Badgers in Vegas

Scott and I headed to Vegas for the weekend and met up with his parents. They took us to see the Cirque du Soleil show inspired by the Beatles called "Love" and it was awesome. I always love the Cirque shows, but having the Beatles music and theme really made the show that much more amazing - very well done - I highly recommend it!


On Saturday, after watching some football in the morning, I went walking around and shopping with Scott's mom. I haven't been to Vegas very much and don't even remember which casinos I've been in when I have been there! I realized I had been in New York New York only after seeing that Zumanity played there, which I saw with the girls a few years ago. My favorite was going to MGM and seeing the lions sleeping - so cute! Scott's mom actually saw them when they were first put there as babies! You can see Scott's mom and I here ready for the game in our matching purses that she made - how creative!




That afternoon, we went over to the UNLV stadium for the Wisconsin Badger pre-game party. There were over 15,000 people at the tailgate and that is almost 2000 miles from their home! I am more and more amazed all the time at the lengths that Badger fans will go for their teams - awesome! I did hear that Vanderbilt is selling out their season tickets this year, which is way better than when I went there - so that's good news for us, though I won't mention that game. :( Back to the Badgers, this tailgate party was a lot of fun and we saw the craziest fan there that we even knew. You may recognize him from a previous running picture, but he had no mask there. Elvis was even at the tailgate and had fans chasing him across the field - never know what you'll see in Vegas or at a Badger Bash.



The game was a lot of fun and though very close, the Badgers did pull it off 20-13. The stadium was packed with red since both teams have red as their colors. The Badger fans definitely made up more than half the crowd - and more likely about 2/3. Their band was MUCH larger and more impressive than the UNLV band and it actually made me feel sorry for the Rebels! The view from the stadium was very pretty since it's a bit outside of the city. Watching the sunset with the sea of red in front and the peaceful views behind was great.

And now for my inner thoughts. Although I had a good time and enjoyed spending time with Scott's parents and liked all that we did in Vegas, I definitely realized that it's not a city for me. Just flying in and seeing this sea of green, watered yards in the midst of shades of brown was so unnatural. Arriving and seeing everyone getting ready to go out and party, bet, shop, swim, eat, drink and drink some more made me want to get away to a much more peaceful place. The shows are great in Vegas and the casinos are a lot of fun to look at, but there's not a whole lot there for me. Vegas is the kind of high-stress, busy, artificial, materialism that I was so surprised to see again when first coming back from our Latin America trip. This put me right back into the culture shock of a year ago and made me very uncomfortable. Of course, I understand why a lot of people love Vegas and I'm not trying to be judgmental of anyone else, but for me, I think I'd rather be camping. :D