Tag: hotels

Southwest Roadtrip Day 1: Laughlin, NV

retroroadtrip

So, our long awaited road trip is finally here! Carrie and I decided this year for our annual anniversary vacation that we’d take in some of the amazing sights we’ve got within our own border. And how best to do that? Road trip!!

We will be spending the next nine to ten days driving around the Southwest, primarily Arizona. We won’t give you spoilers as to where – you’ll just have to keep checking back over the next ten days to see where we’re at!

Anyways, we started off our trip literally during rush hour after work. We packed the car the night before and went to work this morning. After work, I drove to Carrie’s office and picked her up, and off we went towards Arizona. And where did we spend the night tonight before our “real” journey starts in the morning? Laughlin, Nevada.

Neither of us have been here before. Think of it as a “Vegas Lite”, but with more kitsch. As you can see in the pictures below, kitsch is the name of the game here. We are staying overnight at the Colorado Belle, a hotel shaped like a steamboat on the bank of the Colorado River. Hey, for $22, we’re in.

After checking in, we went downstairs for a little video poker action. After losing our $20, we walked around the facilities and found that the Colorado Belle sure loves its murals. Here’s me picking an argument with two gentlemen:

Tomorrow morning, the real journey begins as we hit Route 66 eastward and explore a wonderful, bygone era. Stay tuned!!

Carrie’s Birthday Fun Day!

Today was Carrie’s actual birthday and we decided to celebrate in numerous and diverse ways. It was truly an action-packed day, starting off in Palm Springs and eventually ending up at Disneyland. All in all, it was a great way to ring another fantastic year in the life of Carrie Kim!

As you know, we stayed overnight at the Viceroy and relished its swankness. Our first stop this morning was the Parker Palm Springs to get the birthday girl (and her husband) all pampered up at the spa and for a crazy good brunch.

The Parker is an incredibly fun-loving homage to early ’70s style, designed by Jonathan Adler. The grounds themselves once belonged to Gene Autry, but after Adler’s revamp, it’s a pleasure palace that will make anyone who experienced the ’70s smile. Anyways, after getting rejuvenated in the spa, we walked over to Norma’s, the Parker’s in-house breakfast/lunch eatery.

As it was my wife’s birthday, I saw fit to wear a shirt showing my birthplace and year of birth!

We started off with these amazing crab cakes – some of the best we’ve ever had.

I had Norma’s Eggs Benedict, which had asparagus and pancakes instead of the usual English muffin. Carrie had Claw’s and Chip’s Gone Fishing, aka fried sea bass and lobster done fish & chips style. Wow.

But a birthday lunch wouldn’t be complete without a cake. So I had them bring out the big guns: Chocolate, Chocolate Ice Cream Cake. But I had no idea it would be THIS big! We barely made a dent in this giant thing! But it was unbelievably delicious.

What next? How about spending the rest of the day at Disneyland? So that we did. Since it was Carrie’s birthday, she got a button announcing the occasion…and since I was celebrating with her, I got one that said “I’m Celebrating!”

Here’s the birthday girl in front of It’s a Small World.

Carrie even got a picture with Mickey and Minnie!

What a fun day it was…I think we’ve decided that from here on out, we should always not work on our birthdays!

Happy Birthday, Carrie!!!

Pics from the whole birthday trip are here:

Palm Springs Weekend 2009

Dinner at Circa 59

So after we got fully settled into the Viceroy, we headed out to dinner at Circa 59, the restaurant in the newly remodeled Riviera. We pulled up to the Riviera, completely unprepared for what we were about to see!

In short, it was visually amazing, if ever so slightly slightly derivative. It’s a little bit Philippe Starck in its grandness and glamour, but no worse for it. It’s very impressive to look at, and very well thought out. It deserves to do well, and we hope it succeeds. Here’s the view as we pulled up:

Here’s me sitting on one of the fancy couches:

And here’s Carrie!

Some neat shots of the interior:

Our meals were OK…Carrie had salmon with a jalapeño pesto sauce, and I had red snapper with Spanish chorizo and shrimp. Both were pretty good, but not enough to knock your socks off.

In all, we’re glad we went as the Riviera re-opened in October and we love checking out the newest stuff, but we’d probably rate the food as a 3 out of 5. Definitely not bad, but lacking the sort of bang and innovation you’d expect from the sheer looks of the surroundings.

Still, we were plenty happy, as you can see here!

See the rest of the pics here.

Palm Springs 2009 – We have arrived!

Carrie and I have a tradition of going to Palm Springs for her birthday. Each year, it gets just a little bit swankier and swankier. Now all these years, we have visited the glamorous Viceroy, whose interior design was done by the fantastic Kelly Wearstler (designer extraordinaire and one of our favorite Top Design judges), for dinner, drinks, and even massages, but we’ve never actually stayed here.

Well this year, we decided to finally make it happen. No matter that we’re currently in the middle of a huge rainstorm; it’s just a reason for more indoor cocktails! ;)

Here’s us walking up to the door…the Viceroy Palm Springs’ signature yellow and black theme is foretold by the big yellow doors!

And the swanky lobby!

Love the yellow chandelier.

They gave us champagne when we checked in, so here’s me happily settling in. :)

Carrie more than dressed for the occasion in her yellow cardigan!

And here’s Carrie reveling in the big comfy bed.

We’ll be updating the blog throughout our stay, and you can find all the photos from our trip here. Much more excitement to come – we’re going to dinner tonight at Circa 59, the restaurant at the newly remodeled Riviera, and we’ll have some good fun at the Parker tomorrow! Stay tuned!

Palm Springs, here we come!

I am so excited, Ed made the reservations for our annual Palm Springs trip! We are finally getting to stay at The Viceroy! We have eaten many meals, enjoyed many cocktails and have pampered once before at their glorious spa, but we’ve never gotten to be hotel guests! It is gonna be awesome.  I’m counting down the days until February 16th!