First Las Vegas Trip

I have been lurking on here for a couple of years now, but have never posted before. I have thoroughly enjoyed reading everyone's trip reports, but have come to find out I enjoy a particular style and content of reports over others. The style is gambling heavy with few details of traveling, commuting or a detailed run-down of meals. I understand that a lot of people love these things, and it helps them plan their upcoming trips, but to each their own!

This trip report will be a recounting of my very first trip to Las Vegas with my wife(girlfriend at the time). I have had such a great time reading all of your trip reports, and appreciate the time it takes to write them up, that I thought I would contribute one of my own, and hopefully someone will find it entertaining or helpful in some way!

Date:
4/2011
Thursday-Sunday Trip

The Group:
Father-In-Law- Mike
Mother-In-Law- Linda

Brother-In-Law- Daniel
Sister-In-Law- Katherine

Brother-In-Law- Matt
Sister-In-Law- Angela

Wife(Girlfriend at the Time)- Lauren
Me

Home Base:
Treasure Island(TI)

Pretrip Details: Lauren was the youngest child of her family, and had always said she wanted to go to Las Vegas for her 21st birthday. Mike promised the family that for her 21st birthday, he would take the whole family to Vegas as a way to celebrate all of his childrens' 21st birthdays, even if it was a few years late for them. The night before, we attended a sorority function for Lauren with Mike and Linda, and we met an older gentleman who looked and dressed like he was straight out of the original "Ocean's 11." Upon him learning that we were flying out to Vegas the next morning, he lit up and immediately asked us about our itinerary. We told him we were staying at Treasure Island, and did not have much planned except a Cirque du Sole show at Treasure Island, gambling at as many properties as we could get to, and a birthday dinner at Caesar's Palace for all of the siblings the night of my girlfriend's 21st birthday. He smiled, and you could tell his mind was wandering to days past. He then proceeded to recount amazing stories from the past of trips and the way things used to be. I was awe-struck, and probably standing there with my mouth open, hanging onto his every word. I did not know it then, but my love affair with Sin City started the night I listened to that Gentleman share his knowledge and experiences with us. He left us with only one piece of advice: "Go downtown, and experience what Old Vegas used to be like when I went there."

Day 1: We woke up early to catch an early morning flight out of town. Lauren's parents had a blinking 21st birthday tiara waiting on her, and wanted her to wear it the duration of our commute. She laughed and put it on, we took a few pictures, and then she took it off telling everyone there was no way she was wearing that through the airport, and off we went. We landed in Las Vegas around 11:00 am, and when we banked in to land, I got my first glimpse of that sparkling gem sprawled out in the middle of a red, barren dessert. Again, I was awe-struck. I had no words, and a tingle ran up my spine.

We landed and moved to the baggage claim to collect our luggage. Walking through the terminal, seeing the slot machines at the gates and all of the large advertisements for the various shows on the strip, I got my first shot of adrenaline realizing I was finally getting the opportunity to visit this great city. My family doesn't travel too much- we have a beach house in Garden City, South Carolina and some hunting property nestled in the PeeDee region of South Carolina that is about as far as my parents are willing to stray from our home in Columbia, South Carolina. In highschool, my dad completely took us all by surprise when he presented plane tickets and cruise ship tickets for our family Christmas celebration that year. I was shocked he made it through the trip without having a heart attack. Too many moving parts and all for an Ol' Boy from the-middle-of-nowhere South Carolina.

Lauren's family, on the other hand, will travel all over the world at the drop of a hat. I had been treated to several college football bowl trips and family vacations over the past couple of years, and had appreciated all of their hospitality they showed me dragging me along.

