Dinner at Gonzalez y Gonzalez wasn't too bad, but I think I enjoyed it more just because of the good company. While waiting for our food, we were just loopy enough to get some good laughs entertaining ourselves by tossing Ron White quotes back and forth while sipping on our fruity drinks from the bar.
I can't remember the name of the concoction I was drinking, but it was damn good. It tasted like a rasberry smoothie, but it packed a whallup. It was so good I had two. And the tortilla chips with green salsa were a good appetizer to nibble on at the same time, too. I think Sticky had a beef burrito, and I went with a chicken chimichanga. Yeah, there were more exotic offerings on the menu, but whole "You must wait an extra 20 minutes for anything on this section of the menu" kind of turned us off from trying any of their specialties. So the food we got was typical non-descript Mexican fare--not bad, didn't blow us away. Wouldn't make a special trip to go back, but if we're in the neighborhood, it's a decent spot. I think the bill for two entrees and three fruity drinks came to about $55 total with tip.
Just as we were leaving the restaurant, I saw Angy and Marty wandering through the 'neighborhood' there in the restaurant area of NYNY, so we flagged 'em down. They were heading back up to our room so that Angy could change, so we said we'd catch up to them a little later and all head over to the Rio together. We told them to come find us at the Pai Gow table.
Sticky and I got to play for about 45 minutes or so before they found us again, and the four of us wandered the casino a bit, window shopping for overpriced Rolex watches and availing ourselves to the services of the temporary bars they have set up in various spots around the casino.
Marty and I had to use the facilities at one point, and we got a good laugh when we were following this chick all the way into the men's room. She totally passed up the entrance to the ladies room, and we were walking behind her saying "Oh, this is gonna be good..." She walked in, saw all the dudes standing at the urinals, and the panicked look on her face was priceless. Of course we started laughing, and she gave us a look like "Thanks a lot, dicks..." before scurrying out.
We finally caught a cab over to the Rio to meet up with the rest of the buffoons from T2V, the plan was to meet up at Bamboleo for drinks, then go up to the Voodoo Lounge. But Sticky and I had absolutely no desire to go to Voodoo, so our plan was to make an appearance, then ditch everyone and go gambling. It's not that we didn't want to hang out with the crowd, it's just that going to Voodoo Lounge has run it's course as far as I'm concerned--it's like every time the gang gets together, we just *have* to go to Voodoo. But my attitude is now 'been there, done that' and neither Sticky or I felt like paying a $20 cover charge for a place where you can't sit down unless you pay $350 for 'bottle service' and drinks cost nine bucks a pop if you don't.
Anyhow, the four of us headed up to the restaurant, but instead of hanging out in the lounge, everyone else was sitting down to dinner. Since the four of us had already eaten, we just stayed long enough to say hello to everyone and then we took off for greener pastures. Another reason not to go to the Rio on the weekends, we soon realized, that it was impossible to find a table with less than $25 minimums that had seats available. We wandered the entire casino looking for some Pai Gow or even cheap blackjack, but there was none to be had.
We finally settled on four seats at the Rapid Roulette pit, and spent a little bit of time watching the ball chase our numbers. I actually did pretty well in the half-hour or so that we were there, more than doubling up my $60 buy-in. Marty didn't hit a damn thing, Sticky lost a bit, and Angy was just happy to be there. After cashing out, we split up. Angy and Marty took off to find the rest of the crowd, while Sticky and I hit a penny machine or two. We also made a quick stop at Starbucks, and while waiting for our drinks to be prepared, we decided to bail on the Rio and get some gambling done elsewhere.
We caught a cab back to NYNY and immediately walked over to the valet and picked up my truck. Since Sticky is addicted to anything Vegas on TV, she wanted to go check out Green Valley Ranch after watching every episode of American Casino these past couple of years. I was cool with that, so we headed out towards Henderson.
Once we got on the freeway, it's only about a ten minute drive out to GVR. I hadn't been there in almost a year, so it took me a few minutes of circling around to find the valet entrance, but once we did we dropped off the truck and headed inside.
