So we get our tickets, say our good-byes and head off to get in a very long line for US Customs. The nearer we got to the border guards, the worse our giggles became. We were definitely giddy. It crossed my mind that the guards may not be in the best of moods given the events in the preceding week regarding liquids and gels being carried onto an airplane. But we had been very careful packing our carry-on bags and made sure we didn’t even have chapstick with us. There was a US Customs agent wandering around that looked too much like Samuel L. Jackson, and because his movie had just opened that weekend, I kept thinking about “mother effin snakes on the mother effin plane,” which didn’t help to kill the giggles.
Somehow, we managed to get through customs without incident. We also managed to check our luggage and get through security without any problems. [FYI, my nipple piercings didn’t set off any alarms, thank goodness].
We wandered into the smoking lounge and struck up some conversations with other folks sitting in there. We met one woman from the Island who was also on her way to Las Vegas to celebrate her birthday and her daughter’s birthday [we were going down to celebrate Dawna’s birthday]. It had been five years since she was last in Vegas. She had been scheduled to fly home in the morning of September 11th, 2001. Obviously, she wasn’t able to come home that day. She had to stay in Las Vegas an extra five days [and the hotel wouldn’t comp their stay] and then take a bus.
We finally board our Harmony Airways plane and it takes off. Not sure if Dawna and I amused or irritated our fellow passengers during take-off as we stuck our arms up in the air and exclaimed “weeeeeeeeeeee!!!” as we’re heading down the runway.
“Oh, Mandy,
Well, you showed me the exits and seat belt signs
And handed out headphones today.
Oh, Mandy,
Well, you came and you gave me a pizza bagel,
And I ate it anyway.
Oh, Mandy.”
[Our flight attendant was named Mandy; she was very nice – had to concoct bad song lyrics for her, just because].
Terrible's Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas
We land in Vegas around 7:30 pm. Leave the airport to catch our shuttle bus to our hotel. Holy Heatwave, Batman!! As soon as I left the air-conditioned building and was confronted with that desert heat, my immediate thought and reaction was to start yelling at all the drivers in the cars and buses and tell them to turn off their bloody engines. I felt like I was in a small parking garage with a hundred cars, all of them running their engines hot. It took me a few seconds to realize that it wasn’t the cars creating this heat; this was the actual temperature. I glanced up and read the sign which said that it was 41 C [106 F] and this was at night, AFTER the sun had gone down. Vancouver had been a comfortable 21 C [70 F] when we left. I didn’t know how I was going to survive the heat over the next few days.
We get to our hotel [we’re staying at Treasure Island] and check in. We go to check out our room. Dawna had requested a smoking room, a view of the strip, with a small bar fridge and a coffee maker. What we got was a room on a non-smoking floor, a view of a construction site across the street [not strip], no fridge and no coffee maker. So we head back down to the front desk to see about getting something closer to what we had wanted. We do end up with a smoking room, a view of the north side of the strip and they have a small bar fridge sent in. However, we were not going to get a coffee maker. We were told the same story repeatedly about how it’s a liability and folks could burn themselves, so no coffee makers or kettles in any of the rooms. We tried to assure them that, as Canadians, if we foolishly burnt ourselves with hot water, that we wouldn’t sue the hotel. They didn’t buy it. We also pointed out that the rooms come equipped with an iron; weren’t they concerned that someone might burn themselves on the iron and sue? Still no coffee maker.
Hotel Room View at Night
Hotel Room View by Day
After we settled ourselves into our new room and made ourselves aware of our immediate surroundings, we decided to head out onto the street and wander around. We crossed over to the Venetian side and strode up the sidewalk. There was a band playing on an outside stage in front of the Imperial Palace and we got closer to have a listen and see if we could get a drink. It was pretty crowded around the bar. Folks were enjoying the performances of the flare bartenders [it was awesome to watch them flip and toss and juggle the various bottles and glasses]. We weren’t aggressive enough to force our way right up and order a drink, so we decided to leave and see if we could find something somewhere else.
And that’s when we found it: the world’s most perfect drink. Both of us got a strawberry margarita from Beacher’s Rockhouse Bar. It didn’t seem all that fantastic at first. A margarita is a margarita; right? This was deliciously refreshing. A Slurpee for adults. It was sweet, but not sickeningly so. I know I will go back to Las Vegas one day for no other reason than to get another one of those margaritas.
With margarita in hand, we walked around some more. Crossing the street again, we spent a while meandering through Caesar’s Palace. We sipped, we giggled, we strode through the mall. After a couple of hours, we ended up back in our hotel room. Neither Dawna nor myself can be sure if it was the excitement, the lack of sleep, the effect of the drink or a combination of all three that made us sit in that hotel room and laugh until our sides ached.
Eventually we got ourselves ready for sleep and crawled into bed, intending to get a better night’s sleep for the next day. This was around 3:00 am. By 3:05, Dawna was asking me if I could sleep. Nope. I was still wide awake and full of good humour. So we got up, got dressed and headed down to the casino. Played some electronic black jack and a few slot machines before finally going back to our room to sleep after 5:30 am.
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