With bags in hand, we headed out to catch a couple of cabs, and found some in no time. We told the driver, "Treasure Island," and off we went. Being a Vegas newby, I didn't realize at the time that we had been tunneled. I remember that tunnel distinctly, and after reading a few trip reports on here, realize we were long-hauled on our way to the strip. For the strangest reason, however, our fare was only around $25. Maybe I am getting the details mixed up, or maybe there is a different tunnel, but I remember not thinking the trip was too long. We pull up to the front door of TI, retrieve our bags from the cab, and head to the front desk. Check-in was easy, and Mike confirmed reservations for three standard double rooms. I witnessed the $20 trick for the first time, and that got us high a high floor for all three rooms with a strip view, and an upgrade for on of the rooms from a double to a suite of some sort. With check-in complete, we walked through the casino to the elevators to unload our bags and settle in. This is the first time I had seen a casino. The only other one I had ever seen was the small casino on the aforementioned cruise. I was too young to be in that casino at the time, and got kicked out multiple times a day by the pit bosses. Eventually, they realized that I was not gambling, only watching the action of the other patrons, and quit kicking me out after I promised to stay behind a certain line around the tables. I should have known then that being in a casino is one of my favorite places to be.

 

Good read so far...

I distinctly remember the first time I landed in Vegas, just a small town of 250k!

 

I can't wait to read more of this!

Santé,
TL

 

I noticed that this trip report has gone from being "short and sweet" to more of me reminiscing about this first trip. Warning: this may get a little more lengthy than I originally let on, but I will try to be brief.

We drop the bags in our rooms and head down to Kahunaville for a quick lunch. We all were starving, and ordered drinks and food. Nobody could stop talking about how awesome it was that we were finally there. We were too excited to notice that the food wasn't spectacular, and the drinks were over-priced. After refueling and upping our BAC, my brothers-in-law and I decide to head down the strip to grab some drinks and supplies from the Walgreens on the strip. Lauren, not wanting to be left behind, joins us, and off we go. We make our way through the casino to the entrance, and I cannot help but to survey every single table I walk past. I was intrigued by all the games, all of the cards, all of the dealers... this was fascinating to me. I saw my first craps table for the first time, and I was impressed. It was the two in TI right by one of the elevator entrances. There were a few people standing around it with chips in the rack in front of them with little chip piles laying all over it. It looked fun. I wanted to play it. I didn't know how to play it, and I was intimidated. My brothers-in-law had no time to look around, and quickly ushered us through the casino to the entrance. We walked out onto the strip, and I looked around excitedly. There were casinos and resorts rising into the sky all around me. The traffic was heavy, and the sidewalk was crowded, but I couldn't pay attention to the crowd- I was too intrigued by the sights and sounds. We quickly found the Walgreens, and loaded up on supplies and alcohol. After we had what we needed, we headed back to the room to down some celebratory shots for making it here together, and to toast on hell of a night. After a few too many shots for the time of day, we made strong drinks and headed down to the sports book.

One thing that is different about my wife from the rest of my in-laws is that my wife likes to stick by my side. The other wives are happy doing their own things most of the time, but usually on family outings, it's the guys and Lauren exploring whatever new town we are in. I think it's the combination of her being the youngest sister and wanting to be around her older brother along with the two of us just actually being best friends. Whatever it is, she runs with us and usually keeps us all in line.

Once in the sportsbook, we take some seats and start looking around at the big boards for the days lines. We are all huge sports fans, prefer college to the pros, and will watch anything competitive on TV. We all played sports, and there isn't anything we won't compete at. After taking everything in, and getting a couple more drinks, I decide to place a few bets. I don't remember what I bet on, or what kinds of bets I placed, but it was thrilling walking up to the cashier and putting a few bucks down. I grabbed my receipts, and waited as the other guys placed a few bets. It was getting close to dinner time by now, so we headed back up to the room to shower, change, and grab everyone else for our first dinner in Vegas.

Once everyone washed the travel off of them, refreshed drinks and put on the smell good, we met up in the hallway and headed out to the strip to find a nice little place to eat. We were not interested in a wait, and wanted nothing too fancy. We settled on Serendipity 3 so we could enjoy the ambiance of the strip while we ate. I guess the food was OK, I don't remember much about it except it was the first real meal we ate out there. After a ton of picture taking and obligatory tourist things, I decided that it was time to get down to bidness. I brought a sizeable bankroll, and was ready to have some fun. I ushered everyone back to TI so I could grab some cash for Lauren and I. Once we filled our pockets, we went downstairs to gamble. The elevators opened with the casino spread out in front of me. At that moment, I realized I had no idea how to play anything. I mean, I understand the basic concept of black jack and roulette, but I didn't know anything about etiquette, specific house rules or where to even start. I decided to divide and conquer, I picked five games I felt relatively confident about, and planned to stand back and watch a few rounds to see how the game went before I would jump into play. I decided that if I won at any game and doubled my initial buy-in, I would walk away to the next one.