For those of you that have never been, Green Valley Ranch is a beautiful casino/resort, every bit as much a flagship property as Red Rock, and can certainly compete with anything the Strip has to offer. We wandered a bit, but eventually made our way to the pit and found a couple of seats at a $10 Pai Gow table.
By this time, Sticky was a Pai Gow pro, and needed very little input from me on how to set her hand, so she was ready to go. We both bought in for a hundred bucks, and I told the floor supervisor to put all of our play on my Boarding Pass card.
It was a grind at first, lots of pushing and losing, and I remember that it wasn't until we'd been at the table for an hour and a half that I'd won my third hand of the night. I was down to my last $15 bet out of $300 before I finally turned it around and started to win again. Sticky pretty much broke even the whole time, taking advantage of the free smokes and attentive cocktail service. I switched back to bottled water after about three hours, and it took us almost five hours of grinding away before I got back ahead of the game.
It was about 3:00 in the morning before we stopped, and I walked with a $15 profit. And a $60 average bet, according to the floor. Not a bad evening at all.
We made our way back to Gotham-in-the-desert, and played even more Pai Gow, this time winning a bit more in an hour or so. Since the truck was parked for the night, I had some catching up to do and we kept the cocktail waitress busy.
Eventually, we saw some familiar faces stumbling through the crowd, and a very inebriated crew of Sin, Angy, Shock, and Patti found us. Angy was good and silly, and they left her in our care before taking off and heading back to their hotels. Apparently, she'd lost her room key and her name wasn't listed on the room, so the front desk wouldn't give her a spare.
So we wrapped up our gambling for the night, cashed out our winnings at the cage, and the three of us headed up to the room. It took awhile, but eventually we all got changed and went to bed, although the sun was coming up before we finally quit laughing and being silly and actually got some sleep.
Saturday had been a ridiculously long day, and we were exhausted. As we were about to pass out on the bed, I leaned over to Sticky and whispered the most romantic thing I could come up with...
Sometimes, I wish you were a Korean midget.
What?
Yeah, then I could have you walk on my back!
We giggled for a few minutes and finally fell asleep to the sound of Angy's snoring.
I don't know how long we slept, but when I woke up again, Sticky was putting her shoes on, saying she was craving fresh donuts, saying she'd be right back. I turned on the tv to 'watch' some of the early NFL game, but dozed off as soon as she left the room. When I woke up again, she was walking in carrying a tray of coffee and a bag of Krispy Kremes. Gotta love her for that.
Angy started to stir about that time, and while we drank coffee and munched on donuts, we tried to put together the pieces of the night before. It was an enjoyable conversation, and we also took stock of our winnings for the weekend. At that point I realized I was up almost $500.
Even with the coffee and donuts in our systems, we were still moving very slowly. Angy was pretty much stuck to her pillow, but Sticky and I get dressed and went downstairs to play some more Pai Gow.
We should've just stayed in bed watching football, because I suffered another one of those smackdowns that only seems to happen when Doc Al is watching. In two hours I lost over $300 of my winnings. It was an awful beating. If I had a full house, the dealer would pull a flush with a pair, if I had two pair, the dealer would get three. I couldn't win a hand to save my life. I was getting decent cards, but the dealer always had just enough to beat me. I finally said enough is enough when I got a strong two pair--Jacks over Kings--and watched in horror as the dealer snagged my $40 bet when she turned over Queens over Aces.
I'd had enough. About that time, Angy came downstairs dragging her suitcase, heading for the airport. We took a few pictures and said our goodbyes, and if the beatdown wasn't enough to depress me a little, Angy's leaving did the job.
Sticky and I decided to quit gambling for a while, and she wanted to get some shopping done down at the Desert Passage at Aladdin. Me, I wanted more sleep, so we went our separate ways. On the way back to the room, I was starving--two donuts earlier that morning didn't do the trick at all, so I stopped at the Chinese food stand and got me a teriyaki beef rice bowl to go. I sat up in the room munching on that before passing out in front of the late game and catching a couple of hours of much-needed sleep.
Just as I was getting in the shower, I heard Sticky come stumbling in with her shopping bags. While I got dressed and ready for work, she told me about her afternoon at the Aladdin.
