Las Vegas 2013
8/13/2013
Viva Las Vegas!
I have survived our 3 days here at the Las Vegas Grand Vacations. Tomorrow is our potentially most dangerous day; we have nothing planned.
The flight down was pleasant despite (or possibly because of) the fact that our normally trustworthy Alaska Airlines seated us all over the plane. Xander had to sit with two complete strangers. Yikes.
However, to ease the terror of possible human contact, I loaded him up with three different electronic entertainment devices. He survived. I was actually just two seats behind him; close enough to use "The Voice" if need be.
Well, Wendi could have just as effectively used her Voice from her seat 10 rows' back. Hell, the Pilot would probably sit up a bit straighter at that point.
I had a delightful trip seated next to a nanny/semi (more like 'semi-demi') pro darts player named Jen. (I know: darts, crazy, huh?) She was attending a tournament at one of the non-strip Casinos. We just chatted about darts, kids, being a nanny, where to go in Vegas, what kids need to succeed, the agony of home robbery, the Virgin Islands, out of date from weight loss ID photos and how pathetic rich people who don't want to raise their own kids can be.
I hope she won her tournament. And avoided the Circus Circus buffet. But I will have to accept the fact that I will never know.
Life would be so much less mysterious if I lived in a Romantic Comedy.
We spent much of the first day here exploring this Hilton Grand Vacations site. We are old hands at LV but this is our first staying at the Flamingo location. (Not at The Flamingo itself but at the Hilton Grand Vacations Condos [ HGV] right next to it. Both used to be owned by the Hilton Corporation but about 3 years ago, it sold all its casinos. )
We immediately decided staying on The Strip is a huge improvement over staying at the Karen Ave. property. No longer chained to the Monorail.
And Xander was Extremely Pleased with having his own room, TV, DVD player, kitchen and bathroom and lock. Our friends V and D were originally supposed to join us but had to cancel last minute. Their loss is his gain.
We spent a bit of time stocking up on breakfast foods from the high priced grocery store here. Top Ramen is 3x its usual price! Outrageous!
That evening we went to Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville for dinner. Delicious food and mellow (mostly Jimmy's) music playing in the background. We dined while planning our next day. Please remember this nice dining example.
Somehow the day had gotten away from us. Xander was quite eager to start taking advantage of all his room's amenities. Fine with us. He watched the first of 1,428 Scooby-Doo episodes on DVD and the Mrs. and I tried out the firm mattress.
One item disappointment has been the Flamingo Pool, which our Condo overlooks. With an especially clear view from the Living Room. According to just about every negative on-line review of HGV@The Flamingo, the Flamingo Casino Pool is a wild Bacchanalian Party every night, with loud music and young, drunk 20-somethings acting poorly. Well, I have spent plenty of time these past 3 days observing for such signs (again, mostly from the living room); ready to be outraged. No such luck. I am very shocked by the shocking lack of, well shocking behavior.
I expected more, darn it!
The next morning, the three of us, all a bit worse for wear from lack of sleep, were limo'd over to one of the 4 Vegas HGV properties to hear their sales pitch. We had avoided such events since 2005, so we figured it was time to see how the corporation could improve our lives. And get a dinner and a show. Wendi still not being employed, we certainly weren't going to BUY anything.
Well, you can probably guess the end of this little story. Our piddling little number of yearly HGV points: 2,400, purchased back in 2001 was such a small amount, it wasn't even on their "HGV Membership Levels" charts. (I didn't want to show my ignorance by asking where our number was and so didn't figure THAT one out till the presentation was just about over.)
We decided to bump that up to literally the smallest number they now deal with. Speaking as a 5th grade math teacher, we now occupy the minimum value in the data set represented on their Line Graph of Happiness. Sounds good.
What sold us was the argument that this is something Xander will inherit one day and be able to use for his family. He may have not thought through all the implications of this process but he seemed VERY enthusiastic about always having his own room and DVD player in the future.
Our main original reason for going was to learn all the HGV benefits added since 'Ought 5; the biggest of which, we can now buy airline tickets with our points. That's huge. Our $1,500 a night suite may have cost us just a whooping $35 booking fee but plane tickets were many, many times that.