The first game I picked was $10 blackjack. I had no concept of what the better games of blackjack were at the time, and didn't bother to look to see if it was 6:5 or 3:2(I have a feeling it was terrible odds) or how many decks the game was. All I knew is that the dealer would deal me two cards, and I needed to be closer to 21 than them. I watched a few hands, felt confident I wouldn't make a fool of myself, and asked the other players if they minded if I joined them. They politely told me I could sit down, so I bellied up and put my cash on the table. I was nervous I didn't put my money down on the right part of the table or something when the dealer starred at me like I tried to hand her two-for-one buffet coupons. After a few seconds, she picked up my money and gave me my chips. My heart was racing, and I put out my bet. The cards were dealt, and I held my breath while I played my first ever hand of blackjack. The action went around the table, and low and behold, I pushed. I didn't loose- sweet! Deal those cards again dealer, get me a drink cocktail waitress, and let's play some damn blackjack! The next hand is dealt, and wouldn't you know it, I won. I was dumb struck when the dealer handed me my winnings. I got a huge shot of adrenaline, and freaked out. I didn't know what to do, and I felt like if I hung around any longer, I would have screwed up in some way, so I picked up my chips and rushed off to find my girlfriend to tell her my hero story. I didn't even wait for the drink to get there.

I found her at a Sex and the City slot machine watching her older sister play, my girlfriends crack I would later find out, and showed her the chips I had just won. She was excited, and I retold her the story of my gambling "session" in exact excruciating detail. She noticed how excited I was, and congratulated me. Then it dawned on me that I had ordered a drink at the table, but ran off before it got there. Not wanting to offend the cocktail waitress or get kicked out of the casino for whatever reason, I ran back to the table right as the cocktail waitress was bring the tray of drinks to the players. I apologized to her AND the dealer for walking away before my drink got there, and the waitress laughed and said it was alright. She handed me and the rest of the table our drinks, and I almost downed it in one excited gulp. I noticed the other players throw a couple tokes on her tray, and I immediately dug into my pocket for my chips. Damn it, not dollar chips. I thought the right thing to do after running off on my drink order was to tip her $10, so I threw two $5 chips on her tray. She smiled and thanked me, and went off to get more orders. I was satisfied that I had made up for all of my earlier transgressions, and was filled with confidence.

I decided the next game I would play would be roulette. I walked up to the wheel and watched a few spins and saw how everyone was betting. I was confused by the different chip colors laying on the numbers. After watching someone collect a large stack of orange chips, I realized what the deal was, and walked up to the table to find what bet I wanted to play. The simplest bet on the table looked like the red and black spots. Even for a Vegas virgin, I could deduct what these bets were. I put my bet out, and held my breath while the wheel spun and watched that little white ball with laser-like focus. When it finally nestled into a slot, it was a slot with my color. I couldn't believe it, another win! I quickly grabbed for my initial bet, and was quickly rebuked by the croupier for touching my bet before I was paid off. Shit, file that one away in the "I will never do that again" file, and put my hands down by my side until my winnings were placed beside my initial bet. As I grabbed my initial bet and winnings, the same excited feeling came over me, and I ran off to find my girlfriend again. I found her at the same Sex and the City machine watching her sister and mother play, and told her all about my experience, in excruciating detail, again. This time, she barely took her eyes off the screen to listen to me tell the story. I realized at that moment what her game of choice would be for the rest of her Vegas life. She loves the show, and watches it all the time. She was fascinated by the familiar faces and voices on the screen. A cocktail waitress came by, so all adults of age ordered a drink, and she brought them to us quickly. I took my bourbon on the rocks, and walked around to find another game to conquer.

