So there I was, sitting at my computer on Wednesday morning, plowing through my inbox and trying to motivate myself into acting on a very long to-do list, but basically procrastinating getting my day started. I didn't have any plans to speak of until that night, when I would be joining Steve B from DC for dinner at the Pullman Grille down at the Main Street Station.
But then my instant messenger popped up--it was my favorite gal Sticky. I'm always glad to hear from her, so I gave her the cyperspace-equivalent of the What-up head-nod.
The first thing she said was Guess what--I'm coming to Vegas again!
Did you get another free room offer for December?!?!?
No! I'm coming to Vegas tonight! I'm on my way to the airport in two hours! I was *going* to just surprise you, but figured I should let you know... So pack a bag--we're going back to New York New York.
We chatted for just a couple of minutes before both of us went into hyper-drive and started running last-minute errands and such.
Before I knew it, the afternoon had passed and I found myself downtown at Main Street Station waiting to meet Steve B for dinner. Just about the time he stepped off the elevator, I got a text message from Sticky. The Seattle airport sucks.
I knew she was almost here.
While she was changing planes in Seattle, Steve, his buddy, and I were seated promptly and given menus. Steve has eaten there at the Pullman Grille several times and highly recommended the seafood medley appetizer. He also said that since he'd been taking a beating at the video poker machines so far that week, he wanted to take full advantage of his comps and that we should order every expensive thing on the menu.
I really like his attitude.
So, three seafood medleys were ordered, along with a couple of bottles of good wine. The server asked if we would prefer bottled water or regular, and I said Regular--I've been living here long enough to build an immunity.
We laughed a bit and she filled our glasses.
The appetizers arrived a few minutes later--and Steve was right--they were excellent. An escargot dish, and instead of snails, it was filled with crab, shrimp, and lobster piping hot in a creamy sauce. It was very tasty, and along with some warm sourdough bread, it was an excellent beginning to the meal.
The only downside was that every time I took a sip of water, I started coughing furiously. It was awful, so I joked that I'd just have to stick to wine.
Our entrees arrived just as soon as we killed off the appetizers. Steve had filet mignon and king crab legs, while I had the filet and lobster. They came with monster-sized baked potatoes, some sort of vegetable for the life of me I can't remember (carrots maybe?), and a ramekin of drawn butter. We dug in like Homer Simpson attacking a box of donuts. It was excellent. Unfortunately, I took a couple for sips of water and started coughing again and immediately felt sick. I got up to head to the bathroom and only made it to the bar before yacking in the garbage can. I continued to the restroom, making sure I didn't get anything on my sweater, and took a moment to wash up, but I was rather confused about whatever was in the water that was making me sick.
I went back to the table, took a sip of water with no food in my mouth, just to make sure, and sure enough, I started gagging (which was odd--there was no taste to the water, it seemed ok), so I spit it back out, took a sip of wine, and all was fine. Unfortunately, after that episode, I was unable to finish my meal, which was a damn shame because it was really good. I got most of it done, but just couldn't get over the hump. Steve insisted that we get dessert, coffee, and cigars, too, so I indulged further. I had some Key Lime pie, which I enjoyed, along with a coffee and Kahlua, while he went with creme brulee.
We finally called it quits and the tab came to something north of $200. Of course it was comped, but we had to take care of the waitress. I panicked when I realized I had no cash on me--with all that was going on that day, I totally forgot about going to the atm--and wanted to contribute to the tip at least, so I felt like a complete jackass. Steve insisted that he'd take care of it, but damn, I was pissed at myself for such an obvious moment of social retardation. (Thanks again Steve, for a wonderful meal, good conversation, and a lot of fun. I owe you one next March).
After dinner, we said goodbye with plans to get together the next night for some dice throwing and beer drinking, and I headed back to the valet to fetch my truck.
