Thursday, January 13, 2005
Jan 13th - 16th 2005 Trip Report: Part Three
Saturday
Saturday morning we had all planned to grab the breakfast buffet at Main Street Station. Like the Peppermill, it has become one place I try to stop at on every trip. Their breakfast steak is always delicious and the omlette guy who prepares it is very entertaining. We soon discovered that Susie and Mike had stayed up very late the previous evening and had gotten steak and eggs at the Golden Gate at 2am so they weren't exactly in the mood for another big meal. We headed over there by ourselves and by the time we got back Mike and Susie were ready for their first taste of the El Cortez. My sister and I love cheap roulette and I had been telling her for the last two years that she needed to go to the El Cortez to experience the cheapest roulette around. The cheapness is only one part of the appeal of course; you really can't match the El Cortez for its weird, gritty atmosphere and its unsavory characters. Play roulette at the El Cortez for a good 30 minutes and you are guaranteed to see quite a few. Drunks throwing chips all over the table, vagrants possibly throwing UP on the table, bitter chain smoking old ladies, and always, ALWAYS, some disheveled guy staring wild eyed at the roulette wheel and frantically scribbling down the winning numbers on a piece of paper. These are the guys who have a Roulette System. They watch it for a few spins and then invariably spread tons of chips all over the board and bust out like everyone else. It never fails. I shouldn’t mock them because it could be me some day. It takes a brave soul to venture down to the El Cortez but unlike, say, the Western or the Gold Spike you aren't creeped out to the point that you want to run screaming for the exits and you’ll always walk away with a good story.
So we head towards the couple of scary blocks separating the El Cortez from the Experience and find a very large parade blocking our path. It's not every day that happens. We did have a flyer in our room informing us there would be a Martin Luther King Day parade on Saturday from 10am to 2pm which to me looked like a typo. How could a parade last for four hours? Well this one didn't, it lasted for five and half! We saw the last remnants of it at 3:30 in the afternoon. Apparently they take MLK day very seriously in Vegas. Either that or they do this for every holiday. Luckily there were lots of breaks in the parade (maybe a reason for the length) and they were letting people cross the street in groups. We get to the 'Tez and all buy in for $20 at roulette. You've got to love 25 cent roulette; where else does a $20 buy in make you look like a millionaire? Andrea and Susie wandered off after a while but Mike and I kept plugging happily along on our twenty bucks. After a while, I came up with my own foolproof Roulette System. I can't give you all the details unless you pay me lots of money but trust me, I've tried many systems at the El Cortez and this one was the best. It basically came down to putting a few chips on just one number that hadn’t come up in a long time and throwing down a few other bets each spin just to cover your losses. Not exactly brain surgery I know but what I had decided was that I was going to absolutely stick with just the one number until it came up. Well it worked… first with 19, then 34, then 20, then 14. Eventually we got the whole table to put chips on the number we were willing to come up. I walked away from the table two hours later with $90. Not bad for a $20 buy in on quarter roulette!
It was a good thing I won it too because my luck took a turn for the worse after we got back to Fitz. I gave most of it right back at the blackjack and Let It Ride tables. I also tried some new gimmicky table game I remember seeing at Fitz last time, I forget the name but it claims to be a Texas Hold'em type game. Its really just Let It Ride in reverse. You get two cards and increase your bet if you want to see the flop. A quick $40 loss convinced me to stay away. I also fufilled a life long dream and finally found out what a deep fried Twinkie tastes like. Mermaids has been advertising them for a couple of years now but I've never had the nerve to try one. I used some of my winnings to buy food at their snack bar for everyone and we soon found they tasted more or less like funnel cakes. Strangely, they bear absolutely no resemblance to the twinkies on the sign out front.
Later that day, we caught the bus to the Strip. Mike has an uncle that works as a bartender at Bally’s and he and Susie planned to visit him later in the evening. Before doing that we walked through Bellagio and saw the current conservatory display, which was a celebration of the Chinese New Year. It was stunning as always. My sister took a few pictures of Andrea and me for our parents and then we went out and grabbed a spot to watch the fountain show. I'd seen bits and pieces of it before but never the whole thing. I was surprised to learn that it was only one song! The song was Frank Sinatra's version of "Luck Be A Lady Tonight" and it was certainly impressive but I always thought it lasted longer.
After this we all agreed we needed some real food. We wanted something good and cheap and quickly realized we were in exactly the wrong part of the strip to find that. After walking through Bally's and Barbary Coast (Barbary Coast has no cheap restaurants??? Who knew?) we ended up at some place in the Flamingo. The prices were still a little high - ten bucks for a Cobb Salad? - but we soon found out that the portions were monstrous! We split a mountain of nachos and none of us managed to finish the salads. After that, we left Susie and Mike to their drinking and took the bus back downtown. Andrea went to the room to take a nap and I decided to wander around Freemont Street taking in the sights. I got one of those monster frozen drinks from La Bayou and walked around enjoying the buzz. I just love being on Freemont Street at night and I wanted to enjoy it one last time on this trip since I knew Sunday night we'd be trying like hell to get home. I lost money at Binions while watching their new singing cowgirl show then headed back to Fitz and lost money while watching the loud cover band play. It was all quite enjoyable until the buzz wore off and I realized how much I had spent. So I took the last $40 I had on me over to the Fitz Let It Ride table for one more go. I expected it to evaporate quickly but apparently my luck had returned. I hit a flush once again, with a side bet which paid out $50 alone! After a nice long session I colored up for a black chip and headed upstairs to bed.
