Vegas, day by day

Ok, are ya ready for the play-by-play scoop on Vegas??

Arrival, Sunday May 16, 2004
Well, after I realized that Vegas is indeed in the Pacific time zone, I was ok. We were getting ready to leave Houston (layover) and the flight attendants announced the flight time, which I can't remember, but it was too long to get us there by 1pm mountain time. Then they announced Vegas time, which was 3 hours earlier than East Coast, so I was finally straightened out!! We flew in over the Hoover Dam, which I only recognized because my parents have pictures of it from one of their many trips to Vegas when I was little. It was beautiful, the water I mean. It was bright turquoise, almost Caribbean-like!! The mountains were so pretty too. And, as you can see in the photo album, we flew over this desert-type thing. I'm still not really sure what it was, as the flight attendants told us NOTHING about where we were flying. Southwest is so much cooler. (I flew Continental) So, yeah. Got to the airport, taxied FOREVER!!! I was amazed to realize that the strip was RIGHT THERE near the runway. The first thing I saw was the big Pyramid (The Luxor I found out later) and the giant Sphinx. Got off the plane, had a potty stop, and went to get my suitcase, which was already going around on the baggage thingy! Zut. SO, I busted through the mass of people to rescue it and was off. Got my ticket to ride on a shuttle van and we were off!! Timed that right, I tell ya. It took maybe 15 mins to get to the hotel, I was the last stop, because we stayed on the far end of the strip. I still can't remember which direction, north or south. :-P The line to check in was insane! That took me almost half an hour. Crazyness in the lobby, I tell ya, people EVERYWHERE!! After I unloaded all my stuff and called mom, I took a tour of the hotel. Checked out the pool, the restaurants, coffeeshops, etc. Then, I was going to take a snooze, but decided to go to the pool to do it!! Fabulous! I talked to Erica while sun bathing, supposed to have been talking to KM too, but she was missing in action. I FINALLY heard from Lauren. She was only in Phoenix when I talked to her. Ugh. How boring to be there all alone!! I did finally take a snooze and watch some TV. About 9, I guess it was, I went down to wait on Lauren in the lobby, but it took her almost an hour to get her luggage and catch a shuttle over!! Zut! When she finally got here, we went to one of the little cafes and ate some "dinner". I had pancakes and she had french toast. hehe. Amy got around midnight, I guess it was. Crazy. We yakked for a bit and then hit the hay. Long day!!

Monday, May 17
I woke up to see Amy already dressed and getting ready to head out to gamble! Zut! So, Lauren and I took turns getting showered, etc. (This was around 9 or 10) Then, we headed out the do! First stop was the Stratosphere, which you will notice I took lots of pictures from. We rode the "scary" rollercoaster, which wasn't too scary at all, just the fact that it was so freakin' high up. No loop-di-loops or anything. Then, we stopped at some shops on the way back thru, and then were hungry so we ate at the hotel buffet place, $6 for all you could eat. Not too bad!! It had a little of everything. Then, we dropped our stuff off at the room and continuted in the other direction down the strip. We stopped somewhere, I forget the name of it, on the way, because Amy wanted to gamble there or something. ANyway, I won $5!! Hot damn! And, of course, we got free drinks. LOL. We meandered somewhat hurridly up the strip, so we could make sure to get to the Excalibur to get our showtickets in time. We were kind of trying to make it to the 8:30 show, but we got there at about 8:15 so decided on the 10:30 instead. We passed several subways, so we went back to eat a real dinner. Oh, we had also stopped on the way down at "Paris" and gotten ourselved a HUGE margarita in this montrous plastic Eiffel tower "glass". It was insane. We were quite tipsy when we got to the Excalibur, which is why we decided we needed real dinner. =) Then, we wandered around more and got back to the Excalibur around 9:30 to get in line so we could get good seats to see "Thunder from Down Under"! Rah. We were surrounded by a bunch of "Tabor Ho" type people, how fun is that? We didn't want to get all dressed up, being that we strated walking at about 4pm or so. So, we weren't looking as glamorous as we could have been for the naked men. Which AMy determined would have gotten us more attention. =) So, we FINALLY got to go in and see the show. It was quite fun and funny. Not nearly as gross as "Louie the Snake" from Daddios in Greensboro however many years ago that was. All of the guys were quite cute and not greasy and disgusting. My favorite beefcake did a dance to selected Justin Timberlake songs, so I was highly amused. =) Then after, we took our pictures with them (I was upset, because I didn't get to sit on my favorite guys lap, someone else claimed me first!) Then, they came out and mingled and signed autographs, which I thought was kind of silly, they're not really celebrities... but whatever. We chatted with a few of them. Mr. Beefcake was very unsociable. He kind of went off in his own corner. Must be a rough life.. ANyway, so we walked almost all the way back to our hotel. We got to about 3/4 of the way, and decided to say "screw it" and get a cab. Which cost us about $7 I guess, for maybe a mile? SUCK. I'm sure we stopped and gambled on the way too.. I know I won another $5 that day..