So, we have another small monthly bill. In 5? 10? years, it'll be paid off and we'll return to feeling smug about it.
One thing I take comfort in now is that Xander took FULL advantage of their open buffet. My son; stickin' it to The Man.
Granted, it was slightly embarrassing to see him use his hat as a carrying case for the mound of cookies and Doritos on our way out.
“Mine! All mine!”
That why guys like me wear cargo shorts. Man, I love Fig Newtons. So tasty. So compact.
After that, we returned to the Condo to relax, swim, lay in the sun for my maximum 14 minutes, but mostly just ponder the question, "What the hell just happened?"
During this time, both Wife and Son gang-complained at me that the condo is too cold. This is actually the case with ALL indoor spaces here in Sin City but the frigidity of our little plot of Hades seems especially cruel. This is confusing to me so I again tried to explain how to change the temperature in both rooms. I guess it's a bit esoteric but see if you can follow:
· -Walk to the thermostat.
· -Press the "Up" arrow to raise the room's temperature and the "Down" arrow to lower it.
· -Repeat, as necessary.
It's this sort of Secret Knowledge that, despite our many, glaring flaws, keeps us in The Whitey Brotherhood on top.
Well, that and our use of cargo shorts. Go ahead and laugh. Those fig newtons tasted of sweet, sweet entitlement.
Anyway, it was getting time for dinner. Which always takes us longer than originally planned. This is thanks to The Better Half. Were it up to moi, my decision process always goes along the lines of "Will there be some sort of 'food substance' in front of me within 12 minutes of my decision to stop at this eating establishment?"
The Wife is a bit more picky. We had $100 worth of vouchers burning a hole in her fashionable Vegas bag. She wanted to...(What's the word?...) dine.
She has good memories of Bobby Flay's Mesa grill so we schlepped over there to Caesar's . Upon arriving, Wendi saw the word "Rabbit" on the menu and so, Mr. Flay now finds himself in the same Pantheon of Evil as Hitler, the Guy Who Cancelled "Firefly", and all Gynoticians (A politician who feels more qualified than women and their doctors to make women's health decisions.)
Time To Take Our Business Elsewhere!
A Chines restaurant? (We were at Harrah's at this point.) Nope. I had a brilliant idea. How about Toby Keith's "I Love This Bar And Grill!"? That was close by and, well, to be brutally honest, how could you spend $100 at a place that serves fried Twinkies? Off we went.
WARNING! This eating establishment shall henceforth be known as "Toby Keith's Your Ears Will Bleed Bar and Grill".
Not sure what the food was like. After 4 minutes of the following sort of dialogue,
"WHAT DO YOU WANT TO EAT?!
"WHAT ABOUT MY FEET?!
"YOU WANT TO ORDER MEAT?
"I'M LOSING WILL TO LIVE!!",
We decided to take our business elsewhere. WERE there a rabbit anywhere around, I am sure they’d keel over quickly.
Back to the quiet Chinese Restaurant. ("Ming's Table")
Ahhh...Peace. At this point, they could have served us broiled (insert cute animal here) and we would have tipped generously.
By then, it was getting pretty late, at least for us. And the drinks menu was just sitting there. Wendi went with The Volcano, which, almost two days later, still sits unfinished in our fridge.
The Wife was sure she was finished after three sips. It was a careful walk home.
But the crispy duck was excellent.
First thing Saturday, we visited the hotel formerly known as the Las Vegas Hilton. It is now known as the Las Vegas Hotel- That way, they needn't replace all the "H"s all over the place. The place has seen better days. To think, this hotel once proudly presented The Star Trek Experience. It even still has a 15' Star Fleet insignia on the side of the building though "the experience" ended 4 or 5 years ago. Sad, sad, sad.
After that, we followed Wendi as she shopped for wonderful things. One thing I have learned in the past few days is when you reach your goal weight after a hard year of diet and exercise, Las Vegas is full of wonderful things. I spent our time together trying to mentally map where all her wished for but not purchased items were so I could run back and buy them were I to ever get a free moment. After a bit much of this, she ditched us. The boy and I ambled back home to visit the gym, pool and watch more Scooby-Doo.
