Vegas Baby, Vegas!

This last weekend, the afore mentioned group of friends convered on Sin City to cellebrate Scott's big birthday. It was the first time since Sept. for some of us to get together and longer still for others. The play by play accounts are not as interesting perhaps to share as the highlights. I mean it is Vegas, play by play is pretty much: we gambled, we lost, we walked, they drank, I smoked, we gambled... I do have to interject though as I began writing this my iTune wizzard found a remote track I picked up from my brother's library. If you can read this with the main overture to "The Rock," it is epic-awsome.

I set out for Vegas by Jeep at 6am on Fri, being the only one close enough to drive. I arrived plenty early to drive about a little and see what was close. Tanya was also in town but visiting her sister Jess. I finally got the first airport call from Melissa and headed over to the airport. She was 30 min late and no sooner did I have her scooped up and on the way to Tanya's rendex vu point at the Fashion Show Mall, but the boys (Rick, Scott, and Cody) called telling me they were early. My Jeep is awsome, but not 6 people awsome. Sitting in the strip gridloc, they opted to take a cab to the hotel. An hour or so later we met them at a bar in the Stratosphere that would then become our regular meeting spot. Walking up to a bar where I saw Cody, Scott and Rick felt so familiar it was as if no time had passed at all. It might as well have been Avo's.

Cody took me up and I dropped my bag off. By the time I made it back down Tanya had taken MJ up to the "girl's room." Our band was now checked in to our two base camps of operation and were at 6 strong. Fingers were being crossed for our friends still to arrive as the Windy and Twin Cities were being slammed with snow. At this point we bagan the walking, gambling, drinking/smoking adventure. To say spirits were high would be like saying an orgasim is ok. There was a happy factor that could have lit a casino on kinetic energy alone there!

We went to a restaurant Scott had chosen later that evening. For the life of me I will never remember the name, but the last part is_____ Hole in the Wall. Super fun! Nate arrived as we were finishing up and the gang was well into their second included caraf of white and red. Now we were at 7. At Bally's Casino we held up to wait for Allison, Cory's sister, who joined our festivities. When we had her, our group was near complete at 8 and we procede with her and bags to get Cory. At this point we tested our abilities to separate and refind each other. How groups did Vegas before cell phones is beyond me. Cody, MJ and I wandered to an ATM that wouldn't charge us $5 to get our money. When we got back we had lost our groups big Roulet fund (aka excess from paying the dinner bill) and our birthday boy. He went across the street to the Bellagio and no word had been had since he wandered off. Slightly concerned at the fact that he had pretty much finished off both carafs of white himself and was now let loose and alone on a casino. We dually tried to find him and meet Cory, who for graphic reasons had to abandon his shuttle from the airport. We caught him on the bridge accross the street (the perfect 9 were now assembled) and continued on the find Scott as well as his search party. Our info on Scotts whereabouts were sketchy, but it didn't sound good. Finally we were successful. All 9 of us made our way back to the Stratosphere, happy and wobbling.

After we eventually called it quits for the day around 3 (some had flown in from Central and Eastern), our day officially was over. It seemed natural to have all of us in 2 rooms. I was thinking about it though. At what point do people start trying to get their own rooms? This was more fun, like the sort of camping we have always done. Giggles and shit giving were rampent in the guy's room at least.
The next day some of us got down the The Golden Nugget for breakfast at Scott's chosing. It was fun to see "old" Vegas with Rick and Nate as they had never been to Vegas. The rest of the group met us at the pool later back at the hotel. There was a cry to go play Bingo and we were off to see what that was all about. We went to Frontier and quickly got schooled on Bingo.
It was fun, but our bingo hosts were task masters and out wise-cracks and jack-assery got quieter and quieter. No bingo love for us but we had a great time. We wandered and gambled and wandered and gambled. Our big find was a $2 Craps table for Scott. Yours truly got schooled in table rules but walked with a mighty $3 profit for it!

We returned to one of our favortie casinos at this point, The Sahara, where there were some serious video games played and fun-ass Blackjack done. At one point the dealer asked where we were from. At that particular table we had Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Salt Lake City, Chicago, and New York. Damn! MJ and I walked with a nice profit frm our tie-dyed table. A monorail later and we were at MGM. We opted for food court there as fast and cheap were the requests. Never the less plastic trays brimming with pizza, bread sticks, fries, and big sodas were enjoyed. Tanya, Scott and I got nice cigars and walked over to NY, NY. That began or pilgrimage North. We hit Caesars, Bellagio, Treasure Island and then got to the Wynn. MJ had friends working on a show there so we ducked up to say hi. I actually knew a guy in the show as well from my Defiant theatre days. Small friggin' world. At that point, all our feet were dead so we caught the Deuce (double decker-bus) back to the Stratosphere. We went to a club near our elevator and some of us danced and some of us drank. It was great.

Our morning started again earlier than I would have thought. We met up at the pool with coffee and sat in the hot tub for a bit. We decided to check out the resaurant at Sahara and had some breakfast. Another spell at the Blackjack table proved to be once too many for me, but it was nice to see Rick give it a shot successfully. Double Down. We enjoyed our last hour as a the mighty 9 at our own hotel. MJ left us frst followed within a couple hours later by Nate, Ali, Scott, Rick and Cody. Tanya and Cory were staying an extra day and I was feeling pretty fuckin' sad already so I left soon thereafter. By the way, NEVER drive back to LA from Vegas on a Sun. night (7hrs).

It was too fast. Too over-due, and so fucking good! Several times I forgot we didn't all walk around together everyday still, it was that natural. These are friendships that are spannin 12 - 13 years now. I am grateful as hell to have this group in my life. It reminds me of so many parts of life that I may otherwise not notice. It was just what I needed.

Plus, I got rid of the scary clown! Heh!