Last Full Day in Sin City! (Friday. 12 May 2007)
Last Full Day for Fun!
I can’t imagine how, but I woke up at 0645, exhausted and needing to go to the loo. I suppose the call of nature is stronger than the need for sleep – temporarily, anyway. I shuffled over to the huge bathroom and Luis told me that the toilet was jammed. Any way you slice it, he jammed it. The man is scary when he goes to the bathroom. So I waited. I called around 0715; Luis had called around 0645 (maybe that was what woke me…) but no one was rushing here. I napped until Luis left at 0740 and called again.
I fell asleep until my wake up call at 0900, and grudgingly got up and threw on some clothes. My breakfast came up and I ate happily – the food was quite good. I lounged and ate until about 0950 and called down to Housekeeping/Maintenance, and told the woman there that I had called a few times, I have a tour bus to catch and what is going on? She said that she saw our service calls logged and this is unacceptable and she would send them up right away and issue us a food comp for $50. I said fine and hung up. By 1045 no one had showed and I was really pissed off and I needed to shower before catching my 1135 bus.
I called one last time and told her to hold off on the service call until after 1130. I also told her that a $50 food comp was not really up to par for this. I said I had to get in the shower and that this had to be fixed by the time I got back. I got off the phone and hopped in the shower and wouldn’t you know… there was a knock on the door and a guy with a plunger. I opened the door a little and said, “Now you come?!” He said he was here to fix the toilet… I told him he’d have to come back in about twenty minutes.
I went down to catch the bus and spoke to Luis while at the pick up area. I told him that the toilet was jammed still and he should call again if he gets back and it is still that way. I also told him about the food comp and my reaction to that. He didn’t seem to care either way, but was willing to continue along this road. I then called Ray to catch up with him. And then the bus came.
The bus took us to the Bellagio and then another casino to pick up more vacationers. We then drove over to the place that has Hoover Dam and other tours and paid for our trips. We boarded a fairly full bus and headed out of Las Vegas.
The trip was gorgeous, and I loved it – I wore my sea bands and did not feel sick. The mountains were beautiful. The driver had a lot of interesting knowledge to impart about the city, its history, the taxes there (there aren’t any), the areas (Fremont, Henderson), and as we headed out of the Las Vegas area, he had more tidbits about the other towns we went through. It was really a lovely trip!
After 45 minutes, we pulled over to a side area for security check. I really don’t know how secure this made it or if I felt better as a result… one trooper walked around the outside the bus (I’m not even sure he had a mirror to look under the bus); the other trooper came onto the bus, welcomed us, made a quick trip up the aisle and back without even looking at us! How secure is that? I’m sure he gets on a ton of busses all the time, but really, a little look-see wouldn’t have killed him. Is this what modern security is like? It was not reassuring.
I loved the Hoover Dam, and I am very satisfied that I saw it. I’m a little sorry that I missed it when I was there in 1993, when the tourists were allowed down in the turbine room, but they’ve built a catwalk over it, so we still managed to see these huge noisy turbines. These are no small things and all the information was fascinating. There was also one lone very old turbine, more like I thought they’d be, half-circles coming up out of the floor. The modern ones were huge piston-like
structures that clearly process and make a hell of a lot more electricity. Turns out that when they first built the dam, after they made the divert tubes, they built this tiny little turbine (I’m sure it was big for the time) and it – and it alone – provided all the electricity for the dam. And it still does!
I was floored.
This dam produces electricity for parts of Arizona, California and Nevada. It does not, however, produce electricity for Las Vegas. I suppose there isn’t an electric company in the world that would give that up. I’m always commenting that I cannot imagine
what their electric bills must be like.
So I took the tour, which is about 45 minutes, if that, and then we had almost two hours to wander around on our own. I started out on the outside observation deck and took photos of the dam, the water, the new highway that is being built, the mountain gorge, everything. And there was a gorgeous memorial – a big black stone plaque on a monument surrounded by two statues of men with arms that become upright wings. I really loved it. After that, I walked the length of the dam, walked over into Arizona, and back on either side, and it was only 100F or 38C. It was very dry, which made it much easier to deal with. If it were New Jersey, with 92% humidity it would have been torture.
There are four water intakes in Lake Mead, one behind the other, two on each side. One has the Nevada clock and the other the Arizona clock. They had the exact same time. I remembered Arizona was one of three states that does not regard the Daylight Saving Time thing. Which is fine… but I was thinking it would be neat to return there in the winter and see the clocks at different times… (The other two states are Hawai’i and part of Indiana and the commonwealth of Puerto Rico… Indiana now has 18 counties that observe Central time and 74 counties Eastern.)