As soon as I got home, I checked with flightview.com to see Sticky's plane enroute using their online radar thingy, and saw that her flight was on time. I finished packing my duffel bag, tossed it in the truck, and headed down to the airport. I found her lurking around at the baggage claim a few minutes later, and after waiting almost 45 minutes for her luggage, we were on our way.
The first order of business was to stop and get some Cokes for the room, as I had a bottle of Crown Royal packed in my bag. Sticky likes the whiskey... After that, it was off to New York New York, where we rolled up to the registration desk about 12:30 in the morning. As we were checking in, we casually mentioned that we'd like a room in a tower other than the Chrysler tower--that's where we stayed two weeks earlier, but it was the longest walk from the front door.
No problemo they told us, they could easily put us in a King smoking room in the New Yorker tower.
Cool.
We got the keys and started lugging everything back to the elevator. When we got there, we realized that our room was on the third floor. That did not bode well. At least it was a quick ride--the previous week we were on the 35th floor.
We opened the door to our room and as soon as we walked in, we both had the You've got to be fucking kidding me expression on our faces. It was a tiny room, sporting a handy-man bathroom with rollbars everywhere (but an elevated throne that Elvis himself would've been proud to die on), and our "king sized" bed was every bit as large as one of those hand-woven blankets you buy in Tijuana for five bucks. Oh, and the view--I can't forget to mention that. Our room was on the inside corner of the hotel facade with nothing but a huge air conditioning duct right in front of our window. If you pressed your head against the glass and looked up, you could almost see the sky. Apparently they weren't too impressed with our previous visit and literally stuck us where the sun don't shine.
We considered going back down and complaining, or at least calling down to the desk and bitching, but, it was a comped room, and we decided that it didn't matter much anyways. So we were content to just trash it here on the internet with our trip reports.
We dropped the luggage, opened the booze, and fixed ourselves a drink, toasting the fact that just 24 hours earlier we were thinking that we wouldn't get to see each other again until March, yet suddenly here we were--back together in Vegas for round two of our Not-Soberfest buffoonery.
After a round or two, it was back down to the casino for a few hands of Pai Gow and a run at the Money Storm machine. Neither were very good to us, and we bled off a few bucks before heading back upstairs to bed a couple hours later.
It was nice not to have an alarm, but when I finally awoke, I felt like I really needed some coffee. I know that Sticky loves to start her days with a tall cup of coffee and some plain Krispy Kremes, so I put on my flip-flops and went downstairs. I found the nearest Starbucks outlet which also sold Krispy Kremes delivered fresh from the shop at Excalibur, so I got us a tray full of goodies and some coffee. Being a nice fellow, I woke her up with 'breakfast' in bed.
We had a really slow start that day--the travelling and staying up late had worn her out, and I was still tired from the long week I'd had. We finally got moving and headed back down to the casino. We stopped at the slot club to activate her $125 worth of free slot play, and then hit the Money Storm machine. We put five bucks in to prime the pump, and with the free play we cashed out with about $120. Not too bad.
We played a little Pai Gow for an hour or so, but again, we couldn't get anything working. The dealer had two pair or a straight damn near every hand. We gave up after awhile and decided to get out of The City.
We found ourselves at Caesars Palace a little while later, and after I cashed in that silly $35 slot ticket I'd been carrying around for a week, we went exploring. We played a couple of machines but got no love. We also walked by Cleopatra's Barge to squeeze her boobies, but eventually made our way back to the valet. Knowing a classy ride when they see one, my truck was still parked out front amongst the Mercedes', Lexus', and even a Lotus.
Mr. Valet man earned himself every bit of that two bucks...
Being low-rollers on a mild losing streak, we were trying to think of places to go that catered to our ilk. Clearly Ceasars Palace was not for us. But driving down Flaming-O, we saw the sign outside of the Westin offering 25-cent roulette and dollar craps. Oh hell yeah--it was like music to our broke ears...