That evening's entertainment; again provided by the Hilton Corporation, was The Tournament of Kings, at the Excalibur. A bit of a jaunt from where the two of us were relaxing. This is especially true as the trip involved getting from the rear of the MGM Grand to the front. This is always a struggle; made worse by being in a hurry. As we were. Wendi, still shopping, couldn’t hear her phone from inside her purse when I called her so we got off to a late start.
But we made it and had a great time. The wife and I had seen the show many years ago but this was X's first go. He started out poo-poo'ing the cheese factor but ended up enthusiastically booing the Dragon Knight along with the rest of us.
After the show, some of the knights and ladies posed for photos but the lines were too long. Instead, both boy and I took photos of the "Dick's Last Resort" sign, which we both found hilarious. Wendi informed us we had pretty much the exact same reaction when we were last at the Excalibur two year's ago.
Then we started the long ramble back home. Long ramble punctuated by occasional stops to look at yet more sparkly jewelry. For about the zillionth time, both husband and wife secretly wished V could have joined us.
Though it only was 10:00ish, we all decided to call it a night.
Sunday
Today was my one walk-about day. I left about 8:00 and just got back at 2:00. Not sure where the rest of the Hardys are. Once again, she's not answering her phone.
It feels good to put the feet up. I bought one bling'd out hoodie that Wendi looked at lovingly yesterday. Hope I caught the right signal. And gambled a tiny bit and had a bit of lunch. But mostly I just traveled. By my count, I visited 13 different casinos/resorts. Three of these were completely new to me.
Without the family, I made really good time. I wasn't in any particular hurry to be anywhere but I can't help but want to get there in a timely fashion. I found my brisk pace, sun glasses, cargo shorts, AC/DC t-shirt and head phones were enough to repel anyone trying to hand me something or sell me something. Clearly, the Middle-Aged Beavus Look works for me.
.......
(Monday Morning. Now at Gate E15, waiting for the flight. At least another 45 minutes to go. X's playing on the Kindle and Wendi is doing some last minute slot machines. This is really the only gambling she has done this trip.)
Wendi and Xander arrived late afternoon yesterday. She had purchased a few Wonderful Things and he had bargained a trip to the pool and a buffet out of the experience. The boy knows 'is 'aggling!
After these diversions, and some research on-line, we decided on the buffet at Caesar's. It was a bit later than usual for dinner so we weren't expecting too big a line....
....'Cause we were dunderheads! We couldn't even see the buffet from where we standing! After moving roughly 5' in 30 minutes, we decided on Plan B; which at that point was simply "Not stand in this f'ing line all night!" Bally's was close and had a SteakHouse. We like steak. Onward!
It was wonderful. It was a quiet place with wonderful food but it's top selling point was our waiter. He was funny, quick with the orders, told us great stories and Xander corny jokes. You don't realize how crummy most waiters/waitresses are until you encounter someone who has made a career of it. This was his 39th year in the business. Sadly, new management was taking over soon and he doubted they'd want an old guy like him. Their loss if that's the case. That may have also been the reason he brought us free drinks and seemed to have no desire to hurry us on our way.
The $60 tip was mostly a reflection of our appreciation for a job well done. And that we ended up ordering a crap-ton of items off the menu. (Again, a tribute at least as much to him as the fine food.)
We waddled home and called it a night.
....
And now I am in seat 27 C getting ready for take-off. We're all together this trip. Two hour flight and then a long drive home. Good to be back. Love this crazy town but it's a bit too much of nearly everything: spending, eating, drinking, gawking, etc. Granted, that's sort of the whole point of this state but 4 days is plenty.
Last night, it was filet mignon and cocktails. Tonight is chili and rice night. I know which one will be better for me. :)
And a decent night's sleep. THAT will be a reward nearly on par with anything Sin City has to offer.
Nearly.
Time to power down. In more ways than one.
Mr. B.