I stopped for two bottles of Snapple Peach Iced Tea and a bag of Doritos (replenishing that salt
and liquids) and continued walking around and then I came to the memorial. This memorial! Wow. No matter what I thought looking from the observation deck, this was nothing compared to seeing it up close and personally. And then for the real discovery – and I love this – the marble on which I was standing was a star map! Oh, I was just delighted – over the moon, as the Bean would say – there was the universe (our little corner of it) beautifully represented here! I spent a lot of time looking at that.
I did some shopping (I did a fair amount of spending this trip) and then got to the bus at 1442, three minutes before I had to be there. Everyone else was, though, seated and clearly waiting for me. Well, not my fault that they did not see everything! Or spend enough time looking at things.
On the bus, the driver did not have anything to say, and most people were so worn out that they did not care. I was wishing for my iPod… and looking out the window. The mountains are magic. Still… it is a bus ride, never my favourite thing. And when we got into Vegas it was all stop and go (mostly stop) traffic. The traffic in Las Vegas is unreal. It took far more than 45 minutes to get back. I was almost at Caesar’s when Luis called to see how much longer I’d be. It was about 1610 and I said I’d be in a bathing suit and down by the pool and him in fifteen minutes. He told me that the toilet was fixed and we got the room comped for our last night!
I done did good!
I returned to the hotel and was just in my bathing suit and so ready to feel that pool water on
my fried skin when Luis called and asked me to let him into the room. They’d closed the pool! Oh, that was just so wrong! I was dying to get in the pool after being out all day in the heat! We changed and did some gambling with the machines at Caesar’s – I stuck in $20 and in ten minutes turned it into $60! I was delighted – I hadn’t gambled the entire trip. We played around there and then talked to Mark Antony, Cleopatra and some hot looking Centurion and then finally headed out.
We walked over to the Mirage, hoping to see the volcano but the shows don’t start until 2000 – once it’s dark! It was around 1730. So we caught a cab to Fremont Street. He really wanted to go for one of the buffets there and we walked around for a while until I finally said I absolutely had to eat. We went to the Fremont and he paid $24 for both of us (as opposed to $40); he was delighted. I find the cheap side of him rather amusing. He kept on about the food. The food was good – I loved the shrimp – but it really was not the quality of food at the higher end casinos. Not to be a total snob, but really, there was nothing about the Fremont casinos that could be compared to the Strip casinos – the casinos, the games, the food, the patronage… a completely different caliber.
We finally settled at a craps table in Binions, and Luis played for about 25 – 35 minutes and won $500! I held his chips to cash out – a purple and pink chip, a couple of black and orange chip and a couple of other ones. Purple and pink is $500, black and orange is $100. He had started with $300 and left with $791!
We did some walking around, and had the Fremont Street Experience – the whole street used to be open and a street but apparently they really tried to upscale it to make it more appealing (despite that, there was hardly anyone in the casinos. We stayed in that area (Stupak’s Vegas World) when we there a decade and a half ago and I had to wade through lines to get to a table). There is a huge canopy over it and it turns out to be a huge flat screen and every half hour there is a few minute-long show with loud music and all sorts of images of Vegas. It was really amazing. Like the Bellagio fountains, I did not even know about that.
We did a lot of wandering around, and Luis asked me if I’d shop for a while and he’d stop in at the Glitter Gulch. I was looking for some gifts for my parents, so I told him to have fun and we arranged to meet at 2100. I wandered around for about the twenty minutes, and found a couple of shirts and post cards. I ended up in front of the Glitter Gulch about five minutes after 2100. There were two girls out there trying to encourage guys to come in, and I asked if I could take their picture for my father. The one said that for five dollars I could take it (!). That’s when arms came around me from behind. Luis! I guess he’d been looking for me. He paid $35 for a lap dance and was very happy!
He chuckled about it, saying he couldn’t wait to tell Nick. Nick’s wife, Maria, won’t let him go to those places. I find that extremely strange, but hey, she is more indicative of “normal” women than not. I hate that. How does an entire gender get so paranoid? Luis was very happy having gone there and I am most certainly not his mother; I don’t “let” or not let him do things. He is his own person.
We grabbed a cab and returned to the Mirage but it was only 2125 and too long a wait for the
volcano to erupt – shows are every hour on the hour. We did not have any desire to wait for that – not that long. So we walked over to the Bellagio and caught that show at 2145, and then went back to our room. We caught the 2200 show from our room – I really could not get enough of those fountains! Not at all. No two shows were the same.
That trip to the Glitter Gulch had a very happy outcome! We took a hot shower together, washed off all the grime and crap, and Luis talked me into giving him a lap dance! I put on the right music, give him a “full service” dance, and we had some amazing sex! Ah, life is great! Great fun, great food, winning, amazing lovemaking, who could ask for more!