Tuesday, May 18
Well, the day started semi late, for Amy standards!! I woke up around 11, and she was dressed and ready to go! So, Lauren & I got up, threw some clothes on, and we went down and ate at the buffet again. This time we took fruit and stuff out with us.. sneaky! Then we gambled some at the Sahara casino. I wore my PJ's, which coincidentally were Old Navy shamrock pants! How neat. I didn't win anything though, maybe a few bucks here and there. After that, we decided to head to the pool for a few hours. It was a beautiful day for it. Then, we finally got dressed and headed out to the strip. We dressed for our night out, we had searched all our guide books and settled on Studio 54 in MGM Grand, a club, to go out dancing. Rah! I guess it was around 5 when we left the hotel, all gussied up. We meandered our way down the strip.. I forget where we stopped. It's all a blur now. I think we did M&M's and back to the Tropicana perhaps.. at some point, I won $18 at the Tropicana!! We also went to New York New York, and rode the roller coaster! It was awesome!! We went into the Luxor (Pyramid) and roamed around, rode the "monorail" that connected a few of the hotels. They have one running up and down the strip, but it's not open to people yet. There is one station not done, apparantly, so it should be running fully the end of the summer. Only 6 months late, according to my shuttle bus driver. We went around other places too, but I can't remember. Oh, went to a Mexican place for dinner. THEN, to the MGM and wandered around there for a bit, then to Studio 54, where there was a HUGE line. Amy and I waited in it for about 15 mins before we got in. Lauren had gone outside to talke to Steeeeve. So, we got in, danced a bit, I got a drink, and then we waited for Lauren. It was a hoot!! I had one guy ask me 3 times to dance! (while we were waiting for Lauren, and then once after she got there and we were all going to dance together). Not a whole lot of cute boys though. Kinda disappointing. We did get whistled at as we were walking around on our way back to the hotel. We hopped on a bus this time, which was much faster. We started up the strip taking the Trolley (onour way to the MGM) and it took FOREVER, so we gave up on that. We got back around 2 or so, I guess.

Wednesday, May 19
We got up early, so we could be sure to make check out time. Checked out on the TV (How cool is that?!) and then took our bags to the bell hop guys. Bought a day bus pass and headed out. We went to the Venetian first, to check out Rome. It's beautiful!! We ate lunch in the food court, OH, AFTER we spent about 45 mins in the Brookstone store testing out all the massage chairs. nice! Then, Lauren went to some art mueseum, and Amy and I went in search of the Hard Rock Hotel & Cafe. Hmm.. the map lied. It looked like it was near the aiport end of the strip.. so, we hopped on a bus, FINALLY, after walking halfway down the road it was supposed to stop on. Then, the stop we decided on, wasn't really near the hotel at all... so we walked the rest of the way. Turns out the Hard Rock was about half a mile from the Paris hotel!! Holy Poo!! We walked around our elbows TWICE just to get to our ass. Ugh. Then, we met back up with Lauren and went into Caesar's Palace again, and got some more nummy Gellato. ooh, it was to die for! Then, we tried to see the Bellagio fountains, but apparantly it was too windy for them to be going? I head some bell hop dude say something about it not happening because of the wind, so I assume thats what he was talking about. We went into the Mirage too, and saw the White Tiger. We got another Margarita by the Yard, some "High Octane" orange thingy. NOt good, it had vodka in it, which I don't care for too much. But, Lauren and Amy sucked it down and got quite tipsy! Then, all of a sudden it was almost time to be getting back to leave for the airport, and of course, 3 busses passed us full to the brim, so we ended up walking all the way back!! It was Amy & Lauren's intentions to get our luggage and hop on a bus (city bus) to the airport. Well, I got back, got the bags and the bell hop says "oh they won't let you on there with that luggage". I thought as much. So, he said a cab would be cheapest and quickest, so we got one. Woo. They freakin' charge you for sitting still!! Argh!! Then, when we paid the dude, and he got all huffy at us for not tipping him enough, and threw the change at Amy and said something nasty. I was checking in at this point, so I missed it. Scandalous. ANyway, we got there early early, cuz the news had said security was a mess.. only to find NO ONE in line at all. So, we all checked in, changed clothes and headed to my gate area. We stopped and had BK and Cinnabon and acted silly. Of course!!

HOly moly, I guess that's about it. It was crazy and all ran together. I swear, it seems like I was in another world for 4 days. And, the flight home didn't help. It never really felt like "overnight". I dozed for maybe 3-4 hours total, and didn't feel too bad when I landed in Nashville. I did take a long nap later in the afternoon once I was home, but it wasn't that bad.

If you have never been to Vegas, you must go. It is incredible. Even if you're not into gambling. My patience ran out quickly, especially if I was losing. It is easy to keep shoving money in, but I controlled myself. I think I ended up losing maybe $10-15. Which ain't bad at all. I think I won $30-40, but wasted it away. My favorite part was getting free drinks while you gambled. =) I think we should ALL go back.. it'd be even more fun with all "the girls"!!

And now, I must sleep. I just saw Shrek 2 with Carmen & Keith... it's FUNNY! But I'm sad cuz that was goodbye to Carmen. =( She might actually be staying here for another year, taking a new school counseling job.. which I hope she does, because then I can visit her when I have to come back for school stuff or graduation!!