Saturday morning we had all planned to grab the breakfast buffet at Main Street Station. Like the Peppermill, it has become one place I try to stop at on every trip. Their breakfast steak is always delicious and the omlette guy who prepares it is very entertaining. We soon discovered that Susie and Mike had stayed up very late the previous evening and had gotten steak and eggs at the Golden Gate at 2am so they weren't exactly in the mood for another big meal. We headed over there by ourselves and by the time we got back Mike and Susie were ready for their first taste of the El Cortez. My sister and I love cheap roulette and I had been telling her for the last two years that she needed to go to the El Cortez to experience the cheapest roulette around. The cheapness is only one part of the appeal of course; you really can't match the El Cortez for its weird, gritty atmosphere and its unsavory characters. Play roulette at the El Cortez for a good 30 minutes and you are guaranteed to see quite a few. Drunks throwing chips all over the table, vagrants possibly throwing UP on the table, bitter chain smoking old ladies, and always, ALWAYS, some disheveled guy staring wild eyed at the roulette wheel and frantically scribbling down the winning numbers on a piece of paper. These are the guys who have a Roulette System. They watch it for a few spins and then invariably spread tons of chips all over the board and bust out like everyone else. It never fails. I shouldn’t mock them because it could be me some day. It takes a brave soul to venture down to the El Cortez but unlike, say, the Western or the Gold Spike you aren't creeped out to the point that you want to run screaming for the exits and you’ll always walk away with a good story.
So we head towards the couple of scary blocks separating the El Cortez from the Experience and find a very large parade blocking our path. It's not every day that happens. We did have a flyer in our room informing us there would be a Martin Luther King Day parade on Saturday from 10am to 2pm which to me looked like a typo. How could a parade last for four hours? Well this one didn't, it lasted for five and half! We saw the last remnants of it at 3:30 in the afternoon. Apparently they take MLK day very seriously in Vegas. Either that or they do this for every holiday. Luckily there were lots of breaks in the parade (maybe a reason for the length) and they were letting people cross the street in groups. We get to the 'Tez and all buy in for $20 at roulette. You've got to love 25 cent roulette; where else does a $20 buy in make you look like a millionaire? Andrea and Susie wandered off after a while but Mike and I kept plugging happily along on our twenty bucks. After a while, I came up with my own foolproof Roulette System. I can't give you all the details unless you pay me lots of money but trust me, I've tried many systems at the El Cortez and this one was the best. It basically came down to putting a few chips on just one number that hadn’t come up in a long time and throwing down a few other bets each spin just to cover your losses. Not exactly brain surgery I know but what I had decided was that I was going to absolutely stick with just the one number until it came up. Well it worked… first with 19, then 34, then 20, then 14. Eventually we got the whole table to put chips on the number we were willing to come up. I walked away from the table two hours later with $90. Not bad for a $20 buy in on quarter roulette!
It was a good thing I won it too because my luck took a turn for the worse after we got back to Fitz. I gave most of it right back at the blackjack and Let It Ride tables. I also tried some new gimmicky table game I remember seeing at Fitz last time, I forget the name but it claims to be a Texas Hold'em type game. Its really just Let It Ride in reverse. You get two cards and increase your bet if you want to see the flop. A quick $40 loss convinced me to stay away. I also fufilled a life long dream and finally found out what a deep fried Twinkie tastes like. Mermaids has been advertising them for a couple of years now but I've never had the nerve to try one. I used some of my winnings to buy food at their snack bar for everyone and we soon found they tasted more or less like funnel cakes. Strangely, they bear absolutely no resemblance to the twinkies on the sign out front.
Later that day, we caught the bus to the Strip. Mike has an uncle that works as a bartender at Bally’s and he and Susie planned to visit him later in the evening. Before doing that we walked through Bellagio and saw the current conservatory display, which was a celebration of the Chinese New Year. It was stunning as always. My sister took a few pictures of Andrea and me for our parents and then we went out and grabbed a spot to watch the fountain show. I'd seen bits and pieces of it before but never the whole thing. I was surprised to learn that it was only one song! The song was Frank Sinatra's version of "Luck Be A Lady Tonight" and it was certainly impressive but I always thought it lasted longer.
After this we all agreed we needed some real food. We wanted something good and cheap and quickly realized we were in exactly the wrong part of the strip to find that. After walking through Bally's and Barbary Coast (Barbary Coast has no cheap restaurants??? Who knew?) we ended up at some place in the Flamingo. The prices were still a little high - ten bucks for a Cobb Salad? - but we soon found out that the portions were monstrous! We split a mountain of nachos and none of us managed to finish the salads. After that, we left Susie and Mike to their drinking and took the bus back downtown. Andrea went to the room to take a nap and I decided to wander around Freemont Street taking in the sights. I got one of those monster frozen drinks from La Bayou and walked around enjoying the buzz. I just love being on Freemont Street at night and I wanted to enjoy it one last time on this trip since I knew Sunday night we'd be trying like hell to get home. I lost money at Binions while watching their new singing cowgirl show then headed back to Fitz and lost money while watching the loud cover band play. It was all quite enjoyable until the buzz wore off and I realized how much I had spent. So I took the last $40 I had on me over to the Fitz Let It Ride table for one more go. I expected it to evaporate quickly but apparently my luck had returned. I hit a flush once again, with a side bet which paid out $50 alone! After a nice long session I colored up for a black chip and headed upstairs to bed.// posted by Captain Al Cohol @ 9:13 PM 