I found Daniel at a blackjack table, and stood behind him to watch some of the action. He was up, and doing very well. He asked me how I had done, and I drunkenly recounted the entirety of my night. I must have told him the story of my two bets played over the course of 15 minutes for 30 minutes. He barely looked up, and him and the rest of the players at the table just smiled while I excitedly poured out every detail and professed my love for this great town. After I left him, I found Matt lounging back in a chair playing some penny video poker. I noticed he was only playing a few dollars, so I decided to join him. This is when I found out his perfect, no-loose strategy for Las Vegas: Play penny slots, drink free drinks, and smoke too many cheap cigars for the whole night. Matt and his wife aren't poor by any standards, but his style is to spend a few bucks and enjoy the hell out of himself. Wins mean nothing to him. Losses mean nothing to him. He might only spend $50 a night, but he drinks for free, and he can go all night without ever having to worry about loosing a bankroll early and calling it a night. I fed the machine a $20 bill, and sat back with him to drink bourbon and shoot the breeze about everything for the next hour. I realized that at that time, I was up $10, so I printed out my TITO, and went to find something else to play. Daniel found us as I was leaving, and plopped down beside Matt to play casually for a little while and have a few more drinks.

I found my father-in-law, Mike, at a craps table. Now we're talking! This is the game I had wanted to play since the first hour of the trip, and now I had Mike to show me how to play. There was a spot open beside him, but the table was otherwise pretty crowded. I noticed it was a $10 minimum bet, but didn't know where to place my bets. I told him I wanted to learn how to play this game, and asked him if he would show me. He smiled, and told me that it would be better for me to try to learn in the morning when the casino gave free lessons, and promised he would meet me down there at 8:00 am to go through the class with me, and then play $5 minimum craps with me for the rest of the morning. I was ecstatic, the only other man I respected more in my life besides my father and my grandfathers was this man. He is highly regarded within the community where we are from, and was very successful in whatever business venture he set out to accomplish. I told him I would meet him down at the craps tables at 8:00 the next morning, and went to find another blackjack table. I floated around playing more blackjack and roulette the rest of the night. I ended up winning about $100 that night, and said goodnight to all the girls as the filtered out of the casino one by one to go back up to their rooms. It was getting to be about 2:00 in the morning, and I had been up for way too long and traveled way too long and ate way too little and drank way too much. I was exhausted and content, a perfect way to end a night in Vegas. Matt found me to tell me he was going up to bed when I had a crazy idea. I had just cashed out my chips, and had a crisp $100 bill in my hand. I told him to, "Watch this." and walked up to the roulette wheel right in front of the cashier cage. I laid it on a color, and watched as the croupier took my cash and placed a black chip on the color I wanted. Matt didn't say a word, and watched the action as the wheel was spun and the ball released into the spinning wheel. I was confident about my decision, and felt myself almost willing the ball into a slot with my color. The ball bounced around a few different numbers, and then settle into a slot with my color. I couldn't believe it. We yelled and high-fived, and I watched as a second black chip was placed beside my initial bet. I was elated, and picked up my chips excitedly as I chest bumped my brother-in-law. I felt like we executed this celebration with style and grace, but I am sure with all of the alcohol in our systems, we looked like a bunch of jabronis. I walked the short walk back to the cage, and cashed out my winnings. $200 to the good for the night, "free" bourbon and coors light all night, my girlfriend turning 21 in a couple of days in the greatest city in the world, and Vegas' place in my heart was cemented for the rest of my life.

 

Nice report, I like your writing style. It sounds like your GF had no problem gambling before she was officially 21?

 

I was thinking the same thing even though she was just watching.

Great first trip TR so far!

 

You sound like a kid in a candy store !!! I love it. Go get em buddy!

 

I love it. Thanks for sharing....more!

 

Great report so far. I love reading first timers trip reports...It makes me think back to my first trip and how awesome it was

 

Thank you for the kind words, everyone. I am sorry this report is wordy, but like I said earlier, it has become somewhat of a nostalgic trip down memory lane. My fingers were sore from typing the last two updates, but I want to finish this thing off tonight, so let the story continue...

