A trip to test your nerves

The other weekend my older brother invited us to enjoy a vacation he has coined the “Dadventure.” Since Jess is the only Dad in our family and none of our kids are 16+, I weasled myself (and my kids) into this vacation because I like fast cars, and luckily my brother made an exception. So we got up early Saturday morning and headed to Vegas. We like to go there not because of the usual reasons, but rather, because of the unusual. The “Dadventure” is an adventure because not too much is planned yet you end up experiencing much. 

Our first stop was for dinner and to get there, we had to walk through a casino. The boys were in awe. Neon slot machines everywhere. We had to keep Ansel moving along or he never would have made it to the restaurant. Plus we had to get out of the smoke smell. Ansel kept commenting, “Mom, these guys should stop smoking!” Oliver wanted to know what kind of odds these games involved. My brother was explaining craps to him and roulette. I learned a few things myself. Ian was being loved by his older cousins. 

The night was young so we stopped at the Stratosphere. Apparently it’s the second tallest building in the United States. We went to the top and enjoyed the view. 

Ollie got a neat shot of the building’s shadow. It’s kind of like Las Vegas’ own Space Needle. 

The views were cool. Perfect place for the sunset. 

But we didn’t stop at the views. We decided to ride the  Big Shot. That’s the ride on top of the building that shoots you up as you pull 4 Gs. Then you drop at -1 Gs. I’ll spare you the video of us riding it, but I was terrified. Especially during the drop!

The next few days we stopped at different hotels to check out things. We couldn’t believe the enormity of these places. Caesar’s Palace goes on forever! And we decided the Luxor would be a great place to film a mystery film. We had lunch at the Aria buffet and the kids tried king crab legs. 

Then we were off to the speedway. 

There were lots of cool cars. Cars I’ve only read about, so it was neat to see them up close and sit in them. I chose to drive the Aston Martin Vantage.

Jess drove the Porsche GT3. He said it was a lot of fun. We both wanted to take some more laps. 

The cars were fast. We drove in ways that make you sweat. It was nerve racking but fun. As we went around the track we drove with a coach who told us what to do and how to take the turns. His words went something like this, “Shift up, again, 100 percent gas, good, now brake hard, shift down, turn, trust the car, now 40, 60, 100 percent gas.” This was constant. I felt like I was going 200 mph. That was until my brother passed me in his race car equipped Porsche. Haha! My dad took a turn in the Acura NSX. I’d like to drive that car one of these days. 

Ansel’s hair matched this DB11. And Ollie was keeping it cool by the Porsche. 

The funnest thing was to see my brothers, Dad and the older cousins interact with my boys. They took such care being interested in their lives and what they are doing. My kids will remember that! So will I.