We pulled in, found a penny machine right there in front, lost five bucks, and went looking for these low-rolling tables they'd advertised. Talk about the old bait-and-switch, there was only ONE open table in the pit. Just a single five-dollar blackjack shoe game.
What the...?
No dollar craps, no quarter roulette, and certainly no Pai Gow. We'd been had. We turned around and left, just shaking our heads in disbelief. I can now say that I've visited the Westin Causerina or whatever the hell they call it. I can also say I won't be going back.
Back in the truck, it was time to move on. We were feeling a bit hungry, I mean, Krispy Kreme donuts are basically nothing but sugar and air, so we felt like we needed to eat something a bit more substantial. I suggested Metro Pizza, and Sticky was all for it. So we made our way south towards the Tropicanas.
As luck would have it, we stumbled in at the right time to take advantage of their 'happy hour'-- half-priced pizzas for all! We ordered a large Gotham style (that's the one with everything on it) and entertainened ourselves by writing messages in crayon on our paper table cover, taking pictures with the camera phone, and sending them off to various folks who couldn't be there. Once the pizza arrived, we snapped a picture of that, too, and I sent a message to Dave P saying Greetings from Metro Pizza. He hates us now.
The pizza was good, and we had a lot of laughs as the text messages were starting to get returned from various jealous folks around the country. We finally upped the buffoonery level by just texting the message Up four grand--off to Olympic Gardens next! to Angy, knowing that she'd fall for it and put the word out... heh.
Our bankroll was actually about $3500 short of that, so instead of getting lappies and a face full of silicone, we decided to give Boulder Station a try. Since we still considered ourselves low rollers, the white trash goodness of the place appealed to our inner redneckedness. Sticky had never been, so she went with an open mind.
Of course, Boulder Station is not a bad casino. It's a nice casino built in a shitty neighborhood. We found our way to the dice table first, and we liked the fact that it was a $3 game with 10x odds. We elbowed our way in amongst the grinders, and lasted about 20 minutes before giving up and cashing out, both down about fifty bucks. The highlight, however, was our Marty Feldman dealer and his ability to stand on Wednesday and see both Sundays.
After that, we went do play some Pai Gow with the angriest dealer in captivity. She refused to smile, look up, or speak, and was slamming the cards around obviously pissed off at the world. We were treading lightly and I finally asked if she was having a bad day. She told us that she was sick and they wouldn't let her go home. We figured her Plan B was just trying to get kicked out for having a bad attitude. It started out roughly, and Sticky opted for slots, so she left me there alone with Miss Congeniality.
But my cards started to improve and before long I was back on the winning track.
Sticky came back after awhile and asked me where the cage was, but honestly I had no idea--I'd never been to the cage! I'd never won a dime at Boulder Station. I looked around, saw a sign that said "Cashier" and pointed her in the right direction.
She came back a few minutes later saying the line was like 80 people deep. We decided to play some more while waiting for the line to disperse a little. Luckily, I managed to catch a few more hands and was up over a hundred bucks. I figured it wasn't going to get much better than that, so we cashed out.
Back to the cage we went, and the line was still a mile long, and full of nothing but white trash (well, actually there was a colorful assortment of trash). We couldn't figure out what the deal was, thinking everyone must've won some big money that day, until we started listening to the conversations going on around us. It seems that it was the second day of the month, and everyone was cashing their welfare checks.
Oh good grief. You wouldn't believe the converstations going on around us. I've made some poor choices in my day, but damn, nothing like the stuff I heard floating around in that line. Of course, to those people, none of their circumstances were their own fault--it was always some version of The Man keeping them down.
And just how do people get by in this world without having a bank account? And why are you at the casino playing slots if you *do* have a bank account and it's overdrawn by $800???
Anyways...
It didn't help that the line moved slower than the DMV, and the fact that there were only three cashiers working, either. We almost said screw it, but I had a couple hundred bucks worth of chips. Finally the guy with the clipboard expediting the ID process got to us pointed us to the window that actual customers could use.