I can’t imagine how, but I woke up at 0645, exhausted and needing to go to the loo. I suppose the call of nature is stronger than the need for sleep – temporarily, anyway. I shuffled over to the huge bathroom and Luis told me that the toilet was jammed. Any way you slice it, he jammed it. The man is scary when he goes to the bathroom. So I waited. I called around 0715; Luis had called around 0645 (maybe that was what woke me…) but no one was rushing here. I napped until Luis left at 0740 and called again.
I fell asleep until my wake up call at 0900, and grudgingly got up and threw on some clothes. My breakfast came up and I ate happily – the food was quite good. I lounged and ate until about 0950 and called down to Housekeeping/Maintenance, and told the woman there that I had called a few times, I have a tour bus to catch and what is going on? She said that she saw our service calls logged and this is unacceptable and she would send them up right away and issue us a food comp for $50. I said fine and hung up. By 1045 no one had showed and I was really pissed off and I needed to shower before catching my 1135 bus.
I called one last time and told her to hold off on the service call until after 1130. I also told her that a $50 food comp was not really up to par for this. I said I had to get in the shower and that this had to be fixed by the time I got back. I got off the phone and hopped in the shower and wouldn’t you know… there was a knock on the door and a guy with a plunger. I opened the door a little and said, “Now you come?!” He said he was here to fix the toilet… I told him he’d have to come back in about twenty minutes.
I went down to catch the bus and spoke to Luis while at the pick up area. I told him that the toilet was jammed still and he should call again if he gets back and it is still that way. I also told him about the food comp and my reaction to that. He didn’t seem to care either way, but was willing to continue along this road. I then called Ray to catch up with him. And then the bus came.
The bus took us to the Bellagio and then another casino to pick up more vacationers. We then drove over to the place that has Hoover Dam and other tours and paid for our trips. We boarded a fairly full bus and headed out of Las Vegas.The trip was gorgeous, and I loved it – I wore my sea bands and did not feel sick. The mountains were beautiful. The driver had a lot of interesting knowledge to impart about the city, its history, the taxes there (there aren’t any), the areas (Fremont, Henderson), and as we headed out of the Las Vegas area, he had more tidbits about the other towns we went through. It was really a lovely trip!
After 45 minutes, we pulled over to a side area for security check. I really don’t know how secure this made it or if I felt better as a result… one trooper walked around the outside the bus (I’m not even sure he had a mirror to look under the bus); the other trooper came onto the bus, welcomed us, made a quick trip up the aisle and back without even looking at us! How secure is that? I’m sure he gets on a ton of busses all the time, but really, a little look-see wouldn’t have killed him. Is this what modern security is like? It was not reassuring.I loved the Hoover Dam, and I am very satisfied that I saw it. I’m a little sorry that I missed it when I was there in 1993, when the tourists were allowed down in the turbine room, but they’ve built a catwalk over it, so we still managed to see these huge noisy turbines. These are no small things and all the information was fascinating. There was also one lone very old turbine, more like I thought they’d be, half-circles coming up out of the floor. The modern ones were huge piston-like
structures that clearly process and make a hell of a lot more electricity. Turns out that when they first built the dam, after they made the divert tubes, they built this tiny little turbine (I’m sure it was big for the time) and it – and it alone – provided all the electricity for the dam. And it still does!I was floored.
This dam produces electricity for parts of Arizona, California and Nevada. It does not, however, produce electricity for Las Vegas. I suppose there isn’t an electric company in the world that would give that up. I’m always commenting that I cannot imagine
what their electric bills must be like.So I took the tour, which is about 45 minutes, if that, and then we had almost two hours to wander around on our own. I started out on the outside observation deck and took photos of the dam, the water, the new highway that is being built, the mountain gorge, everything. And there was a gorgeous memorial – a big black stone plaque on a monument surrounded by two statues of men with arms that become upright wings. I really loved it. After that, I walked the length of the dam, walked over into Arizona, and back on either side, and it was only 100F or 38C. It was very dry, which made it much easier to deal with. If it were New Jersey, with 92% humidity it would have been torture.
There are four water intakes in Lake Mead, one behind the other, two on each side. One has the Nevada clock and the other the Arizona clock. They had the exact same time. I remembered Arizona was one of three states that does not regard the Daylight Saving Time thing. Which is fine… but I was thinking it would be neat to return there in the winter and see the clocks at different times… (The other two states are Hawai’i and part of Indiana and the commonwealth of Puerto Rico… Indiana now has 18 counties that observe Central time and 74 counties Eastern.)
