August 21st, 2006 - Second Day in Vegas

Dawna and I wake up after noon. I take a shower and get dressed. While Dawna is taking a shower, I head down to Starbucks to grab a latte and a tea. In the elevator I encounter a large and very friendly Italian family. They seemed fascinated with my arm tattoo and pierced nose. Approximately ten floors down in the elevator trip, I find myself being hugged and cheeks being pinched by these very happy tourists. A nice way to start the day.
After we got our fill of caffeine, we headed down to The Coffee Shop for a late breakfast. We eventually left the hotel sometime after 3:00 p.m. and decide to go over to the Venetian hotel and see what’s there.
As we were walking down the sidewalk, there was a family ahead of us with a young girl [probably five years old] who was skipping along. As we tried to pass them, the little girl took hold of her father’s hand then reached out to me with her other hand [she obviously wasn’t looking]. Because I am around young children most of the time, it didn’t faze me at all to just take hold of her hand. Her dad started laughing [as did Dawna and the rest of the family] while we strode a few more steps down the side walk hand in hand before the girl looked up and realized that I wasn’t her mother [or anyone she knew]. She snatched her hand away and stood there in shock for a few seconds before she looked around and saw that her family was all still there laughing and smiling. Then she started laughing too.
[Dawna and I had encountered a young man, possibly three years old, the night before when we had stopped to get something to eat. As he marched past our table, he stopped and turned to us and said “Evening, ladies.” Then he turned and continued on his way.]
We found a store called The Stupid Factory in the Venetian and spent quite a bit of time in there. I take a few pictures of the painted ceilings in the entrance of the hotel. The pictures really don’t do justice to the scale of just how enormous these paintings are.



Dawna and I find some statues of the Blue Man Group and figure we simply have to take some pictures. See, Dawna’s husband, Alan, absolutely hates the Blue Man Group. He says that if he ever met them in person, they’d have to change the name to Black and Blue Man Group. I personally don’t share his irritation with this group. I understand it, though, as my husband has told me in the past that “listening to Perry Como’s music makes me angry.”



Dawna and I spend quite a bit of time browsing through all the various shops at the Venetian. We stop and watch some performers sing some operatic songs.



After the Venetian, we go back to TI to get something to eat. We sign up for our player’s cards in the casino. We find a stall by the Kahuna Lounge for temporary tattoos and Dawna considers getting her husband’s name done. We approach the stall and see a woman in loud flower print clam diggers, frilly ankle socks in sandals, chatting loudly on a pink fuzzy cell phone. She whispers very loudly to whomever was on the other end that she’s “gotta go, gotta go, there’s someone here.” After she hangs up, she turns to us and says “that was my lover; not my boyfriend.”
Neither Dawna nor I knew exactly how to respond to that revelation, but the woman then started laughing heartily and we just laughed as well. She spent a long time going through her file folders trying to find the lettering for Dawna’s husband’s name. She managed to find an A and an L, but no luck with the N. We told her to go ahead and deal with the other people that had started to line up for tattoos and that we might come back later.
We take a cab downtown to take in the Fremont Experience.



We sign up for some player’s cards in the Four Queens and the Golden Nugget. We wander up and down Fremont and smile at the Elvis impersonator and the show girls that are there having pictures taken with tourists. We go into a small New Orleans style casino and are given some free beads. This is the first casino that we played slots in that we were actually approached by servers and asked if we wanted a drink.
We checked out the various vendors’ stalls along the street. I have a conversation with Dawna about how many people have made comments about my arm tattoo since we arrived. I wondered if women in Vegas simply didn’t have tattoos. I had more comments in less than 24 hours in Vegas than I have in all the time I’ve lived with the tattoo in Vancouver. Dawna said she was surprised that no one had commented on my chest. Well, about 15 minutes later, a local approaches us on the street, takes one look at me, looks at my arm, then my chest and exclaims “nice tits.” I look over at Dawna and say “there it is.” We both laughed.
We spent a few hours down there before heading back to TI and crawling into bed at around 3:00 a.m. Just how do people get any sleep in a city that never sleeps?

August 20th, 2006 - First Day in Vegas

Dawna and I were given a ride to the airport by her husband. We arrived shortly after noon. Neither of us slept very well the night before. We were too darned excited. I mean, after all, we were headed for Las Vegas, baby! I was nervous and skeptical. I kept expecting the whole thing to fall flat at the last minute. I tried to convince myself that I wouldn’t get too excited about the trip until I was actually seated in a plane seat. I was excited despite my reservations that something unexpected might pop up to ruin the plans.
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.

Things are looking up, up in the air

Well, August has been shaping up to be a much better month than July was. Okay, I am still broke; but I’m having a lot of fun anyway.
Went downtown and spent last Saturday night at a good friend’s house. She had invited a few people over to watch the finale of the fireworks competition. We could peek between the buildings and see the wonderful colour explosions of Mexico’s entry. Simulcast music on the radio. I danced and oohed and aahed on her rooftop patio surrounded by truly great people that I’m blessed to know [and honoured to call friends].
Sunday, we were all quite tired [and a bit hung over] from the night before. But that didn’t stop us from dragging our asses down to the beach to watch the Pride Parade. This was the first parade that I’ve been able to attend [usually out of town when it happens]. I had a blast! Again, I danced and oohed and aahed at all the floats and participants. The only downside was that I ended up with a wicked headache from smiling and laughing so much. Can’t wait to go back again next year.
In two weeks I’m supposed to be heading down to Las Vegas with another girlfriend of mine [it’s her birthday] and I’ll be sure to pack lots of Tylenol because, again, I know I’ll be smiling and laughing way too much. I’m a bit nervous about flying after today’s events. No, I’m not afraid of the plane being hijacked or blown up; I’m afraid of what it’s going to be like trying to go through the various security checks.
I’m afraid my fairly new nipple piercings are going to set off the alarms when I pass through the metal detectors. I’ve had them less than six months so I don’t want to take them out [they are still in the healing stage]. Oh, well, I don’t mind if they want to see them. Just hope I won’t get into any trouble by “flashing” them.
I’m also not looking forward to having to buy beverages in the airport instead of being able to take my own bottled water. I somehow doubt they’ll be letting anyone through with any kind of liquid beverage. I’ll be sure to take lots of pictures when I’m there.