Day 2: I woke up around 7:15, a little early for my sleep schedule during that point in my life, especially being on east coast time mentally. I thought it was weird, but remembered my promise to Mike that I would meet him at the craps table for free lessons at 8:00 am. I jumped out of bed and took a quick shower to wash the previous evening's grime and smokey smell off of me. After I got out of the shower, I felt refreshed and ready for a new day. I turned off my alarm that was set for 7:45, and thought it was weird I woke up before it, but little did I know I was experiencing the quality of waking up early in Vegas because of the excitement and adrenaline that pumps through your system knowing you are waking up in the greatest town in the world. I practically ran down the hallway to the elevators, got on, and rode the short ride down to the casino. When the doors opened, the familiar sounds of all of the slot machines immediately grabbed my attention. The casino was filled with people who were still up from the night before mashing away at buttons hoping for a hand pay, early birds grabbing coffee catching a quick session of pai gow, and the club goers marching back towards the elevators and their rooms looking like zombies from the night before. I stepped out, took a big whiff of the perfume scented air pumping out from all of the vents, and walked the short walk towards the craps tables.

Once there, I looked around for Mike. He was nowhere to be seen. "He is probably just off getting coffee or a biscuit." I thought. I found a spot at the craps table that was filling up with newbies to take in the day's lesson. The closer it got to 8:00, the more worried I got that Mike wasn't going to show. "Crap" I thought. I finally got some time alone with the man who I respected so much, and he is going to stand me up. I started to walk around the casino thinking he might be playing at a table somewhere getting a mini-session in before our practice session, but no dice. I wandered past the poker room, and noticed they had a $50 buy-in No Limit Texas Hold 'Em tournament ever morning at 10:00 am. "Sweet," I thought. I play poker pretty regularly, and I would not mind seeing how I stacked up against people from across the country. I have no time for that; however, I have to sit in for my free craps lesson. I hurried back to the table right as the dealers were starting, and found a spot second from the right of the stickman. I listened to the dealers, but did not pick up much- I was too disappointed that my girlfriend's dad decided not to show for our lesson. After about 45 minutes, the lesson was over, and I looked back towards the elevators to see if Mike had maybe overslept and was hurrying down to come play a session with me to show me the finer points of the game. He was nowhere to be found, so I took my coffee I ordered from a cocktail waitress and started walking back towards the elevators to go back to the room to catch a few more minutes of sleep when all of a sudden Mike came strolling out with a Hawaiian shirt on and that trade mark smile he was so famous for.

My mood quickly changed, and I jokingly asked him if he did not hear his alarm clock this morning pointing towards an imaginary watch on my wrist(there might have been an old man joke thrown in there). He said, "I know how to play this game, I am just hoping you paid attention during class." He said it in that familiar competitive way that all of his kids display, and I knew it was on. I shot back with a, "As long as you're going to be able to hang with me, I've already had my coffee and I am ready to get down to bidness." Something that I have not shared with anyone about Mike up to this point is that Mike was diagnosed with cancer about a year prior to this. It started off as cancer of the throat, then it moved to his lymph-nodes and quickly spread throughout his whole body. Mike had already gone through several rounds of chemo, and had just started to grow all of his hair back and regain his strength. Although he was pretty strong physically, he would get tired and have to sit down and take breaks from time to time. Mike is a machine, though, and never let anyone see him in his weak times. I knew he was ready to rumble this morning, and his half-grin when I took the first shot for him being late only proved to motivate him to show me how strong he still was.

