Mid-Winter Break with Mom: LA, OC, and Las Vegas!

I registered for my second half marathon and chose the Rock ‘n’ Roll half in Las Vegas, so my mom came to support me! We did a few days in Southern California and then drove to Las Vegas. I had been to Vegas with friends twice before and it’s not my favorite place, but running on the Las Vegas Strip sounded like a cool experience!

DAY 1: THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 22
My mom flew into LAX the previous night. In the morning, we grabbed coffee and breakfast burritos at Lokal and drove down to Orange County for the day. I thought Alternative Retail was having their designer warehouse sale, but I sadly got the dates mixed up. Instead, we went to the Orange County Museum of Art. It was extremely small and didn’t really have any interesting exhibitions, so I doubt I’ll be back soon, but tickets are free to reserve online.

I always want to try new restaurants in OC but usually end up at Bear Flag Fish Co. My mom likes poke, so we went to the Lido Newport Beach location and ordered tuna poke with a bag of chips. It was the perfect amount of food and Mom was a fan!

Next, we walked around Lido Marina Village until it was time for our whale-watching tour. I used Groupon for the first time and found a deal for Davey’s Locker Whale & Dolphin Watching Cruise, so we got 2 tickets for a 2pm boat for $44 total (regularly $93 for the day and time we wanted). I also paid $5 for the binocular rental, but I didn’t use them and wouldn’t recommend this add-on. We unfortunately did not see any whales, but there were a lot of dolphins and some sea lions. It’s crazy how close to the shore they were! I didn’t get any good photos of the dolphins, but they were so cute.

We grabbed an early dinner at Sol Mexican Cocina at 5 pm. There was only valet parking, but we found street parking in a neighborhood a couple of blocks away. The restaurant wasn’t that busy and we were seated right next to the windows on the water, which was lovely. It was happy hour, and we got the street tacos, quesadilla, ceviche, and street corn.

My mom’s a big fan of mochi donuts, so we went to Fashion Island for Mochinut for dessert. We also did some shopping at the Rack before heading back to LA.

DAY 2: FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 23
We got an early start to our drive to Las Vegas. We had recently watched the Blue Zones docuseries on Netflix, so we stopped by Loma Linda on the way, the only blue zone (place where people live longer than normal) that the show featured that was in the US. We got coffee at Cafe Society (nothing special) and then kept driving until our next pit stop at the Seven Magic Mountains. These are seven towers of stacked brightly painted boulders just off the freeway outside of Las Vegas.

Before this trip, I didn’t know Las Vegas had a Chinatown, but it’s only a short drive from The Strip. It’s not that big, but it has some highly-rated restaurants on Yelp! For a late lunch, we went to Shang Artisan Noodle for hand-ripped noodles. We each ordered a noodle dish, the Dan-Dan Noodle and the Shàng Beef Noodle. The portions were huge, but we were hangry and ate them all!

We checked into the Excalibur Hotel & Casino. If you’ve never been to Las Vegas, it’s like Disneyland. Everything is larger than life, the food is super expensive, and the hotels are massive. I’ve stayed at Mandalay Bay before and just decided on Excalibur because it was the cheapest and was close-ish to the race course finish line. I knew I wouldn’t want to walk very far after running 13.1 miles. I reserved the room through Alaska Airlines hotels back in July 2023 and didn’t have to pay until we arrived and could cancel up to a few days before the trip. In September, my mom noticed that prices were cheaper, so I made a new reservation and cancelled the old room and saved about $77.  All the hotels (I’m pretty sure) also have resort fees and parking fees, so there were $180 of additional fees, for a grand total of $517 that I paid for all by myself #adulting.

The Excalibur is part of MGM Resorts, and our parking pass enabled us to park at any MGM hotel (Bellagio, ARIA, Vdara, MGM Grand, Mandalay Bay, Delano Las Vegas, Park MGM, NoMad Las Vegas, New York-New York, Luxor, and Excalibur). To avoid walking an extra mile, we parked at the Bellagio and then walked to the race expo at Resorts World. We later learned that Fashion Show Las Vegas, a shopping mall, has free parking, so that would’ve been the better move.

This was my second half-marathon and my second Rock ‘n’ Roll half marathon. You can read about my first half-marathon training experience in this post. The unique part about this half marathon is that it is an evening race, so you don’t have to wake up at 4 am. If you’ve never done an organized run before, they typically all have race expos where you pick up your racing bib ahead of race day. There’s usually a bunch of other booths and apparel for sale so you can buy any extra gear, like running clothes, gels, fanny packs, etc. I picked up my bib and bought some Nuun tablets, then we went to get dinner at Urth Caffe in the Wynn hotel.

The interesting thing about Las Vegas is that you can find some of the same popular restaurants in Los Angeles and New York there, like Carbone and Mother Wolf. It may be easier to get a reservation in Las Vegas too! Although there’s always a line at the Urths in Los Angeles, this one was basically empty at 6:30pm and we were seated right away. We ordered our usual Urth salad to share, then walked back to the Bellagio. We could see the Sphere in the distance. We wanted to catch a tour, but there were weirdly limited times that weekend, so we couldn’t go.

