Day One: Sand, sand everywhere, so let's all take a drink

Epilogue: The original plan was to go to bed relatively early after arriving late Wednesday night, but one thing led to another and we stayed up until 3:00 in the morning, went back to our room and

…

The following takes place between 7:00 AM and 2:30 AM…

Thanks to casinos pumping enough Oxygen into the joint to awaken Keith Richards , we went to bed about 2 or 3 in the morning and woke up and were raring to go at 7 AM.

We got cleaned up, dressed, hit the brunch buffet and, after being briefly sidelined by my ogling/playing of a Star Wars slot machine at Bills Casino (formerly Barbary Coast) we hit The Strip.

Today’s target; walk North South North to pick up our tickets at the Sahara for Trent Carlini’s show.

As we stepped outside, we immediately noticed something… there was no sun, and the wind was blowing harder than Paris Hilton at a new club opening…

{Rimshot!}

Because of which, we saw a LOT of people diving into shops to buy sweatshirts or jackets.

We’re Chicagoans, we did no such diving…

Besides the “chill” in the air, the wind was kicking up enough sand that one thought that Mac the Atlas man was around…

I’ll wait a moment for that reference to click…

We walked… we shopped… we visited each casino and played at least one game and, if the time was right, had one drink before we would walk to the next one.

That wasn’t so bad, I won a nice Calvin Hill gift set from The Riviera… and HoMu won a Leather bag set.

We finally arrived at the Sahara, got our tickets, made reservations for dinner at House of Lords (where The Beatles loved to go when they were in Vegas) and decided to walk back to our hotel via the other side of the street with the first stop to be Circus Circus.

Big. Honking. Mistake.

Apparently, about 98% of the vacationers that come to Las Vegas with kids stay at Circus Circus. We left our kids at home, so being surrounded by screaming children and obviously bored & longing parents ignoring said children was, to be polite; a bit taxing.

Mental note made at that time; never, ever, ever go back to Circus Circus…

We left C-C (we both vowed to never speak of the experience again…) and, seeing as how we both had sand in every single orifice of our body’s thanks to the wind and wanted to clean up before we went to dinner and the show, we decided to cab it back to The Flamingo. We did our thing and took the monorail (monorail… monorail… monorail…) back to the Sahara.

Dinner was excellent; we had time to gamble (I won about $50 on Blackjack) and went to our show.

Trent Carlini is Elvis. If you like Elvis and you go to Vegas, ignore every other Elvis impersonator and go see Carlini… you will NOT be disappointed.

After the show, we decided to take the monorail (monorail… monorail… monorail…) back to our hotel. When we arrive we head across the street to O’Shea’s. The War table is full, as are all the Blackjack tables, so we each find a ‘one-armed bandit’, I light my cigar and we gamble… badly… very, very badly… so when all else fails… drink.

And then go to “bed.”

Coming Next: “Day Two” or “Deliverance: Las Vegas Style”

Random (Las Vegas) Thoughts for a Wednesday

A few random thoughts about our trip to Las Vegas.

• There is a lot of construction going on in Vegas right now. A LOT. It will be interesting to go back in, say, five years and see the city.
• The Flamingo is great. Bugsy would be proud…
• The Tropicana, celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, will be gone within five years. It’s not being maintained very well, the restaurants all looked like (and served) crap, the theaters are run-down and the casino itself was craptacular.
• Saw a lot of kids in Vegas. Can’t really understand why parents would bring kids to a place where the primary pastime is drinking and gambling…
• Flying over the mountains is beautiful… but I miss the days when pilots would tell you to look out the windows at see ‘such and such.’
• People are rude, more so than Disney World.
• 'The Strip' at night is amazing.
• If I see one more picture or video of Celine Dion gyrating, I’m gonna plotz.
• Terrific views of the city atop Paris’ Eiffel Tower.
• If they stopped handing out the hooker cards and booklets, or at the least recycled them, every forest in the world could be re-populated.
• The biggest-selling clothing line in Vegas (meaning I saw them in every store and on 90% of the people walking around) had “CSI” plastered on them… as if they couldn’t find those anywhere else.
• ATM fees around the city were $4.99. That’s not just outrageous, it’s obscene.
• Cab drivers in Vegas drive like Chicago cabbies, but they do their best to get you somewhere quickly…
• What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas... and stays OUT of the blog; Sorry Samantha.
• On the final shuttle to the airport, a woman got on and proceeded to have a very loud conversation on her cell phone the entire way to the airport… in French. She didn’t even stop when one of the other passengers asked her to or when I said a smart-ass comment about frogs legs…I know, I know – that was harsh.
• Two airline flights, two rough landings.
• Random Vegas Photo Time! This is a photo of one of the pools at The Flamingo with a very stylish and very retro feel.

Random Las Vegas Picture

Everyone said we had to go here because it's a lot of fun; so we went:

I thought they said S and M World... imagine my disappointment...