We walked up to the table, and I took my same spot two spots to the right from the stickman. Mike settled in to my right, and laid out $100 bill. I thought it was a hefty buy-in for a $5 minimum table, but I laid out $100 bill along with his and we collected our chips. He arranged them smallest-to-largest right-from-left in the rack in front of him. I noticed this and did the same. The dice came out, and he immediately started sharing his strategy with me. He had been taught by an old friend of his how to play, and played the right side, double odds, maximum bet across all numbers, with a toke on each of the hard ways. I thought this was a bold strategy, but threw out my chips to the dealers as he instructed me. I have never doubted Mike, and this morning would be no different. Although his strategy was susceptible to early failure, I witnessed some of the best rolls that morning I have ever seen in my life. Every shooter went for 8-20 rolls a piece, and the hard ways were hitting consistently. Mike would always press his bets after he won three points, so I would do the same. About the third role of the morning a cocktail waitress walked up to the table to take everyones' drink orders. I ordered a coffee, but Mike looked at me and smiled and ordered a bourbon ginger. I was amazed. Here was this man, whose body was riddled with tumors, who had stayed up late into last night, woke up early, and he was ordering a cocktail at 9:00 am. I figured I could not let him out-do me, so I quickly changed my order to a bourbon ginger as well, and the cocktail waitress went off to get our drinks. We were killing it while she was gone, and when she came back, Mike dropped a couple of $1 chips on her tray. Sensing I could get the upper hand here, and knowing I had already made about $50 from the morning session, I dropped a $5 chip on her tray, and told her, "Thank you!" Mike looked at me and smiled, and took a sip form his drink while he focused his attention back on the table. For the next 30 minutes, we killed it. We were raking in huge pay-offs from our pressed number bets and hard ways bets. Our racks were filling up, and we were having a blast. There was a lady to my left who kept asking for C and E on the come-out rolls(this part I am a little fuzzy on, it might not have been C and E, but it was some bet that cost two $1 chips, and she kept telling us that we needed to play it). Mike asked her what the bet was, and she gave us a quick tutorial on why it was a good bet. I was not sure about it, but when Mike started throwing them out, I did too. There was another gentleman to Mike's right that was there only to play field bets, and had about $1,000 in chips in front of him. He lost about as many as he won, but he would get amped when he hit it. Mike built up a pretty good report with him during our session. This is not uncommon for Mike since he has that kind of magnetic personality that draws people to him. He was joking around and laughing with the guy the whole session, and would celebrate with him when he would win. When Mike was shooting, if he hit a field bet for the guy, the guy would jump up and down and yell, then turn to Mike and give him the hardest high-five I have ever seen. I know this hurt Mike, who had tumors on his spine, but Mike did not care. This guy was happy, and that made Mike happy. Around 11:00 am, the dealers changed the table minimum to $10, and a few people wandered off, but their spots were quickly taken by other people witnessing this hot table. My first craps session was a completely full table with everyone winning and jumping up and down and hollering. I was hooked for life. The cocktail waitress came by a few more times, and every time she did, we would order another bourbon and ginger, and she would quickly bring them back to us. Each time she did, Mike and I tipped her generously, and she would smile and say, "Thank you!" It was getting to be about 11:45, and the rest of our group had made their way down stairs and were sitting around watching us. We were on an epic role, and we did not want to leave; however, as every hot streak in Vegas does, our luck turned for the worse, and after a few come out 7's, I looked at Mike and told him I did not think I could stand up much longer. He agreed with me, and told us he would pay for lunch at the buffet for all of us. We colored up, and I could not believe how much we had won. I finished the session +$550, and Mike finished +$1,000(it may have been more, it may have been less, I can't quite remember, but I do remember him saying that he paid for all of our rooms and meals for that trip on just that one session.)

We all went to the buffet, and I experienced my first Las Vegas buffet in the best mood possible. It was pretty good, and after we were done eating, I told my girlfriend that her dad had worn me out, and that I was going up to the room to take a nap while everyone else went walking on the strip to look at the sights and see a few attractions at some of the other resorts. I got up the room around 12:30, and slept until 2:30. I woke up, took a shower, changed clothes, poured a bourbon on the rocks, and went over to my Matt's room to watch a few games we had bet on the day before. I finished even on my sports bets, and the guys plus my girlfriend poured another drink and went downstairs to the sports book to collect on our winning tickets. We met the rest of the family at the Mexican restaurant that used to be in TI, and ordered Margaritas and appetizers. I noticed that I did not have any of my bankroll for that evening, so I excused myself and went back up to the room to get some cash out of the safe. On my way to the elevators, I passed by the roulette wheel, and noticed that there had been about 8 black numbers that had hit in a row. I fished the lone $100 bill out of my pocket, and put it on red. Black came up, and I quickly chastised myself for making such a dumb bet that seemed so smart less than 24 hours ago. I went up to the room, grabbed some cash, and went back downstairs to join the rest of the group. Wouldn't you know it, the wheel had hit nothing but blacks the entire time I was up there. "Time to get my $100 back" I thought. I put $200 on red, and it hit for a nice $100 profit on the mini-session. When I got back to the table, I plopped my four $100 chips down on the table and didn't say a word. Daniel looked at them and asked me, "Did you hit again?" I told them that I did, but that I had lost $100 the bet before that, and when I came down from the room, I had to put $200 on red to recoup my losses. They were impressed, and we celebrated with cheap margaritas and one of the biggest Mexican meals I had ever had.

