And here I thought March Madness ended on Monday afternoon once I dropped Angy off at the airport. But once I did that, and made a quick update, I got a quick nap and then went back to work. I managed to make it most of the night, but since it was my 'Friday' night, and the beginning of a brand-new pay period, do you think I stayed the entire eight hours? Nope--I left at 2:00 am, came home, watched the tivo'd episodes of 24 (good) and The Sopranos (completely sucked ass) before crashing hard.
But I forgot that my friends George and Marlisha (of Mon Ami Gabi fame) were still in town, and we made plans to have breakfast at the Peppermill. So instead of getting a good 16 hours of sleep like I was hoping for, I got another 4-hour catnap before heading down to the Strip again.
Breakfast was excellent--I had the eggs Benedict, George has a seafood omelet, and Marlisha had the corned beef hash. But since my girl Krista took the day off to go snowboarding, we skipped the Fireside Lounge. Wanting to relax with some cocktails fine cigars, we decided to drive over to the Hilton instead.
It was a cold, grey, and blustery late winter day, and being a dumbass all I was wearing were a pair of shorts and a t-shirt. Hey, it was sunny when I left the house--I thought the cold weather was finally behind us. Not so. But we made it to the Hilton without getting trapped in a snowbank and left the cars in the capable hands of the valet.
I hadn't been inside the Hilton since last summer, but the improvements just keep happening. They've expanded the buffet entrance and the 'sports' side of the sportsbook, added a poker room, and built the coolest retro lounge ever, called 'Tempo', in the rear part of the casino. We were pretty impressed with the changes.
We wandered a bit, looking for a good place to settle down and smoke, but it looked like our options were limited. Preparing to just have to sit at the bar, we asked the friendly bartender, Richard, what time the lounge opened. Not until 4:00 pm--more than three hours later, but he offered to let us in privately if we just came to him whenever we needed a drink. Score!!! So we entered on the side and found a table hidden from the view of the casino and settled down for some rum drinks, Cuban cigars, and good conversation.
First of all, we were extremely impressed with the excellent service--Richard went above and beyond in making us feel welcome and comfortable, and he spent the rest of the afternoon earning a very generous tip by pouring us premium cocktails whenever the our glasses started to get a little light. And the lounge, even though we had the entire place to ourselves, had an excellent retro vibe that we all anticipate seeing again, next time with a crowd of beautiful people besides ourselves.
I brought a couple of Partagas black labels with me, but George had the travel humidor stocked with some excellent Habanas. The first one I smoked was a Cohiba Siglo VI, a most excellent and flavorful road flare-sized offering smuggled here from Fidel's island gulag. They call it a 'Titanic' cigar, meaning you could light that baby up just as you're loading Titanic into the dvd player, and just about the time old Rose tosses the Heart of the Ocean back in the water, you're taking your final puff. Not a bad way to spend an afternoon. And the smell of Cohibas turn me on almost as much as Dream Angel from Victoria's Secret. In a different way of course, but still rather enjoyable.
Luckily we had no particular place to go, so we got to have seconds on the cigars. The second time around I had a very mellow Bolivar cigar that had some fairly complex flavors, but mellow nonetheless. And since we were sipping Pyrat rum on the rocks at the same time, we were having a Caribbean moment, regardless of how cold it was outside.
While lounging around in our private club, we were treated to another exclusive surprise--it seems that the folks in charge were auditioning new cocktail waitress uniforms, so we had a couple of hotties wandering around in different revealing outfits doing their runway poses. And we were sitting right in the middle of it. Of course I gave every outfit an enthusiastic thumbs up, so I doubt my input is going to carry much weight in the final decision.
Did I mention that it was an enjoyable afternoon?
Sometime during our stay, we decided that next year we're going to make the Hilton our March Madness headquarters. The rooms are excellent--they have some great suites, the sports book is one of the best, their casino has vastly improved since the Park Place days, they've got a great selection of restaurants on the premises, and it's a helluva lot easier to get in and out of than the Imperial Palace, Caesars, Barbary Coast, or even the Mirage. And it's not far from downtown, either. Since Angy said once was enough after hosting a huge party this past weekend, I'll pick up the torch from her and do it next year.
Finally, around 5:00 pm we decided that it was probably time to go. The velvet rope had parted for the masses of conventioneers staying at the hotel, and our exclusive club was starting to get loud. We'd downed an entire bottle of rum that afternoon, smoked cigars for about five hours straight, and laughed ourselves silly rehashing the events of the past week.
We said our goodbyes and headed for the valet. I came home and slept in front of the tv for a few hours before waking up again. Today I have absolutely no plans except to do laundry, do some writing, and upload some more pictures.
Unfortunately, I'm not able to do a whole trip-report style of update mainly because there are a lot of gaps in the weekend--some memories are lost to the fog of alcohol, and some memories are better off not shared in a public forum.
But you'll be happy to know that it was a legendary good time. Just like always.
Mikey
No comments:
Post a Comment