We cashed out and headed for the door, pretty much done with Boulder Station, also. I'd been there about three or four other times in the past, but it was always in the middle of the night, so I never knew it doubled as a check cashing joint for the huddled masses. Sticky of course thanked me for taking her there and showing off all of the economic superiority that my country offers... Heh.
Except for winning a bunch at the Pai Gow table, it was a pretty crummy experience there at Boulder Station. We were getting pretty tired, and the plan was to meet up with Steve B and Courtney downtown for some buffoonery that night, so we headed back to NYNY to relax for a bit. The original plan was to meet up after 10 pm, so we had more than three hours to kill.
I was beat, so I took a nap. Sticky went downstairs for more solo gambling while I snoozed.
I was still pretty groggy when she woke me up, and I made a quick call to Steve B. I got his voicemail, but told him that we were on our way. We changed clothes, picked up the truck from the valet, and headed down to the Plaza.
Nobody called back, so we visited Tim the bartender at the Keno Bar for a few rounds and played a little video poker. We also hit a slot machine or two, but then wanted to play some Pai Gow. The only table at the Plaza was full, so headed across the street to the Vegas Club.
We found two seats at opposite ends of the table, and both bought in for a hundred. It was a fun game--the dealer was decent and we didn't take too many bad beats. The guys we were playing with were pretty odd, though. Loud, drunk, and obnoxious--very fun--but they were from Notre Dame, and even though every other word was f-this and f-that, every few minutes they's stand up and start singing weird creepy religious songs and hymns and then do some monk-chanting shiat too. It was quite strange. Uncomfortably strange.
Although, there was a drink-spitting moment of comedy when one of them uttered the now-famous line "Well, if getting a hand job from your brother is wrong, dammit, I don't wanna be right!"
They finally had enough, and left the table, allowing Sticky to come down and sit next to me. Sometime during the night, Jamie from PA (you might recognize her from my comments section) came over to visit. Her and her husband were staying there at the Vegas Club and recognized me, so that was fun.
Sticky and I also started to win a few good hands there at the Pai Gow table, and even though we never heard from the rest of our gang, we had a blast and won a bit of money.
After a few hours there at the Vegas Club, we decided to move on and find a dice table. We ended up wandering down to Binions and finding a $5 table. Both Sticky and I had two good rolls each, but the other folks at the table had bad ones, keeping us from making a big score. We played for about 45 minutes or so, and when we cashed out, Sticky was up about $25 and I was up a buck.
I had gone to bottled water, but Sticky kept with the rye & Cokes, so she had a good buzz going. We needed food pretty badly at that point--it had been almost twelve hours since our visit to Metro Pizza, and we were hungry.
We left the tables and went downstairs to the coffee shop, somewhat excited about their graveyard specials. Sticky was craving toast and breakfast, and I was just looking for something to fill the hole. I used to rave about a dish called Benny's Natural that I had a couple times each trip to Vegas, and was fairly upset when it disappeared from the menu back in the recent Dark Times.
But it's back, just under a different name--a huge ham steak, hash browns, eggs, and toast, and I think it costs about two bucks depending on the time of day. So that's what I ordered. Sticky had something similar, just with sausage instead. While we were sitting there sipping our coffee and waiting for our meal, Sticky had a Vegas moment--telling me about how she used to read all my old trip reports before she'd ever been downtown, hearing about me and Eddie B and the guys eating at Binions coffeeshop in the middle of the night, wishing she could've been a part of that, and here she was a few years later sitting there with me reliving a classic Vegas moment for the first time. Who'da thunkit?
Breakfast was excellent, and Sticky very much enjoyed her toast. I'm thinking that might've just been the whiskey talkin', though. But as good as it was, we couldn't beat the price. I think it cost about eight bucks for both of our meals.
