Food on the Fourth

For lunch we stopped in Boulder City and ate at the Boulder Dam Brewing Co. The food was pretty good and the air conditioning felt great!
Even though we were stuffed when we left the restaurant, we decided to stop at the Ethel M Chocolate Factory. Surely they’d have some free samples!

They had a pretty big cactus garden in front of the factory that we explored before going inside.

Mike got a little too close to one of the cacti (proof in the picture below).

To our disappointment, the chocolate factory wasn't in production. I guess it's a good thing that they gave their employees the day off for Independence Day. The gift shop was open, so we were still able to get some free samples along with buying a little chocolate. Whew! Disaster avoided!

We spent the hottest part of the afternoon resting in our hotel room planning the activities for the rest of our vacation.

Believe it or not, around dinner time we were hungry again! Audria was craving pasta, so Caleb found an Italian restaurant that was within walking distance. It was in the Palazzo hotel, so we got to walk thru the Palazzo and see their unique decor.

One of the nice things about the strip in Vegas is the enormous amount of restaurants at your finger tips. I think this is the reason that we never had to wait for a table. We picked Dal Toro to satisfy our pasta craving.

It was delicious! It wasn't quite as cheap as the traveler's guide led us to believe, but it was worth it. By this point in our trip Audria and I had learned that we should split our meals (there's no way either of us could finish a plate all by ourselves) so that helps keep the tab a little lower.

I was really surprised with Caleb's order. He ordered a pizza with crab meat, tomatoes (big slices that you can see), and asparagus! There is NO WAY he would've taken ONE bite of this when we were growing up...but he loved it!