DAY 3: SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 24
The next day, my knee was tired from walking 6.5 miles the previous day, so I just relaxed and read in the morning while Mom walked around and found the Eataly in the Park MGM hotel. For lunch, we drove off The Strip to Meraki Greek Grill, which was delicious. I know most people avoid eating salads and fibrous things before running, but that’s what I eat on a normal basis, so I continued to eat salad.

Then, we drove to the Las Vegas North Premium Outlets but didn’t buy anything. We went to Mama Chai’s for boba and sat for a while.

I had listened to a podcast episode about how to get ready for a race and to be sure to make a dinner reservation for the night before the run because it’s likely that everyone will want to be eating pasta. While this is probably more important in smaller towns with limited Italian options, I still made a reservation for Buddy V’s Ristorante a few weeks prior. We parked at Fashion Show and then walked to The Venetian and found the restaurant. Unlike Urth Caffe, it was super busy and the hostess had to turn people away if they didn’t have a reservation. We shared the Toscano salad and then I got the carbonara and mom got the spaghetti and meatballs. I also got a strawberry lemonade that came in a fun souvenir cup.

DAY 4: SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 25
Race day! We went to Denny’s for a late breakfast. It was packed inside and not cute and I can’t recommend it, but I like having a full egg breakfast, what can I say? Next time, I’ll find a better place. Then, I just hung out in the hotel until it was time to run. I ate a granola bar, but I think I could’ve eaten more.

We walked down to the start at the New York, New York hotel around 4 pm and it was super crowded. I started running around 4:40 pm. On the Las Vegas Strip, because there are so many tourists/pedestrians, to keep traffic moving, you usually cross the street by going up escalators and walking across bridges above the street. During the race, the police blocked off Las Vegas Blvd to cars, so we could run straight up the street. It was really cool to run with all the hotels lit up at night. I was feeling pretty good (maybe too good) during the first 6 miles, but the last 5k was brutal. I was running so slowly and wanted to stop, but I didn’t stop or walk, so I’m at least proud of that.

The finish line was at the Bellagio. I tried to find my mom but it was so crowded and there were so many people that my texts weren’t going through. I was so tired, I just needed to get off the busy street, so I walked into the Cosmopolitan, sat on the floor, and called my mom to come find me. These hotels are like fortresses with different entrances, but we finally found each other. She had my change of clothes, so I put on my sweatshirt and sweatpants. I was so tired and needed to rest, so we sat in Starbucks for a little bit.

We couldn’t make a reservation because I didn’t know what time I’d finish running, but thankfully we were able to be seated in Eataly’s La Pizza & La Pasta restaurant right away. We shared a pizza and a salad, which were delicious, and then we got gelato for dessert. We walked back to the Excalibur around 10 pm, showered, and went to bed.

DAY 5: MONDAY, FEBRUARY 26
We got up early and checked out of the hotel. We drove to the Las Vegas sign to get some photos, then we got breakfast at Chick-fil-A. Mom drove us pretty much straight back to LA, only stopping at Costco for gas and hot dogs in Victorville.

For dinner, we went to Sugarfish in Marina Del Rey. They don’t take reservations, but since it was a Monday at 5:30 pm, the restaurant was fairly empty and we were able to be seated immediately. Mom liked it, but liked the poke at Bear Flag better.

DAY 6: TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 27
We got up early and drove to Porto’s Bakery & Cafe in Glendale for breakfast. Mom got coffee and pastries and loved it. Everything is delicious and extremely cheap for LA standards.
Then, we drove to Atwater Village to go to a noon taping for The Price Is Right, which I had reserved free tickets for a month prior via On Camera Audiences, which is the same company that has studio audience tickets for shows like Jeopardy (read about my taping experience here) and American Idol (read about my taping experience here).

We signed the waiver and then went to the waiting room. There was a woman who was making the price tag name tags. We were able to get water and choose a snack, and then we sat and watched re-runs of the show while we waited to be called in to meet the producer. So many people made their own fun shirts and that is definitely the move if you want to be chosen to be a contestant. We were called into a separate room with the row of people we were sitting with, and we got about 30 seconds to introduce ourselves to the producer, a woman who looked a lot like the main character on Unreal. She didn’t pick people on the spot, so you didn’t know if you were chosen until they announced your name during the taping.

You were allowed to keep your phone in the waiting room, but then they collected phones before going onto the soundstage. We ended up getting seated in the front row, so we got a great view! We got out of the taping around 4:30 pm and our episode aired in April.

I had made a reservation for dinner at Bacari in Glendale, but Mom wanted to go back to Porto’s, so we returned for dinner. We got sandwiches and lemonade and more pastries to go!

The next morning, we got up early and I dropped Mom off at LAX before logging on to work. Thanks for a fun week, Mom!!

 

WHAT I WOULD’VE CHANGED
Honestly, there isn’t much I’d change. I think we ate well and had a good time.

• Skipped the Orange County Museum of Art
• Parked at Fashion Show Las Vegas instead of walking from the Bellagio the first night
• Found a better breakfast place for race day breakfast
• Agree on a meeting point inside a hotel for after the race

RECOMMENDED READING:
Reviewing LA Run Clubs (January 2024)
My First Half Marathon Training Plan Progress