We finally called it a night, hit the cage before fetching the truck from the Plaza valet, and headed back to NYNY via the Strip. It was a beautiful night out, and I played my Hillbilly Roadtrip cd, we had the windows down, and it was a fun drive back to the other end of town. We were talking like hicks and laughing our asses off all the way down the Strip. Between that and all of the Ron White quotes, I couldn't stop giggling for what seemed like hours. Sticky may be Canadian, but she can put on the Dirty South accent like it ain't nothin'.
She's the queen of my doublewide trailer...
Anyhow, we finally made it back to our ghetto-style hotel room, happy that we'd made some of our money back and exhausted from our eventful day. Sleep came like a drug (in God's country...), and we passed out, giggling ourselves into a restful slumber.
I woke up earlier than Sticky--probably because of my nap the night before. At some point during the weekend we both confessed to each other that neither of us really liked Starbucks coffee all that much, so it was my quest to find a better cup that morning. Luckily, the Greenwich Village Coffee Company or something like that was also downstairs, so I picked up a couple of tall cups of hazelnut coffee and a couple of really good blueberry muffins. It was a hit with the crowd on the elevator, but even more so with Sticky. I think I spoiled her with the fresh coffee in bed every morning.
After the previous night's buffoonery, we were moving extra slow. It took it us quite awhile to get going, but once we did, we decided to shuffle off to the valet and then head back to Green Valley Ranch for some more Pai Gow.
Once we arrived, our first order of business was to find a couple of seats at a Pai Gow table, but we were denied. It seemed everyone else in the neighborhood had the same idea at the same time. So we wandered the casino a bit, looking at all the pretty lights and seeking that magical slot machine that would remove us once and for all from the working class. Unfortunately, we never found it, and even lost a few bucks during our search. Eventually we made it back to the pit and found a couple of seats together at a $10 game.
We'd actually been on a mini winning streak ever since we left
It was a winning session, and we were pretty happy when we finally colored up. We were kind of hungry, so I asked for a dinner comp for two at the cafe, as the floor still had me rated at $50+ per hand. The floorperson got off the phone and told us to hang tight for a few minutes because a host was coming down to talk to us.
Score!
In just about every casino in Vegas, any floorperson can write a food comp. But if you want the real goodies, like free rooms or use of a limo, you need a host. So we stood there for a few minutes thinking of our wish list that we were going to ask for-- or even better, what they were going to offer us. We were pretty excited when he finally walked up, introduced himself, and shook our hands. He asked us what we needed, and I told him that all we really needed at the time was dinner for two at the cafe.
His reply, basically, was Go take a flying leap, loser.
Sorry, nothing we can do for you at this time--you're running a comp deficit.
What?
Yep--I see a Fatburger comp (that was in September of 2005!) and a recent gift shop debit of $30 (I guess they figured out that they'd given me six packs of cigarettes last week and popped me for it after all...)
Whatever, dude. If you can't give us a comp, why keep us standing around for 15 minutes waiting on you to show up? Just have the floorperson tell us no and we'll head on down the road.
So we walked away, stunned. We went to the food court and settled on Fatburger. We ordered two burgers, onion rings, and two large Cokes. To say I suffered from sticker shock is a gross understatement when I handed over $24 for the meal. And the burgers weren't even that good this time around, either. Overall, that last ten minutes pretty much ruined a decent day at Green Valley Ranch.
I still like playing there, but at least now I've set proper expectations.
We headed back to the hotel to relax for about an hour before I had to get ready for work. Sticky was going to spend the early part of the evening playing poker at the Excalibur, and then head on out to my casino to meet me, while I was going to sign the early out list.
We were just lounging in the room, watching tv, when her phone rang.
I don't know how to say this tactfully, but the honest truth is that she has a Significant Other back at home. It's not my place to reveal any details of their circumstances, but our situation is far from unique, and a certain amount of discretion is required for us to be together.
