It’s been one day too many… in that I should have posted this yesterday but we were rushing/ driving back to LA for our friends’ August birthday celebration.  But I wanted to get this in because I’ve done such a great job documenting our Vegas travels this time around.  I wish I had done this when we were off on our Florida/Georgia/South Carolina visit.

Day 4 was Friday and as I did all week, spent the morning working while the rest of the family slept in.  The kiddos finally got up some time in the afternoon and the hubby took them to walk the strip and catch Pokemon’s.  I took the time to putter around, watch some videos, and get ready for our afternoon adventures.  I even got to enjoy the luxurious bath tub in our hotel room. Sometimes it’s nice to have some “me-time” and working while my family sleeps is not “me-time”.  🙂   I often forget that and have to remind myself of that all the time!  When they got back from their adventures, I was ready to rock and roll.  The kids decided to stay in and take their turns in the bath tub and do their me-times while us grown ups did our thing.

The hubby and I trekked it over to the Palms even though we generally don’t like to go to big casinos on the strip.  Evidently it’s not really a big casino and we actually had some fun playing at the blackjack tables.  We ended up at Cafe 6 at Palms Place for dinner.  I didn’t enjoy it, I didn’t like it, it was overpriced and a little too snooty for me.  Now that I’ve got that out of the way here’s my disclaimer.  We normally don’t go to places like this because they’re usually overpriced and not very good food anyway.  We like smaller off strip joints better and that may cloud my impressions on this place.  And the only reason why we went was because we had a $15 coupon that we wanted to use.

First, it’s far from the casino.  You have to walk through the casino, take an elevator up to a “skytube” floor, walk through the skytube – which helpfully had a moving walkway, then another elevator up to the floor with the restaurant.  I think it was the 6th floor but I can’t remember now.  If you’re new like we were, we asked a lot of people if we were going the right way.

Second, the food was overpriced!

onion rings
@ Cafe 6
8/5/2016

There were originally 4 pieces of onion rings (you read right, just 4 pieces) and it was $6.95!  They’re normal onion rings.  They don’t taste any better than any other onion rings. The rest of the food was whatever.  Nothing memorable.

Bacon Bleu Sliders – $13.95
Cafe 6
8/5/2016

BLTA Stack with Sweet Potato Fries – $10.95
Cafe 6
8/5/2016

Don’t come here even if you have a $15 coupon!  Maybe if we kept it at our order it would have been okay but we ordered a couple of other items to bring back to the kiddos and then the whole thing ended up costing us close to $100.  🙁

After we dropped their dinner off, the hubby and I spent our last night at our favorite casino off the strip!

The best thing we did yesterday was eat at Rollin Smoke BBQ.  We found out that it’s just minutes from our hotel and we absolutely loved it.  I don’t know if I’d say it’s the BBQ in the United States but it is pretty darn good and if you’re in Vegas and you like BBQ, you have to check it out.

It’s located in this little strip mall that looks kind of shady.  Sometimes those are the best finds.  And in this case, it was.  We got there at the perfect time, right before the rush.  We ordered at the register and we ordered way too much food for the 4 of us.  I wished we could order a sample  of everything because I wanted to try everything but obviously we wouldn’t be able to finish it.  But of what we got, we had plenty of leftovers to take back to the hotel and eat at a later time.

Waiting for our food

We really enjoyed the food and my pictures do not represent how good it was.

Brisket Sandwich and corn nuggets

I didn’t try the Brisket Sandwich but the boy really liked it.  The corn nuggets were an absolute hit at our table.  It’s creamed corn fried like nuggets.

Brisket, hot links and bbq beans.  All of these were SO good but I can’t eat spicy so I took a bite of the hot links and gave the boy the rest of my piece.

Here’s brisket 3 ways (chopped, sliced and I think pulled).  All ways were absolutely delicious.  The yams were just as good as they were on our trip to Florida/Georgia/South Carolina.

Here’s a baked potato with pulled pork and the works.  It was good but I’m probably not going to get this again here unless I was craving it.

Smoked Meatloaf – This is the featured item from the Travel Channel and seemed like the item that we HAD to get above everything else.  I must say that I was disappointed by it.  It’s hard to see the meatloaf because there are onion rings on top, then the meatloaf, then mashed potatoes.  It was okay.  The brisket any way you preferred was the best item we got and would happily go back and get again.  We would also like to try their ribs and other items.

We also tried their dessert, of course!  I didn’t take pictures because we got them in to go containers and they wouldn’t look good getting their picture taken.  But we got banana pudding and peach cobbler.  I’m not much of a banana pudding gal but this banana pudding was really good.  The peach cobbler, unfortunately, was way too sweet.

