Vegas Vacation - day 1: arrival
the ride began on wednesday. big show arrived to pick up gambler, casanova, junior and myself to head to the airport. after arriving, and while waiting in the check in line, junior decided it better to toss his tube of chapstick rather than deal with the wrath of the TSA. at that point, i sure felt safer - with only the threat of other passenger's dry lips to concern myself with.
an uneventful flight passed with a mid-afternoon vegas arrival. thanks to a somali cabbie who seemed to know less about the area geographically than i, our ride to the center strip took about twice as long as it should have. irregardless, junior and i checked in (being on a bit of a budget, only one room was reserved - thus two beds, but that's an issue to touch on later). after a bit of miscommunication as to the room number - casanova and the others met up and that's how the five for two deal was done.
after a couple of warmup cocktails in the room - it was time for some dinner. in hopes of viewing some pink birds with our dinner, we headed towards the hilton's buffet line. the price scared us across the hall to the sit down cafe (with no flamingo view). after a pretty standard meal - including casanova's elaine-esque order of a big salad - about 80% of us were ready to look for a spot to donate a few bucks back to keep the lights on in town. nothing special to say about the gambling from day 1 other than gambler (who was a vegas rookie) did pretty good - and i remember thinking that wasn't going to be good for him later.
on to the fountains. with our usual center pool sidewalk spot taken up by the techies that run the bellagio's main attraction, we were forced to stand off to the side by at least 10 feet (really that's not such a bad deal - but considering this has been my mecca for the past few years, it just wasn't the same). after a couple shows from the ground, junior, gambler and big show decided to check it out from a spot i haven't tried yet - the top of the effiel tower. casanova and myself toughed out a couple more shows in the chilly january desert night - at least it was calm out so the big guns could be fired was up in the air. satisfying enough to see the best show in vegas, but i've never experienced such cold weather on the strip.
on the way back to the hotel, shortcutting through harrah's brought us to the best dueling pianos show i've ever seen. casanova told us of a set of blonde identical twins who could tickle the ivories with the best of them after his last trip out west - and he was not exagurating. we stopped for a few songs and decided that we'd be back the next night in shall we say better shape to enjoy the show to it's fullest.
met back up with the others at the room by about 2am local time (or 4am home time) that meant i'd been up for pushing 22 hours with only a short nap on the plane to help out. i was tired enough to volunteer to rest my head on the floor while the others shared the two beds. generous of me? yes. smart of me? no. comfortable? um.....no, but i'm sure it was good for my back.
needless to say - we made it safe and sound, day 1 was over with day 2 to bring much, much more that even we couldn't have foreseen......
an uneventful flight passed with a mid-afternoon vegas arrival. thanks to a somali cabbie who seemed to know less about the area geographically than i, our ride to the center strip took about twice as long as it should have. irregardless, junior and i checked in (being on a bit of a budget, only one room was reserved - thus two beds, but that's an issue to touch on later). after a bit of miscommunication as to the room number - casanova and the others met up and that's how the five for two deal was done.
after a couple of warmup cocktails in the room - it was time for some dinner. in hopes of viewing some pink birds with our dinner, we headed towards the hilton's buffet line. the price scared us across the hall to the sit down cafe (with no flamingo view). after a pretty standard meal - including casanova's elaine-esque order of a big salad - about 80% of us were ready to look for a spot to donate a few bucks back to keep the lights on in town. nothing special to say about the gambling from day 1 other than gambler (who was a vegas rookie) did pretty good - and i remember thinking that wasn't going to be good for him later.
on to the fountains. with our usual center pool sidewalk spot taken up by the techies that run the bellagio's main attraction, we were forced to stand off to the side by at least 10 feet (really that's not such a bad deal - but considering this has been my mecca for the past few years, it just wasn't the same). after a couple shows from the ground, junior, gambler and big show decided to check it out from a spot i haven't tried yet - the top of the effiel tower. casanova and myself toughed out a couple more shows in the chilly january desert night - at least it was calm out so the big guns could be fired was up in the air. satisfying enough to see the best show in vegas, but i've never experienced such cold weather on the strip.
on the way back to the hotel, shortcutting through harrah's brought us to the best dueling pianos show i've ever seen. casanova told us of a set of blonde identical twins who could tickle the ivories with the best of them after his last trip out west - and he was not exagurating. we stopped for a few songs and decided that we'd be back the next night in shall we say better shape to enjoy the show to it's fullest.
met back up with the others at the room by about 2am local time (or 4am home time) that meant i'd been up for pushing 22 hours with only a short nap on the plane to help out. i was tired enough to volunteer to rest my head on the floor while the others shared the two beds. generous of me? yes. smart of me? no. comfortable? um.....no, but i'm sure it was good for my back.
needless to say - we made it safe and sound, day 1 was over with day 2 to bring much, much more that even we couldn't have foreseen......
posted by sotaguy at
11:49 PM
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