So I was being absolutely quiet while waiting for her to get off of the phone and I decided to go ahead and start getting ready for work. I went to the bathroom, but the walls are paper thin, and I could hear every word of their conversation. I had to use the facilities, so I sat on the throne reading the MGM magazine for a few minutes. I finished up and turned on the shower. Luckily, it's a low-flow model, so it was relatively quiet. However, whenever the toilet is flushed, it sounded like a 747 taking off.
I could hear that Sticky was still on the phone, so in order to be discreet, instead of flushing I just put the lid down and told myself I'd flush it when I got out of the shower, certainly she'd be off the phone by then.
You know where this is going...
Yep, after my shower I forgot about it, got dressed, said my goodbyes to Sticky, and we agreed to meet up around 11 at my casino.
I was out the door, oblivious.
Fast forward about four hours. I'm coming back from the Sports Book, and I see Sticky standing next to the Pai Gow tables. I pointed to the table I was heading to next, and she took a seat.
A few minutes later, I tapped out the dealer, sat down, and greeted everyone. I could see that she had a good buzz going, and I gave her a generic Hey--how you doing?
She looked at me and deadpanned I want to thank you for leaving your kids in my pool...
Oh. My. God.
I was mortified. She said the look of realization and horror on my face was priceless. I sat there for several minutes turning different shades of red while she giggled to herself the whole time. Later that night we laughed ourselves silly about it, but at the time I was dying of embarrassment.
She played at my table until I got cut loose, but unfortunately, she didn't win much. Jamie in PA and her husband also joined us, and we had a great time at the table.
After I clocked out and changed clothes, we hit the slot machines again. Sticky got a few spins on the huge Wheel of Fortune game, and I think she even doubled up. We also found my favorite musical Pay Dirt penny machine, and we had a lot of laughs composing our own five-note symphonies and chasing away the players next to us. We had a few tickets to cash out, so it was a good visit to the machines.
We left the casino, looking for some more low-priced buffoonery. We eventually found ourselves at the Klondike, machete-ing our way through the second-hand smoke and finding seats at a ten-cent roulette table.
If Boulevard of Broken Dreams wasn't set in a diner, it could've easily been set in the Klondike Casino. What a dump. The dealers are either the greenest-of-the-green break-ins, or burnt out old ex-cons who can't pass a background check and have no place else to go. Our roulette dealer seemed to be firmly in category number two. He took his own sweet time getting ready, and we sat there for about ten minutes with him straightening the chip stacks and no spin. One of the other players asked if he was going to eventually spin the ball, and his reply was Don't worry about it, nobody here is going anywhere...
Truer words were never spoken.
Sticky and I just looked at each other and the look on her face said First you take me to Boulder Station, and now this?!?!?
Luckily I hit one of my numbers once we eventually got a game going, but then the 'pit boss' told us that they were closing the game immediately. I guess they really needed that seven bucks I won, although I'm guessing that they weren't going to use it to pay the cleaning staff.
So we moved to another table, and they pushed out our monster stacks of ten-cent chips. Sticky was like Holy shit--that's a lot of chips! and the dealer--with one of those bad red-neck accents we'd been making fun of the day before said, I can make 'em quarters if ya want... , and we just about died laughing.
We played about three more spins, but it was a total pain in the ass because there was an old guy there putting two or three chips on EVERY possible bet on the table. He had about 500 chips spread all over the layout, and it took about ten minutes between games for the dealer to muck all the chips, make the payouts, and then wait for him to set them all up again. He wasn't quite bright enough to figure out that he was losing about 2 bucks a spin, but he had a system, dammit, and we didn't have the heart to explain the error of his ways, nor the patience to witness it for very long either.
We also noticed that the lights in the 'cafe' were turned off, but it said that they were open 24 hours. I asked the lady standing behind us at the entrance if they were open, and she said they were, but keep the lights off when there aren't any customers.
Alrighty then...
So we took our money over to the $2 blackjack table, bet it all at once, lost, and headed for the door.
As we were driving away, I asked Sticky what she thought of the Klondike, and I think her response was I just don't have the words...