This place was a great find and we’re thankful to our waiter at a cafe who recommended checking this place out when we asked him about local bbq.

Update: All in all, we spent about $110 for all of that food.  Not a bad deal considering we were full the rest of the day and had leftovers for today.

Here’s what I’d go back and get:

• corn nuggets
• yams
• banana pudding
• corn bread
• briskets (any which way)
• I’d like to try the ribs and probably other stuff too…

After our hearty meal, we went back to the hotel to drop off our leftovers and then went to the nearby mall to walk off our meal.  The kiddos played Pokemon Go while the hubby and I guided them around safely.  Then the kiddos went to watch Suicide Squad and went bowling afterwards while the hubby and I gambled at our favorite casino off the strip.

It rained/drizzled yesterday and it was overcast so the kids weren’t able to go to the pool like we had originally planned.  It looks like today’s weather will be much better.  The plan is to walk the strip so the kids can catch Pokemon’s and then go swimming at the pool.  Afterwards, they want to just hang out at the hotel room to read, take luxurious baths in the fancy bath tub, watch netflix, and basically relax and do whatever they want to do.  We’ve got plenty of leftovers to keep their tummy’s full.  If I get a chance, I would like to drop by the local quilt shop and check out their clearance room. 🙂

I’m not a Vegas person.  As many times as we’ve been here, I’d much rather go somewhere else.   But the hubby enjoys it so the kids and I indulge him.  It’s a quick 4 hour drive from the house and with our timeshare points, it makes an inexpensive last minute let’s enjoy the last week before school adventure.

As promised, I spent the morning working while the rest of the family slept in.  But when they were all up and ready, we went to the Bellagio to check it out.  I’d been there before at a friend’s bachelorette weekend but the kids hadn’t yet gone.  First stop, Jean Phillipe Patisserie, with 4 stars/1112 reviews on Yelp, I was hoping for some good pastries.

Jean Philippe Patisserie
8/3/16

I love love love pastries.  The hubby got a sandwich, the girl got a caprese panini, the boy got a chocolate croissant and I got a sticky bun.  For kicks, we also got a nutella brioche.  Let’s just say as with anything in Vegas at a big hotel, it’s overpriced.  We enjoyed the food but it was not worth $10 for the sandwich or $12 for the panini.  The boy loves chocolate croissants and he just thought this one was okay but not exceptional.  For myself, I loved my sticky bun and at $4.50 was definitely worth it.  It wasn’t too sweet.  And it was big enough that I couldn’t finish it myself but had to share it with the rest of the fam.

Next we went to check out the Gallery of Fine Art  in the Bellagio.  There’s currently an exhibit of Yousuf Karsh’s work.  The boy’s favorite was of Mohammad Ali.

The girl’s favorite was of Audrey Hepburn.

I really liked the Audrey Hepburn photo and the Helen Keller Photo.  I loved how he focused the attention on her hands.  It really captured the meaning and importance of those hands.

Helen Keller and Polly Thompson, 1948 by Yousuf Karsh

It cost us $30 to get in the gallery and I felt like it was worth it.  We had an audio guide that we used to take us through each photo and I felt the kids enjoyed it.  Actually, the girl really liked it.  She listened to all the audio and read all the notes.  The boy did the best he could but I could tell after the first few photos, he was bored.  He hung in there though and allowed the girl and I to explore and take it all in.

The Bellagio also has a conservatory with a lot of flowers and stuff to look at and take pictures.  I couldn’t stand the smell in such a small enclosed environment but I managed to take one picture of the three of us.

Me and the kids at the conservatory at the Bellagio.
8.3.16

Another great thing I like to do while visiting these beautiful hotels is to check out the floors and other things that would look great as a quilt.

The parking situation at the Bellagio was not great.  Like many of the other big hotels on the strip, they no longer offer free valet parking.  I believed for the few hours we spent, it was $13.  And after spending $60 at the Patisserie, $30 at the gallery, and I think the hubby lost at the tables, paying for parking left a sour taste in my mouth and we’ll probably not come back again.  Once for the experience was enough.  I guess most people take a cab here so if I do want to come back I’ll have to remember to do that instead of driving.

After the Bellagio, we hightailed it to our favorite casino off the strip so we can play some $5 blackjack and the kids could watch a movie and play a few games of bowling.

Today’s plan is to hang out at the pool, have dinner at Rollin Smoke BBQ (4.5 stars/1843 reviews on yelp) and then catch a showing of Suicide Squad.