Woke up far to early for my tastes on Thursday morning and headed over to Flights at the Miracle Mile for the VMB meetup. I made the initial reservation for 14 based on the people stating they would be there on the meet up thread, but it turned out to only be six of us. No worries on my end…it’s Vegas. Plans change, people lose track of time and shit happens.
It turned out to be a lovely meet with some great peeps and I really enjoyed myself a lot. Flights is a pretty cool place if you get the chance to go. It’s an airplane theme but “Flights” also refers to how they serve their drinks and food. I had a flight of mojitos and split a flight of breakfast hash with Rob and Aussieonthemove and then Rob, Martin and I split some sort of ice cream lava cake deliciousness. I didn’t think to take any pics of the food because I was starving, but we did get a pic of the group.
Once we all dispersed, I hit up LUSH at the mall to get a refill of my cuticle cream and we headed back up to the room. We laid around for a couple of hours before getting ready to head downtown for the night.
The hubs had recently reconnected with a friend of his from either elementary school or jr high on Facebook and she had just moved to Vegas a few years ago. We met up with her for ice cream last year and had a great time so we put out an invitation to her and her husband to meet up at any point this trip. They said they wanted to join us for when we hit Downtown to do the Mob Museum.
We caught The Deuce downtown and it took forever. It’s not the first time we’ve used the bus, but we had forgotten how long it takes when it’s busy. We noted to ourselves to Uber next time while grinning and bearing it.
We got there before our friends so we slotted around for a bit with no real wins but no great losses either and then met them at the Mob Museum around six.
We had never been, but it had been on our list for a couple of years. We really enjoyed it and while we stayed for two hours, we all felt that we really could have had another go ’round and see a lot of things we may have missed. It’s a LOT of information.
At the end we went down to the Speakeasy in the basement, but due to the lack of food (it was all appetizers), our friends didn’t want to stay as they were starving. I was kind of bummed because I wanted to have a drink or two and absorb the ambiance of it, but I understood that they had come straight from work and it was a weeknight for them…plus they were down to walk the block or two to Nacho Daddy and that was another place that we had never been but was on our list to try.
Once again I took a buncha pics at the Mob Museum so I will post a few here and leave a link to a photo album with the rest.
Link to the rest of the photos: Mob Museum Pics
At Nacho Daddy, Rob and I split the southern fried chicken nachos and they were really good.
Once our bellies were full we parted ways and we headed back to the hotel on the bus.
Bonus photo below is one of those photo kiosks at the Mob Museum. We were legit looking like this when we tried to figure out how to take the photo and then thought it was funny enough to stage it like that for the actual photo.
Friday morning Rob let me sleep in until ten. He probably would have let me sleep in longer but I got a damn spam call on my phone and I had forgotten to turn the ringer off so I was blasted awake at ten by my obnoxious, but super catchy Adam Lambert ringtone. Remind me to change that to something more soothing before I go on vacation again…
This was our last day in Vegas and we didn’t have a whole lot planned. Our thoughts before bed the night before were to bus it down to the Peppermill, but this morning I decided I didn’t want to go any place that wasn’t within walking distance. We had had a late night and I have super anxiety on a good day, but when I’m sleep deprived it gets worse…public transit is not a friend to my heightened sense of anxiety.
So I made the executive decision that we would lay around for about and hour and then go over to Cosmo for some final gambles, followed by the Bellagio Conservatory and finally a late lunch at Mon Ami Gabi.
And that is just what we did.
So I have to say that this may be the only time that Rob and I ever left Vegas UP on our gambling budget. We take what we are prepared to lose and we are not big gamblers so inevitably, we usually leave most of it in Vegas.
Having said that, I LOVE THE COSMOPOLITAN!!! We gambled there for about an hour for the first time at the start of our trip and had the only winning session of the trip until today upon our return. I stuck a 20 into a Buffalo machine and came out 300 bucks richer. I’m sorry that I didn’t snap a picture of the machine or the ticket out, but it happened so fast and there was a guy on the next machine betting like 50 bucks a hand and I didn’t want to look like the geek that I am. Also, Rob came up as the second bonus in a row was finishing and I cashed out to show him the amount I had just won and he literally grabbed it and said “I’m gonna go cash it out, be right back!” before I could even try to get a picture. I think he was afraid I was going to stick it back in the machine and play it off.