I just had *no* desire to go to work that night, but there was no way out of it. But I told Sticky that I was likely to be able to get out around midnight and that I'd give her a call--word on the street was that the buffoons were gathering down on Fremont Street later that evening, and I certainly wanted to join them.
Work was nice and slow that night, and by 11pm I was standing on a dead blackjack table. I looked around to see six other dead games in the pit, and figured it was only a matter of time before I got cut loose. I was second on the early-out list, and as soon as they told me to bring the lid up on my game, I knew I was ten minutes away from freedom.
I punched out at midnight, got in the truck and pointed it towards Fremont Street. Sticky didn't hear her phone ring, but Larry the surfing sailor, sitting right next to her at the time, heard his. They told me to meet them down at the Vegas Club, and twenty minutes later I was standing behind them at the table with a beer in my hand.
The gang had completely taken over their own Pai Gow table, as Sticky had spread the gospel to a willing congregation. Unfortunately, all seats were taken, but after the morning's beat-down, I was more than content to just watch and offer my own unique brand of commentary. There was a good laugh when Larry had the cocktail waitress deliver a Shirley Temple to Silversmiff at the next table, but what happened after that has haunted my nightmares ever since...
Silversmiff, after being the butt of the joke, got up and walked over to Larry, who was pinned in at the first-base seat of the Pai Gow table, and proceeded to get right up in his face and try to deliver a sloppy wet kiss right on the mouth. Larry hadn't been at sea *that* long and started to panic and lean back and away, but Smiff would not be denied until he got his tongue right up on Larry's mouth.
Talk about creepy...
After that, it was just a little too weird there at the table, so Sticky and I got up and headed for the dice game, while Larry spent a few minutes in the men's room with a bottle of bleach doing his This-is-what-the-dude-in-The-Crying-Game-must've-felt-like routine.
We played craps for about a half hour or so, but couldn't get anything going at all. And Dora, who *used* to be my favorite cocktail waitress is totally on my shiat list for coming up and tugging on my arm while I was throwing the dice, causing me to Seven out. That's a serious faux pas.
Anyhow, after that, we decided to try our luck elsewhere. Thinking that the Golden Gate had a $3 game going, we walked over there. Whoops, we forgot that they shut it down late at night, so we were denied. Instead we walked over to Binions and bought in to a dead game. We hadn't even gotten all of our checks from the dealer before the table completely filled up.
Larry and I continued our crummy dice-throwing, but Sticky had a great roll that earned us some cash. Of course by that time we were all pretty loopy--but they were way ahead of me. The dice worked their way around the table, grinding us down, but we caught a few numbers here and there.
I remember one bit of good comedy, as one of the most annoying players ever showed up at the other end of the table, not knowing a thing about the game, but getting her hands and hitting the dice in flight, causing a seven out. Everyone was pretty pissed about that, but she kept at it, holding up the game, getting her bets in late, and just being a nuisance. It didn't help that she was a nasty old skank with waaaaay too many miles on her, either.
But when the call was "Four, easy four!" when she was shooting, she stopped the whole game, again, and wouldn't roll, asking What do you mean by easy four? I don't get it. What's an easy four?
The stickman, already fed up with her, looked our direction and said "I think we have an easy four shooting the dice..."
That got a lot of laughs at our end, and everyone pretty much started bagging on her until she inevitably sevened out.
By that time, we'd had enough dice. We wandered a bit and took seats at the only Pai Gow table in the joint, but didn't last an hour. We just couldn't win. I think Sticky won a buck or two, but Larry and I had some sorry luck.
We decided to call it a night, and offered to take Larry back to the Flamingo on our way back to NYNY. After visiting the cage, it was off to the valet to wait for the truck. As soon as we sat down on the bench, it was derailment time for Sticky--all of the drinks she'd had that evening caught up to her. The world started spinning, and I was afraid of the imminent mess.
We got in the truck, and as long as she kept her head down and eyes closed, she was ok. I broke the land speed record to the Flamingo, dropped off Larry, and then we headed back to NYNY. The only thing I heard coming from the passenger's seat was a slight moaning and the occasional Sticky drunk....