After dinner, we decided to go to a lot of different properties to see them and gamble a little bit at each. I can not remember the exact sequence of hotels we visited, but I know we went to Mandalay Bay, MGM, Caesar's Palace, Bellagio, Venetian, Palazzo, Wynne and Encore. At each property we went to, I would play a few games at the minimum bets for a few rounds, and ended up winning more than I lost. It was fun since everyone that was legally able to would play at the same table or slot machine, and we were all in the same game together. A few times I would play opposite bets from the guys just to say I beat them. I finished about even with the rest of them, and we had a great time. It was around 2:00 am when we finally made it back to TI, and everyone but me and my brothers-in-law went to bed. We found a bank of penny video poker machines, sat down and drank, smoked cheap cigars and talked about everything imaginable until an ungodly hour. We all decided it was time for bed, and I checked the bankroll to see how much damage I had done to it. Including the early morning craps session, I had finished +$850 on the day. I was exhausted and content, the perfect way to end a night in Vegas! I went up to the room, took out my large denomination chips, and laid them on the white bathroom countertop and snapped a quick picture with my cell phone and sent it to a couple of my buddies back home. Is this place real, or have I gone to Oz?

 

Haha, she certainly was not going to be the only one stuck in the room or off by herself at some non-gambling attractions. Everyone who was on the trip was over 21, and like I said earlier, she likes to hang with the guys. She got back off from tables at many properties, but she was only watching the action, never gambling. Every time she was asked to leave a casino, she took it in stride knowing she was only a couple short days from legally being able to gamble.

I know I said I would finish this tonight, but the girlfriend I keep telling y'all about is now my wife and is ready to go to bed. I will finish this up in the morning after I ninja-chop some grass in preparation for the rest of the family coming into town for a baptism of one of the many nieces and nephews graciously provided to us since this trip in 2011 by Daniel and Katherine, and Matt and Angela. Have a good night!

 

Doesn't get much better than that pal.

Great writeup.

 

OK, grass is cut, house is cleaned, and family is on their way. Time to bang out the rest of this trip report so I can stop worrying about it.