After that I slotted around a bit with no real losses until we decided to head out. I felt like I was on a high from winning that much and I was going to ruin it if i just kept putting the same 20 into different machines.
We were about to pass through to the corridor to the outside when Rob made a comment that this side of the casino was totally quiet. I looked over and saw an empty Flintstones machine. I told him I wanted to play a 20 through that machine and he was agreeable so …
We actually won another 70 or so but we played it out so I could finish my cocktail as the machine went cold.
Left a casino in good spirits for once and headed over to the Bellagio.
Once again, I took a bunch of pics that I don’t want to clutter the blog with so I will post a few and put a link to an album with all the pictures.
After that we boogied over to Mon Ami Gabi for a late lunch. It was around three in the afternoon so we had no problem getting seated on the patio…although it was quite a bit off to the side, right next to the servers/bus boys station so I could hear them talk about their conquests of the previous night while we waited for the meal.
We didn’t want to be super full so we got the baked goat cheese and the trout almondine to split. It was so super yummy.
Fat and happy, we returned to our home at Bally’s to start packing. After a week, our stuff was pretty spread out all over the room so it would take a while to wrangle it all into our luggage.
Around six or so we got a tap on the door and Housekeeping came in to do a welfare check. Apparently if you haven’t had your room serviced in 48 hours, they have to come in an make sure you haven’t offed yourself or started making some sort of weapon of mass destruction. I’m totally cool with this, I’d just never had it happen while we were in the room. We had been getting the room serviced every other day but since we were so near the end of the trip, when they called this morning I told them we were fine today.
The lady came in, and put up with our jokes about how trashed the room looked because we were packing. She walked to the middle of the room, looked at the ceiling, and then over to the window and looked out. Then picked up our room phone and dialed some sort of number and told us to have a great night before leaving.
I realize now the reason she probably moved toward the window was because Rob had his RC Car dismantled on one of the stools they offer and it probably looked really suspicious.
Saturday morning Rob let me sleep in a little longer than planned and we headed out on the road around nine thirtyish.
Here are a couple pics of the progress on the Raider’s Stadium.
We made it to Jean without incident and hit up the “World’s Largest Cheveron Station” on the side of what used to be Nevada Landing. We discovered it last year and it is a wonderland of gas stations…like, it is HUGE and has so many fun things inside that you could probably spend a good part of a day just exploring it. I believe it is officially called Terrible’s Roadhouse.
I took a crap-ton of pics at usual, so here are a few and I will link to an album.
Once we got back on the road it was a fairly painless drive to Tehachapi, except when some jackhole tried to run us off the road and I had the worlds biggest panic attack. We made it to our friends house around two and found out that the other people that we were going to know there, had last minute issues and wouldn’t be showing up.
Rob and I are socially awkward on a GOOD day, but we managed to hang out and have a great time. Also, there were dogs.
After the party and resumed the drive home without much fanfare. We got home to a FREEZING house (Okay, not REALLY freezing for you east coasters but we had to shut off our space heaters before we left and they take forever to heat up again…so I was sitting in my bedroom typing this with fluffy slippers, sweats, a robe and a winter hat on my head. Fight me bro!
Okay, that brings this trip report to a close.
I had a really good time this trip but I think next year we might mix it up a bit and stay a few less days. If we do that we will probably fly and it will all work out. I hit my “I’m ready to go home” vibe around day six or so and while I am glad we stayed longer to recoup our money, I was pretty much done.
The thing is, after all the trips we have taken to Vegas together in the last 20 years, we are running out of things to do and as I age, I am running out of patience with being around so many people. Also, I don’t recover like I used to from a long night or several drinks.
Next year is our 20 year wedding anniversary and it is significant to Vegas because that is where we met and also got married (not on the same trip!) so we will visit Vegas, but we are already talking about breaking it up with a trip to Disney or Universal…of course that may change in 11 months when I am bit by the Vegas bug once again.
I am a 40 something married woman living in California.