next morning. But I'd definitely had my first taste of Vegas! More to come -- that is, if you're interested.