Mother's Day Weekend Recap, Part I

My mom came to visit over Mother's Day weekend (yes, I know that was nearly a month ago). She had never been to Las Vegas, and her friends don't like it much out here, so I knew I had to be crafty in my entertainment choices. My plan was to show her all of the fun activities in the area (that don't involve poker) so that she could come to love it here as much as I do. Mission accomplished!

We started on Saturday by driving by the Hoover Dam. We wanted to save the tour for when my dad came out to visit, so we just drove over the dam and stopped to take some pictures from a distance (through an enormous amount of power lines). By driving over the dam, we crossed into Arizona, so my mom got to go to Arizona for the first time.
On the way back from the dam, we stopped at a nice overlook at Lake Mead. Again, an incredible view with some poorly placed power lines.
Near the dam is Boulder City, a town that was built to house the workers who were building the dam in the 1930s. This is a small, quaint town with little resemblance to Las Vegas (it is the only city in Nevada without gaming!). We went to the main street area where there are a few restaurants and antique shops. This area was smaller than I had pictured, but we still had a nice time wandering around the shops. We ate lunch at Milo's Best Cellars, a wine cafe that I had been anxious to visit. I had a delicious croissant sandwich with avocado, roasted red peppers, and melted brie. Afterward we went inside to check out their wine selection. They offer a wall of wine with 100 bottles for less than $10. I selected a bottle that reminded me of one my excursions in France.
After Boulder City, we came back to Henderson and went to the Clark County Museum. This tiny little museum does an awesome job describing the history of Clark County and the Las Vegas area from prehistoric times to Native Americans to miners and the railroad to gambling. My favorite park of the museum is Heritage Street, where a number of local historic houses have been moved and each renovated to a decade in history with displays on local events from those decades. I find it fascinating to see appliances and furniture people used in the past, but Mom was less impressed (though still interested) because she grew up with many of those items! She was very excited to see this Airstream trailer because she lived in one of these as a child when her family spent winters in Florida. We wrapped up the day by attending Penn & Teller at the Rio. I got free tickets and thought this would be a fun show for mom. It was very entertaining, and the only drawback about the show was that they randomly chose people out of the audience to participate, so I worried the whole time that they would grab me to go on stage. Mom was blown away by the casino, and we spent some time after the show just watching the table games and taking in the excitement.