Las Vegas Day One Half

For new readers I was invited to take a trip to Las Vegas with a gang of dudes celebrating their 30th year of celebrating everything Las Vegas.  Think of the movie Hangover and this is literally those guys 20 years later - no REALLY (I'm not kidding) . . . . . from the stories I have heard THESE guys are the Hangover guys BUT, on steroids and 20 years older.

******* 

The days are all blurring together already and names have been changed to protect the guilty so here we go.

Balderdash and I are on the same plane to Las Vegas an airbus 20 that takes off about 7:30 Thursday night and we will be flying into Las Vegas at night which is GREAT!

He is about 5 rows behind me. I have a window seat as I LOVE looking out at the landscape.  In high school I wanted to be a geographer or map maker or whatever but . . what the heck can you do with that (GIS was not invented yet). So looking at the terrain of America is the best I can do and it is AMAZING!

As luck would have it I have a very nice couple next to me eating garlic beef sticks like there is no tomorrow and a loud talker right behind me.  Balderdash has his own situation with crying babies so I think that is a push.

Pretty much a smooth flight but the loud talker who is wearing a camouflage John Deere jacket to Las Vegas (he will fit in well?) seems REALLY strange as he talks about his eating habits and the difference between a white head and a zit and any other weirdo topic you can think of for 3 hours.

As we are landing he asks the girl next to him "what is that anyway" and she says it's an MP3 player and he asks what that is (really?) and how do you get things on it. . . . . . hmmmmmm!  "I gotta get me one of those" he exclaims loudly.

We land early but there are no gates available so we sit for a while.  Once unboarded we take a tram to the baggage area (it's a freaking large airport) get our bags, get a taxi and are at the hotel by 10:30PM. 

The goal is to meet up with Mr. Electric at Harrah's. Balderdash has no room on night #1 as that first night the room rate is not the normal $65 but $240 because of Halloween and a convention. 


We meet up, Balderdash stores his bags in my cubby hole some call a room and the three of us walk look for something to eat so look for a bite of food and find Guy Fieri's Vegas Kitchen & Bar, sit down and get the menu that weighs a pound but only has like 5 things on it.

All $18 hamburgers. For us it's midnight so I'm eating a  huge $20 burger at midnight!  mmmmmmm.

After that it is decided to take a walk to The Winn for reasons unknown (remember I'm just a passenger on this funny farm bus).

As we walk I'm rubber necking like a tourists and the two guys who have been to LV literally 100 times are head down walking.  The entire weekend I'm taking up the rear guard on our walks and taking photos and then running to find the guys DON'T LEAVE ME!!   You will notice that I get more selective as the weekend moves on.

Yea - you don't even see these after a while but there are some sites you just cannot just unsee!

We get to The Winn and the guys sit down at a truly horrible payout Video Poker and I'm wondering "why did we come here for bad video poker?"

I go off looking for a better machine as they sit down at a Pai Gow Poker

"The game is known for a slow rate of play and lots of pushes, resulting in low risk game. While a game of skill, most hands are obvious how to play, and it is not difficult to learn proper strategy for the rest of them. Every player plays against the same dealer hand, which causes the table to often win and lose together, resulting in a fun and social game."

WELL - I guess not as when I stop back (after getting lost for a little while) and both players are slumping over looking like they were just robbed. 

Of course all this time we have started to drink the $1 drinks and after a while we head a back to Harrahs. Mr. Electric and I head off to bed and Balderdash who has no room does . . . something.  ANYWAY - I get to bed about 3AM Madison time 1AM my time and immediately fall asleep.

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK  ARE YOU UP? I hear in a dream and then realize it's not a dream. Balderdash is outside my room a 5AM and needs his charger for his dead phone.  "Let's go to breakfast".  Seems he "slept" for a couple hours at Mr. Electrics place and is now ready to rock and roll at 6 in the morning.

DJ and I in 10 years 

I'm a horrible vacation photo guy as I always go for the artsy image for resale - so this time my plan was to take tourists photos just to get the flavor of LV.   

I asked about City Center.  remember during the recession when an entire huge multi billion dollar project was put on hold?  It's now been completed and it's HUGE.  It seems The Strip has slowly moved south towards the airport, away from Fremont Street and the Stratosphere.

Tomorrow is Friday (oh it really is LOL) and more and more of the gang of 10 start to arrive. 

The morning plan is to walk down to the Strat and play some black jack while I go across the street to Essence, a legal cannabis shop where I have been told to pick up some gummies for SportsGuy and I'll get a disposable concentrate vape thingy. 

Join me as Friday becomes a blur, I get recognized as the Grinder, SportsGuy takes too many gummies and I now begin to understand what I am in for in the next 4 days, pray for me.

Balderdash still smiling

     The good photos are coming.