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After getting rained out in San Francisco, we decided to follow the lights and head South towards Vegas! Now when we think Vegas, we think electronic dance music, 7am bedtimes and a haze of delirium over everything, but as you can tell by my yoga pants ensemble below, that was not what we were going for this time.

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As we walked, admiring the rainy, glowing streets of the strip, we watched as the neon lights reflected brighter than ever on the shiny, wet sidewalks:

And we of course had to watch the incredible Caesar’s Palace water show:

It was definitely a different experience visiting Vegas on a Tuesday night in December, and we don’t only mean the Christmas decorations, which were actually a vey nice touch. What we couldn’t help but notice was the fact that we were the youngest ones by at least 30 years everywhere we went! With an over abundance of sweat pants and ladies wearing those red and purple hats, I didn’t feel quite so under dressed in my yoga pants after all 🙂

After walking in and out of the casinos and up and down the escalators, we finally made our way from one end to the other and oddly enough, got ourselves in bed by a decent hour. That next morning we awoke well rested for our tour of the famed Neon Boneyard!

Fun facts: The “N” in the sign above came from the old Golden Nugget sign, the “E” from Caesar’s Palace, the “O” from Binion’s Horseshoe Casino and the last “N” came from The Wynn hotel. We made our reservations the day before, drove 10 minutes over from the strip and that’s when the fun began:

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The tour lasted an hour and our guide was fantastic! He taught us all about the history of the neon signs, from the early days of maintenance to how the artists would hide their signatures on the signs, since they weren’t allowed to be visible. Apparently Sleez signs (below) are collectors items now! Noticed how he autographed the top of the sign so no one could tell:

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And remember when colored TV’s were novel! us either…

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The Boneyard was laid out with a perfect path to follow, kind of like the yellow brick road, so we didn’t miss a beat!:

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Take a look at the path (and scull in the photo above) seen from GoogleMaps, pretty cool!:

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One of the highlights of the trip was seeing the famed StarDust sign, which became a symbol of Las Vegas back in the day:

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And last, but certainly not least, is the sign fondly known as Mr. Happy Shirt. This guy was the symbol for the cleaners who were known to care for Liberace‘s costumes. It is said that they had to hand remove each and every rhinestone before washing his garments, and then, once the costume was clean, they had to be hand sewn back on, one by one… can you imagine?!

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You can actually rent out this unique little place for photo shoots, and if we hadn’t already taken our engagement photos, this would have been another great location!

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It was nice to do Vegas differently this time. Now don’t get me wrong, it’s the perfect place for an unforgettable bachelorette party! Trust me, I know. But there is a lot more to it that we were never able to appreciate before this trip.