While driving away, we decided to head to someplace nicer, so I suggested the South Point casino, which used to be the South Coast. I figured that with the new ownership, they might have some better games than the crapola tables that Coast is famous for.
I could tell that Sticky liked it much better, although neither of us are big fans of 'warehouse' type of casinos that are brightly lit with high ceilings. (That's why we like Treasure Island so much...) But we found seats at a fun $5 Pai Gow table with a very friendly Samoan dealer. Unfortunately, we just couldn't make a run. No matter how good of a hand we had, the dealer was always at least one card better. After a run of two-pair and three-of-a-kind hands from the dealer, I decided to Bank the table. Wouldn't you know that's the one hand that was a Queen-high pai gow. Grrr...
We played for over an hour, enjoying what were probably the most comfortable chairs ever to grace a casino, while Sticky slowly headed towards derailment. She'd been hitting the Rye & Cokes for several hours, and was quite loopy. Since I was driving, I'd gone to bottled water, so my enjoyment of the buzz came from observation, not participation.
Eventually, we decided that we really need to get a bite to eat, so we cashed out, down about $25 each. We went to the cafe there in the casino, and were immediately disappointed. Unlike every other casino in Vegas, this joint had absolutely NO graveyard specials. Everything was full price. And there were no spoons on any of the tables, either. Yep, we were stirring our coffee with our butter knives. And the jelly rack on our table held nothing but orange marmalade.
Orange marmalade? Who the hell eats that shiat? (Besides my dad, I mean...) So Sticky and I went on a little safari around the dining room--she was hunting for spoons, while I tracked my quarry of strawberry preserves.
We came up empty on the spoons, even the server said that they were scarce. But we didn't really believe her--she was so nearsighted that she had those glasses that made her eyes look huge from the outside, so we didn't know if she just couldn't see them or what. Finally, we figured out the Spanish word for 'spoon' (cuchara) and had a busboy bring over a couple.
Our meals, basically, were very bland. Just no good at all. We both ordered chicken fried steak, eggs, and biscuits and gravy. It was industrial recipe, straight-from-the-can bland. Ugh. It was easily the worst meal of the weekend. The biscuits and gravy were so bad that we ordered an extra side of toast, and that was the highlight of the meal. Well, that and all the laughs we had.
We paid up and got the hell out of the South Point. I liked the Pai Gow tables ($5 limits, fortune bonus, dragon hand, and very comfy chairs), but I noticed that they still had only 2x odds on the craps games. Would I go back? Probably, but only if I were in the neighborhood--I doubt I would make a special trip.
We got back to NYNY at 5:30 in the morning, just exhausted. We called the front desk, asking for a late checkout, and they told us we could stay in the room until 1:00 pm instead of the regular 11 o'clock eviction. That was nice.
We went to bed, but only dozed for a couple of hours. We actually got out of bed by 11 and were checked out by noon.
We had three hours to kill before we had to say goodbye, so we decided to go back down to Treasure Island and play some more. We lucked into a very good dealer and a fun table (pai gow, of course) and spent the next three hours just having a blast. It started hot, but a replacement dealer came in and wiped out our gains. Luckily our other dealer came back and made it up to us. At one point, Sticky got a straight flush, and on the very next hand I got four-of-a-kind! Nice. The bonus money helped, and I think I cashed out up $120 and Sticky was up about fifty.
It was getting close to 3 pm, and we had to head to the airport. It was an absolutely gorgeous sunny day out, so we had the windows down and decided to take the scenic route along the strip. We laughed it up, recounting the highs and lows of the trip, and wishing we could do it all over again.
The airport was surprisingly quiet, reflecting our suddenly somber mood, and we said our goodbyes at the curb. It was a fantastic week and I was sad to see it end. As of this point, it looks like she won't be back until March Madness, but this trip proved that a spontaneous Vegas visit can happen at any time.
Who knows... She might be heading back here right now...
Mikey
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