Adventures In Vegas

Thursday

You know those movies sequels where the action picks up right where the previous one left off? They have to rebuild the sets and the actors are a couple of years older but it looks almost, but not quite, like a continuation of the first movie? That's what our latest trip to Vegas felt like. Our last trip was just a few months ago, September of 2004. We had spent two nights staying at the Tropicana then traveled downtown to spend the last two at the Golden Nugget. As nice as the Nugget was to stay at, we certainly weren't their target audience where the gambling was concerned. We ended up doing most of it at Fitzgeralds after my then girlfriend (now fiancée!) discovered a very generous Loose Deuces nickel video poker machine which paid her $125 jackpots two days in a row. It was a fun place with a party atmosphere and we pretty much decided at the time that we would stay there on our next trip. We got their players club card and racked up as many points at the blackjack tables and video poker machines as our limited gambling budgets would allow; faintly hoping we'd receive some kind of room offer in the mail. About two months after that trip (or approximately three weeks after giving up hope of receiving anything from them) we got an offer from Fitz. THREE nights free stay, weekend nights no less, plus a special dinner and surprise gift to celebrate our "special day". I'd never gotten comped more than free drinks during my four trips to Vegas so this was a huge surprise! We weren't too sure about the whole vagueness of the "special day" thing, all we could figure is that Andrea's birthday was in January and she had put that down when she signed up for the card. I called Fitz just to make sure that we weren't going to be obligated to sit through a time share seminar or something (you never know) and after a one sided battle against common sense and the household budget, I booked the cheapest flight I could find back to The Greatest City In The World. Our last trip ended with a redeye flight out on a Friday night after spending all week in Vegas. We were exhausted and aching to go home, trapped downtown without a hotel room to retreat to as the new crop of weekend partygoers started to pack Freemont Street. Now here we were, coming back to Freemont Street on a Thursday evening, tired from the flight but raring to go. If it wasn't for the fact that most people were wearing coats due to the chilly weather it would be hard to believe we had ever left. And feeling like you've never left Vegas is no bad thing. I had cajoled my sister into coming to Vegas with her friend Mike at the same time as us. They had flown in from Boston several hours earlier. She was at the "oxygen bar" kiosk on Freemont Street when we got there. I don't get the point of paying $10 to breathe something you get for free, especially when you could feed that money into a video poker machine instead but whatever does it for you I guess. She had ignored my advice about eating at the Golden Gate café or snack bar after getting there and had decided we were going to get the prime rib special at Magnolia's in the Four Queens. I didn't know how my stomach was going to feel about that so I opted for the sushi instead. The sushi was kind of dry and disappointing but I didn't want to complain too loudly since the sushi chef was only about ten feet away and he had a big knife.

After that it was on to some gambling. I had found a $5 chip for the Four Queens amongst my possessions a couple of weeks earlier and I had decided that I was going to take it to the roulette table and put it on 19 since that’s the number my sister and I usually play. I figured since it was money I didn't know I had, it was worth the risk. Not surprisingly, I lost. After that I sat down and dropped another $20 at the table while my fiancée Andrea struck up a conversation with the amiable dealer (or croupier or whatever you call them) who told us all about how he moved out there from New York since he loved Vegas so much. Is there any other city like this? Is there any other place where people are this happy and excited just to be living in, or would just pick up and move to on the drop of a hat? After that we headed back to Fitz, determined to rack up the points in the hopes that we'd get another offer in the future. (Ohh… so that's how they get you!) I don't remember the details of what we did now, it was a long day, but I was able to enjoy the dumpy little guy who sings karaoke-style cover songs next to the blackjack tables. He's not very good but you have to love his enthusiasm. Susie succumbed to the effects of the prime rib dinner and several drinks and went to bed early, so around midnight Andrea and I took a walk with Mike down to Binions Horseshoe because he had never seen the famous poker room. Andrea had been playing a lot of Texas Holdem online since our last trip and had gotten pretty good at it. I had been telling her, half joking, that she'd be playing at Binions soon. After eyeing up the competition at the table, she decided she was going to go for it. She bought in for $55 and when she made it back to the room two hours later she had nearly doubled it! Not bad considering that it was 3 am our time when she sat down at the poker table!