Viva Las Vegas!

Johnny enjoys Old Vegas

It's Wednesday and we're still recovering from our trip to Vegas over Veteran's Day weekend. Last Thursday was a very long day for us... up and out of bed by 5:30 AM, out the door by 6:00 AM to go to work. After a long day of work, we came home to pick up luggage and headed to the airport. The flight was about 4 1/2 hours and we landed around 11:00 PM Vegas time. It took half an hour or so to get a taxi and then the real FUN started when we got to our hotel, Excalibur. Their reservation system was down and it was another hour and 45 minutes before we were in our room. East coast time: it was 4:30 AM. John and I had been up for 23 hours. Poor Johnny... he was like the walking dead.

After a coma-like sleep, we woke up and met the rest of the gang, who were staying at Mandalay Bay, for one of Vegas' famous buffets. YUMMO, as Rachael Ray would say. I didn't eat my $12.75 worth of food (sorry, Freddy), but I would highly recommend that buffet. We checked out the giant slot machine and Lena won pretty big after $6.00 and 2 pulls. What a way to start off the weekend! I should have taken a chance on that machine but walked right by it. Nuts! We checked out the hotel and here's Freddy enjoying some of the sculpture:


Three boobs

Afterwards, we hopped into 2 taxis (some weird 5 passengers per car Nevada law! Boo!) and headed to Old Vegas. I hear it's really awesome at night. Maybe next time. After visiting all the infamous casinos, the gang settled on the Four Queens and had a Blackjack table all to themselves. I think William amd Irene did pretty well.

We headed back to the Strip and the gang enjoyed Mandalay Bay's pool/beach while John and I napped back at our hotel. We met up again for dinner at the prime rib joint at Excalibur. It's been a long time since I've had prime rib... and boy was it yummy! Sadly, my stomach was suffering from the traveling blues, so I couldn't fully enjoy my dinner the way Mike did.


Mike polishes off every morsel


John, Jal, Fred, Irene, William, Mike, Shaun and Lena

An after dinner nap prepared me for meeting up with cousin Kara who was flying in from Chicago. She met us at Mandalay Bay and played Blackjack with the guys. Her friends, Greg and Brian, were playing over at Excalibur and stopped by to say HI. It wasn't long before John and I lost all pep and headed back to our room. At some point in the wee hours, Kara popped in and crashed too.

One word of advice if you ever go to Vegas... bring comfy shoes! I wore my work loafers, which was a good idea for getting through airport security, as I didn't have to deal with laces. For walking the strip, however... bad times. I should have packed my favorite Reef flip-flops or my blue Nikes. A tired, hungry, achy-toed Jal is no fun. I wish we had more time to do and see more of the hotels on the Strip, but I did get to see the water show at Bellagio.


Enjoying the dancing water at Bellagio


Where's Johnny hiding?

A double decker bus ride back to the hotel was the highlight of the afternoon... an old lady got caught getting out of her seat by the driver. John and I headed to dinner and went back to William's room to chill out before our red-eye flight home. Rosanna and Brent came into town Saturday afternoon from SD, so the crew partied on into the evening, I'm sure. John and I were back home and in bed by 7:00 AM Sunday morning. It's great to be home. 2 days in Vegas is too short, but I'm sure a week would be too long. Despite the rocky beginning with the hotel check-in snafu, we had a blast and I would certainly do this trip with this group again!

Note to BHL: Didn't you know turkey is the official sandwich of Vegas hookers?