What happens in Vegas goes straight into my blog

Vegas was fun -- might have been moreso if we gambled or drank. As it is, we took a stroll up a few blocks to check out some other hotels, used the fitness center (bloody smug Coloradans), ate dinner and called it a night.  (I wouldn't have minded seeing the street at night, maybe meet a hooker or two, but Tery didn't feel well. Later she confessed she didn't want to expose herself to people getting drunk, so that was all good.)

But I'm getting ahead of myself. After checking out the Excalibur and New York New York lobbies, I can say without reservation that our hotel was the nicest (in our budget).

Nicest hotel in our budget

Excalibur was overrun with children, and New York New York looked like a strip mall with a strip club in the middle.

Spongebob was disappointingly immune to my advances

Had to take this for kavieshana of course

I tried to shoot Santa on an Orange County chopper and this bitch leaped to intercept. Evidently it's her job to prevent free photos being taken. Consequently I'll bet she's all over the internet

Jellybean Liberty Statue

One of those holographic lucite boxes. This guy will fuck you up and then give you this beautiful tchotchke to commemorate the event

There were these kiosks everywhere selling, I kid you not, flavored oxygen. I'm thinking I should bring this technology back to Denver where it's actually needed

I felt very big deal checking in and getting our key cards. The Luxor's lobby was enormous, and it took us a solid fifteen minutes just to find the registration desk (it turned out they offered 11:30 am check-in, so we dragged our feet from Utah for nothing); one of the biggest problems with Vegas is everything is designed to parade you past as many slot machines as possible.

The room was certainly swank -- not champagne hot tub and heart-shaped bed swank, but for a couple of yankee gals not too shabby (although honestly the Travelodge had a nicer shower head).  But it was quiet and clean, and all the Carrot Top you could stomach on the in-house channels (srsly.  You think Wayne Newton is big in Vegas? Make no mistake: Carrot Top OWNS that town).

My friends, this is a sign of the End of Days

Seeing his bizarre face everywhere was the second biggest problem. The third was the Vegas salesmen everywhere doing their damndest to get you to stay just a few hours longer ("Where are you from? Do you think you'll come back next year? How does a free show sound?")

We didn't see any shows, but in fact the Criss Angel theater was in the Luxor. That was tempting (I don't like him especially but I'll bet he puts on a good show), but I doubt he was the free entertainment on offer. Nor was Cirque du Soleil, probably.

Thank god no one sold a do-it-yourself Carrot Top kit

We dined at the Pyramid Cafe, where we saw this illustration of what technology has done to inter-relationship communication:

This couple sat down shortly after us, and didn't look up from their iPhones for a good fifteen minutes

This couple, by contrast, had plenty to talk about...to each other, even

After dinner we thought we'd throw Vegas a bone and gamble a little. Tery chose a slot machine that looked hopelessly complicated -- lots of flashing lights and sounds, and you had to match five icons rather than just three. She put in a dollar, spun three times and appeared to have lost, but then the machine spat out a little 5-cent voucher. The joke of the weekend then became, "Step aside! Winner coming through!"

She didn't even cash it in. She's a real Miss Moneybags

There was an ATM mishap when she tried to take out $20 and instead got $200. I thought at first the machine had malfunctioned and we had won big, but Tery might have miskeyed it. Or it's a nefarious trick to get you to gamble more (wouldn't surprise me. The machine allowed as much as $3000 to be withdrawn at once). She just ended up using the cash for the rest of the trip rather than her debit card. Sorry, Vegas.

I played some poker slots (I prefer them since you have a tiny element of control over the outcome, or at least the illusion of it). All in all Vegas made about 7 bucks off us. Probably just enough to cover the toiletries we stole.

Can't say I saw a whole lot of sinnin' going on, unless you count the gambling and the Coyote Ugly dancers at New York New York (stay tuned for my video footage). Also didn't see a single wedding chapel or Elvis impersonator (might have had better luck if we deviated from the route between the hotel and the parking garage). We didn't much care to stay, nor were we thrilled to leave, since next stop was my family. But leave we did. It wasn't nearly as easy to get back onto the highway as it was getting off, we suspect another part of the plot to keep you around longer. I sang the line from "Hotel California" as we roamed up and down frontage roads and truck delivery routes. We did get out eventually though (obvs).

And that's where I'll leave things for now.

Next: California, or, Deep Therapy