I was seriously worried about her redecorating the interior of my new truck, ruining that new-car smell once and for all, especially after hearing Please, no more speedbumps, but we made it back to our hotel without a mishap. Once we got out, stood up, and took a deep breath of fresh air, she was fine--like nothing happened.
We made it back to the room and got to bed with only a few minor mishaps--as she rolled off the bed and got wedged between it and the wall. Sticky down! was all she said, and it was pretty much all I could do to not crack up and just leave her there. But I got her unstuck, and after a bottle of water and some aspirin, we shared a good laugh.
The next morning, however, wasn't so funny. I felt like a Zombie, and the taste in my mouth certainly reminded me of the undead. Sticky was up an hour before me and while I happily snoozed away, she'd gotten dressed and packed, ready to head back to O-Canada. She was kind enough to let me sleep until just a couple minutes before we were due to check out, but I finally got up, cleaned up, got dressed and packed my bags too.
We did the whole video check-out thing on the tv, then dragged our asses to the valet. We needed coffee, badly, and some good morning-after food, and we pretty much stood there in silence with the rest of the Leaving Las Vegas contingent waiting for my truck to show up.
Having had such a great time at Green Valley Ranch on Saturday night, we decided to go back there and kill the four hours or so until Sticky had to be at the airport. So back to Henderson we went, and a few minutes later we were waiting for a table at the Original Pancake House.
After the much-needed coffee was delivered, we spent some time going over the menu. I opted for pancakes and bacon, while Sticky went with eggs, hashbrowns, and toast. While waiting for the food to arrive, a random lady from another table walked up to us and handed me a coupon for Buy One Get One Free, so our breakfast bill was instantly cut in half. As soon as she laid it down, Sticky grabbed the coupon and said "Breakfast is on me!" Woo hoo! I don't know why, but both of us couldn't stop giggling about it. We must've still been pretty tired.
The food arrived, and it was excellent. If you order pancakes there at the Original Pancake House, they bring you a plate covered with six of them. Oh hell yeah. But they weren't really heavy--nice and light enough that you could *almost* finish them. And Sticky's hashbrowns were probably the best we've ever had. Even better than the my favorites at the Peppermill.
As hungover and tired as we were, that meal was just the ticket. It was better than we expected, and even without the coupon, it was still a good value, and I'm looking forward to another visit. I think the total bill came to like twelve bucks, but you'll have to ask Sticky how much that is in Canadian money. But the waitress was happy with her 50% tip.
After breakfast, we had three hours to kill, so we headed over to the Pai Gow tables. We both bought in for a hundred bucks, and I asked for another cigarette comp for Sticky. They were out of tokens, so they wrote me a comp ticket for the gift shop. I stumbled over there and back, not realizing till I sat down that the lady in the gift shop had given me SIX packs of cigarettes instead of just one. Whoops. She misread the comp ticket--instead of six dollars, she thought it said six packs. I offered to give 'em back, but the floor supervisor said to just go ahead and keep them. Of course, after that, the dealer asked her to write him a cigarette comp too.
We had a very enjoyable afternoon there at the Pai Gow table, not losing much, not winning much either. By that time it was all fruit juice, coffee, or bottled water from the cocktail waitress, but we finally started to wake up.
I almost had a full-on panic attack there at the table. On one hand I turned my cards over to see the four through nine of hearts, all in order. At first glance I thought I had a 7-card Straight Flush, paying 8000-1. Unfortunately, there was an eight of spades in there too. But sitting right next to me, Sticky had the ten of hearts in her hand. Wow. I think I had two bucks on the bonus, so I was this close to winning 16 grand...
Can you even imagine?
Oh well, I still got paid 50-1 for my straight flush, but for a moment there I was living the dream!
A few hands later we called it a day, cashing out just north of even. We went to the cage, got our money, and the realization hit us that our Not Sober-Fest weekend had come to an end. A few minutes later we were back at the airport saying our sad goodbyes, already counting down the days to March Madness.
Sticky waved goodbye as I drove away, and although I needed a nap before heading back to work again, I would've done it all over again the next day, given half a chance.
We had a great time.
Mikey
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