Viva Las Vegas part two

Henderson Airport

Picking Scott up at the airport turned out to be a breeze after one small wrong turn.    When he got there he informed us that the weather was about to take a turn so he was just going to get a room at the Orleans and spend the night. 

Now, remember in part one where I tried to call mom’s cell phone and it went straight to voice mail?  And how I assumed she just never turned it back on after getting off the plane?  Umm…no.  Mother, for some odd reason, had taken out her cell phone while my Aunt Lee(Auntie Tee) was driving her to the airport and left the phone in her car.

This would have been the first trip where mom had a cell phone, thus making communicating with her a bit easier while she was gambling the night away in the casinos.  Oh well, Rob and I decided it wasn’t the first time she wouldn’t have one so it wasn’t that much of a loss.  But wait!  There’s more!

Instead of leaving well enough alone, mom decided to take matters into her own hands and told Lee to overnight the phone to her at the Golden Nugget.  She had a cell phone, and damn it, she was determined to be able to use it!  🙂

Weeeeelllll….the phone didn’t arrive at the Golden Nugget.  And now mom was checked out of the Golden Nugget.  But mom didn’t tell us any of this until we were on the freeway driving away from the Golden Nugget.  Mom didn’t appear too concerned.  She told us that she had a tracking number and it would go to the GN eventually…but she wasn’t AT the Golden Nugget any longer.

Sighing and agreeing to deal with it later, we picked up Scott and headed back to the Orleans.

When we got to the hotel Rob dropped mom and I off since walking long distances is not my mothers strong suit, and went to park the car.  After trying to check in early we were told there were only three rooms clean and they were all as far away from the elevators as possible.  Not an option for my mother.  She did however tell us that she had a room vacant but not clean near the elevators, and she would put a rush cleaning on it.  She told us to check back in an hour and she would have us all set.  Sounded good to me.

I took mom up to our room in the meantime to park her luggage.  I could tell mom hadn’t had a whole lot of sleep in the last couple of days.  Her MO is to go full force the first couple of days in Vegas and tire herself out to the point of exhaustion.  I got her situated on the couch just as Rob and Scott came in.  Apparently the hotel was completely sold out so getting a room for Scott was not an option.  We offered him our very uncomfortable couch but he said he would just check later since people were bound to be cancelling at some point.

It was almost 11:00 at that point so we decided to head down to the cafe for some brunch.  Scott wanted to try the prime rib here at the hotel because he heard it was pretty good but the Prime Rib Loft didn’t open until so the cafe it was!

Scott and Rob at the Cafe

There was a bit of a line but it moved pretty fast.  It was an okay meal.  Nothing spectacular…typical cafe food.  It did, however, kill enough time to be able to get mom checked into her room after.

We decided though that Since Scott couldn’t fly out that night, that we would be able to take him to the Prime Rib Loft after all so after depositing mom in her room we called and made a reservation for five when they opened.

After that, Scott and Rob decided to take off to Guitar Center for a bit.  With the room to myself, I contemplated a nap but decided since I was going to be eating a large meal fairly soon after the large meal I had just eaten that I should get my lazy butt to the fitness center downstairs.

Dinner at the Prime Rib Loft was nothing short of amazing!  The prime rib was just to die for.  I enjoyed the whole experience very much.  It had the feel of an upscale restaurant but you didn’t have to dress up or drain your wallet.  Definitely a place we will recommend in the future.

With The Orleans still completely booked, Scott managed to find a hotel nearby to spend the night.  I don’t blame him for not wanting to stay on our couch…it wasn’t that comfy.  🙂

After dinner we had to get ready for the show we were seeing that night. 

My husband has been a fan of Richard Cheese for a very long time.  We saw him live once, very briefly when he was the house band at a taping of the Carson Dailey show that was being filmed at the Hard Rock in Las Vegas.  This was many years ago and since they were the house band, they only played about 30 seconds at a time, leading in and out of the commercials.  Not exactly what we had in mind.  So seeing a full live show has been an eight year dream of Rob’s.  Richard Cheese plays Vegas often but it never seemed to fit in with our vacation schedules so we’ve always just missed him.

For those unfamiliar with Richard Cheese, or just to lazy to follow the link, I will explain.  What he does is take

Me at the Green Valley Ranch waiting for the show to start

popular songs, the dirtier the better, and “loungifies” them.  He sets them to a lounge song tempo and sings them with a pleasant voice.  It is better experienced than read about so go ahead and click the link above okay?

Richard Cheese!

Anyway, that night he was playing at the Green Valley Ranch.  I had heard some of the songs he does from Rob’s CD and knew it was funny.  What I didn’t know was that the guy himself is excellent at improv and plays off the crowd so well during and in between the songs.  Rob and I were crying we were laughing so hard.  The kind of laughter where after two hours you are physically exhausted from all the mirth.  Such a good show!

After the show we headed back to the hotel.  We hung out in the room for a little while and decided around one in the morning to go see about getting some food.  As we got off the elevator, we spotted my mother sitting on a bench with a Subway sandwich  bag next to her, furiously searching through her purse.  As we got closer we discovered she was visibly shaking.  She had been out all night gambling and hadn’t eaten of course.  Being diabetic, that is not a good thing.  Her sugar was low and she was running on about 6 hours sleep in the last 48 hours.  She looked a wreck and she apparently couldn’t find her room key.

We fished the card out of her purse and escorted her up to her room because honestly, in the shape she was in I wasn’t sure she could make it the short distance.  In her room we got her settled, made sure she started eating her sandwich and made her promise to stay and go to bed.

The next morning was Sunday and we had no plans.  Mom had strict rules to stay in her room and rest because Monday was our mother daughter day at the Luxor, so we weren’t worried about entertaining her.  I got up and hit the gym and then we decided to go to Fry’s Electronics.  I had gotten the new Sims 3 game but my laptop didn’t have enough RAM to play it.

After that we got back to the hotel and decided we wanted to go see a movie.  Rob had really been wanting to see District 9 and I didn’t know much what it was about so off we went.  The movie was excellent.  Very fast paced from the get go.  Another show where we were exhausted afterwards.  🙂  I recommend the movie highly.

I wasn’t feeling the gambling that night so I stayed up in the room and played my new game while Rob went down and gambled.  He ended up being up enough money to pay for our dinner from TGIFridays so that was a plus.  🙂

To be continued…