I stopped for two bottles of Snapple Peach Iced Tea and a bag of Doritos (replenishing that salt
and liquids) and continued walking around and then I came to the memorial. This memorial! Wow. No matter what I thought looking from the observation deck, this was nothing compared to seeing it up close and personally. And then for the real discovery – and I love this – the marble on which I was standing was a star map! Oh, I was just delighted – over the moon, as the Bean would say – there was the universe (our little corner of it) beautifully represented here! I spent a lot of time looking at that.I did some shopping (I did a fair amount of spending this trip) and then got to the bus at 1442, three minutes before I had to be there. Everyone else was, though, seated and clearly waiting for me. Well, not my fault that they did not see everything! Or spend enough time looking at things.
On the bus, the driver did not have anything to say, and most people were so worn out that they did not care. I was wishing for my iPod… and looking out the window. The mountains are magic. Still… it is a bus ride, never my favourite thing. And when we got into Vegas it was all stop and go (mostly stop) traffic. The traffic in Las Vegas is unreal. It took far more than 45 minutes to get back. I was almost at Caesar’s when Luis called to see how much longer I’d be. It was about 1610 and I said I’d be in a bathing suit and down by the pool and him in fifteen minutes. He told me that the toilet was fixed and we got the room comped for our last night!
I done did good!
I returned to the hotel and was just in my bathing suit and so ready to feel that pool water on
my fried skin when Luis called and asked me to let him into the room. They’d closed the pool! Oh, that was just so wrong! I was dying to get in the pool after being out all day in the heat! We changed and did some gambling with the machines at Caesar’s – I stuck in $20 and in ten minutes turned it into $60! I was delighted – I hadn’t gambled the entire trip. We played around there and then talked to Mark Antony, Cleopatra and some hot looking Centurion and then finally headed out.We walked over to the Mirage, hoping to see the volcano but the shows don’t start until 2000 – once it’s dark! It was around 1730. So we caught a cab to Fremont Street. He really wanted to go for one of the buffets there and we walked around for a while until I finally said I absolutely had to eat. We went to the Fremont and he paid $24 for both of us (as opposed to $40); he was delighted. I find the cheap side of him rather amusing. He kept on about the food. The food was good – I loved the shrimp – but it really was not the quality of food at the higher end casinos. Not to be a total snob, but really, there was nothing about the Fremont casinos that could be compared to the Strip casinos – the casinos, the games, the food, the patronage… a completely different caliber.
We finally settled at a craps table in Binions, and Luis played for about 25 – 35 minutes and won $500! I held his chips to cash out – a purple and pink chip, a couple of black and orange chip and a couple of other ones. Purple and pink is $500, black and orange is $100. He had started with $300 and left with $791!
We did some walking around, and had the Fremont Street Experience – the whole street used to be open and a street but apparently they really tried to upscale it to make it more appealing (despite that, there was hardly anyone in the casinos. We stayed in that area (Stupak’s Vegas World) when we there a decade and a half ago and I had to wade through lines to get to a table). There is a huge canopy over it and it turns out to be a huge flat screen and every half hour there is a few minute-long show with loud music and all sorts of images of Vegas. It was really amazing. Like the Bellagio fountains, I did not even know about that.
We did a lot of wandering around, and Luis asked me if I’d shop for a while and he’d stop in at the Glitter Gulch. I was looking for some gifts for my parents, so I told him to have fun and we arranged to meet at 2100. I wandered around for about the twenty minutes, and found a couple of shirts and post cards. I ended up in front of the Glitter Gulch about five minutes after 2100. There were two girls out there trying to encourage guys to come in, and I asked if I could take their picture for my father. The one said that for five dollars I could take it (!). That’s when arms came around me from behind. Luis! I guess he’d been looking for me. He paid $35 for a lap dance and was very happy!
He chuckled about it, saying he couldn’t wait to tell Nick. Nick’s wife, Maria, won’t let him go to those places. I find that extremely strange, but hey, she is more indicative of “normal” women than not. I hate that. How does an entire gender get so paranoid? Luis was very happy having gone there and I am most certainly not his mother; I don’t “let” or not let him do things. He is his own person.
We grabbed a cab and returned to the Mirage but it was only 2125 and too long a wait for the
volcano to erupt – shows are every hour on the hour. We did not have any desire to wait for that – not that long. So we walked over to the Bellagio and caught that show at 2145, and then went back to our room. We caught the 2200 show from our room – I really could not get enough of those fountains! Not at all. No two shows were the same.That trip to the Glitter Gulch had a very happy outcome! We took a hot shower together, washed off all the grime and crap, and Luis talked me into giving him a lap dance! I put on the right music, give him a “full service” dance, and we had some amazing sex! Ah, life is great! Great fun, great food, winning, amazing lovemaking, who could ask for more!
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