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Vegas, day one
Mar. 25th, 2003 09:57 pmThe trip to Vegas was fun. Well, mostly fun.
The flight in was agonizing. I don't know if it's because I've got less fat on my bottom to cushion it, but the seat was painful. Plus, the light wouldn't stay on, so I couldn't just read something to distract myself. Fortunately it's a short flight to Vegas from Denver, so it wasn't too bad.
From there it was fine. The Las Vegas airport is obviously the Las Vegas airport, if you've never been there. You step off of the airplane into a round area containing several gates and an assortment of slot machines and video poker. From there you walk down a looong corridor lined with ads for Vegas stuff until you reach a larger area... filled with an assortment of slot machines and video poker. Then you have to pull a slot machine to get your luggage.
Well, no. But the luggage areas are huge, nicely organized (video screens list which flights' baggage will be on each carousel), and lined with not only more giant posters of various Vegas attractions but also one of those 3x3 tv screens showing movies of Vegas attractions.
Once you've got your baggage, you'll soon learn that Vegas has the taxi thing down to a science. You get into a long line of other people, and there's a line of 20 or so spaces for taxis. Once the current line has all driven off, another 20 taxis are let into the boarding area as an attendant lets 20 parties out of the line, telling each one which spot to wait at. The taxis not only are covered with advertising on the outside, but also have advertising inside. Heck, our taxi from the airport had a tv screen showing an advertising loop.
But at the hotel the advertising died down in favor of slot machines again. We called my brother Bill and his wife Jen, and they came down and brought us up to our room, were we also got to see my Mom. Much hugging ensued. That done, I gave Bill a couple books for his birthday, one a humorous one on being Evil and the other a Dummies or Idiots guide to gambling. (It was intended as a joke present, but it turned out to be fairly useful.)
Once we were unpacked a little we all went down to the Ipanema bar. We were staying at the Rio, which is a rather nice hotel/casino that isn't on the strip, but is across a highway from it - maybe a block, although a long one. It's a pretty nice place, I thought, with big rooms, a variety of different restaurants and entertainment areas. It's also owned by the same people who own Harra's, and they had a shuttle going back and forth between the two. Harra's was where we had been last time, and it is on the strip, so that was pretty handy.
Anyway, the bar. The bar's pretty centrally located in the swirl of gambling, and has a nice view of the front doors. We were waiting for some friends of Bill's to arrive, so we all hung out there for a bit drinking and talking and (at least for me) ogling the waitresses, which were dressed in what amounted to multicolored leotards. It was also good for watching the passing people, but after a bit Tammy and I decided to retire for the night.
More on Day 2 later.
The flight in was agonizing. I don't know if it's because I've got less fat on my bottom to cushion it, but the seat was painful. Plus, the light wouldn't stay on, so I couldn't just read something to distract myself. Fortunately it's a short flight to Vegas from Denver, so it wasn't too bad.
From there it was fine. The Las Vegas airport is obviously the Las Vegas airport, if you've never been there. You step off of the airplane into a round area containing several gates and an assortment of slot machines and video poker. From there you walk down a looong corridor lined with ads for Vegas stuff until you reach a larger area... filled with an assortment of slot machines and video poker. Then you have to pull a slot machine to get your luggage.
Well, no. But the luggage areas are huge, nicely organized (video screens list which flights' baggage will be on each carousel), and lined with not only more giant posters of various Vegas attractions but also one of those 3x3 tv screens showing movies of Vegas attractions.
Once you've got your baggage, you'll soon learn that Vegas has the taxi thing down to a science. You get into a long line of other people, and there's a line of 20 or so spaces for taxis. Once the current line has all driven off, another 20 taxis are let into the boarding area as an attendant lets 20 parties out of the line, telling each one which spot to wait at. The taxis not only are covered with advertising on the outside, but also have advertising inside. Heck, our taxi from the airport had a tv screen showing an advertising loop.
But at the hotel the advertising died down in favor of slot machines again. We called my brother Bill and his wife Jen, and they came down and brought us up to our room, were we also got to see my Mom. Much hugging ensued. That done, I gave Bill a couple books for his birthday, one a humorous one on being Evil and the other a Dummies or Idiots guide to gambling. (It was intended as a joke present, but it turned out to be fairly useful.)
Once we were unpacked a little we all went down to the Ipanema bar. We were staying at the Rio, which is a rather nice hotel/casino that isn't on the strip, but is across a highway from it - maybe a block, although a long one. It's a pretty nice place, I thought, with big rooms, a variety of different restaurants and entertainment areas. It's also owned by the same people who own Harra's, and they had a shuttle going back and forth between the two. Harra's was where we had been last time, and it is on the strip, so that was pretty handy.
Anyway, the bar. The bar's pretty centrally located in the swirl of gambling, and has a nice view of the front doors. We were waiting for some friends of Bill's to arrive, so we all hung out there for a bit drinking and talking and (at least for me) ogling the waitresses, which were dressed in what amounted to multicolored leotards. It was also good for watching the passing people, but after a bit Tammy and I decided to retire for the night.
More on Day 2 later.