Day 3: I wake up early again, and shake my girlfriend awake and tell her, "Happy Birthday." Lauren is turning 21 today, and we have the whole day planned for things that she wants to do. We pop up, pull on some clean clothes, and go wake up the rest of the group. The first thing on the list for the day is a trip to a restaurant in, what I believe, was the Bellagio? They had an incredible breakfast, and we were able to walk around and see the Conservatory and Botanical Gardens. Once we were nourished, we walked to Caesar's Palace to let the birthday girl do some shopping in the forum shops, then we wandered through the casino playing random slots as a family for a little while. Mike loves playing the Wheel of Fortune $1 slots, and it is the only slot machine he will play. We got a few bonus spins, and cashed out up a little bit. We took our winnings to a drink stand in the casino that served big frozen drinks, and ordered a couple that she and I shared. I am not a frozen drink kind of guy unless I am at the beach, but these were excellent and made the perfect refresher on a hot day walking down the strip. After that, we headed to the Venetian and Palazzo and debated about taking a gondola ride, but by this time it was time for lunch, so we decided to head back to TI to eat at Kahunaville. Lauren loves the bartenders and the big fruity drinks there, so we ordered a light lunch since we were having a huge dinner that night, and a couple of weird island themed drinks. I think the one she got was supposed to be a smoking volcano complete with dry ice in the bottom to make smoke come out of the top of some fruit. Not my style, but the birthday girl was happy. After lunch, we headed up to the rooms to watch a couple of games that we had betted on, and made some strong cocktails to pass the day with. Around 4:30, we all went to take showers and get ready for the night. Around 6:00 we all met up and decided to have a drink at the Wynne and maybe find a good roulette wheel or a blackjack table we could all play at together. Once at the Wynne, the guys wanted to find the golf course to look at, so we eventually found a back exit that we could see a fairway from, I believe. It was not exciting, so I ushered the group back to the casino, and we hopped around from roulette to blackjack playing here and there. After that, we grabbed a cab to the Bellagio to eat at a restaurant that I can not remember the name of. I do know that we had to climb a couple of flights of stairs, and we were getting worried Mike might be getting a little bit tired since we had been walking around the whole first part of the day. Mike quickly brushed off our concerns, and ran up the second flight of stairs and started jumping around at the top to show us he was good to go. Once we got to the restaurant, there was a wait for our table, so I took the buzzer, and the rest of the group waited outside of the restaurant for our table to get ready. The running up the stairs and jumping around caught up to Mike at that point, and he needed to sit down and rest. There were no benches outside of the restaurant, so I went inside and asked the hostess if he and Linda could take a seat inside while we waited so he could rest and catch his breath. She quickly ushered up over to some comfortable seating, and told us to enjoy our evening. That really stuck out to me- we never told her he was sick, but somehow she knew that he needed to take a break, and went out of her way to find us some cushioned seats, and brought the group over some water. After she left a waiter came over to offer to take our drink orders. Everyone ordered a glass of wine or a cocktail, and he brought them over to us. We asked for a bill, but he said that he would put it on our tab at the table. He ended up not being our server, and I wanted to go find him to show him some gratitude for going out of his way to get us some drinks and make sure we were comfortable(I am sure he was busy that night since the restaurant was packed), but I never found him. The service of the employees of that restaurant was outstanding, and made an uncomfortable situation very comfortable for us, and added to an already great evening.

After dinner, it was time to do some serious gambling at Bellagio. Lauren and Daniel stuck with Mike for the first part of our night there. Daniel loves to play roulette with Mike, and Lauren wanted to learn roulette and craps. He spent two hours gambling with them, and teaching Lauren how to shoot craps, and I joined for a few rolls with them at the end of our session there. I was impressed by how quickly Lauren picked up the game, and had fun shooting craps with her for the first time. She employed the same strategy her dad taught her, and to this day, still does. I could tell that night that she fell in love with the game.

After Bellagio, we went back to TI for Mike to end his night with some Blackjack with Lauren. Around midnight, he was exhausted, and him and Linda told us all goodnight and headed up to bed. Since this was our last full day in Vegas, the guys and our wives had decided that we were going to go all out tonight. We did not have anything in particular planned except to hit as many properties as we could and at least play craps as a group wherever we went. We started out at either Venetian or Palazzo, and played just about everything in there. Mine and Lauren's luck was running good the first part of the night, so we were having a good time. Daniel's luck, on the other hand, had not really been there for him the whole trip. He was down to the bottom of his bankroll for the night, and laid his remaining chips out on some numbers at roulette. I played my typical red or black, and the ball was put into play on the spinning wheel. I hit my color, but Daniel missed his numbers. He hung his head for a minute knowing his night of gambling was over, but kept his spirits up and walked over to a craps table with Lauren and I to watch us. At this point, I should mention that Daniel believed that Matt was a cooler, and he would loose every time Matt came around a table he was playing at. We laughed about this the first part of the trip, but quickly started believing it as every time we were playing somewhere and Matt walked up, we would immediately start loosing. This ended in all of the guys usually drunkenly yelling at him to walk away when he walked up to a table we were at, and we even made him eventually leave the sports books before we placed a bet. As luck would have it, Matt was playing with us when Daniel got busted out, and we all gave him a hard time about cooling Daniel off that night. Matt walked away to go find a penny slot machine somewhere, and the rest of the group went to play craps. Daniel was toying with the idea for Lauren and I to stake him before out first roll, and we would have gladly done it, but he decided against it at the last moment. During that first roll, the strangest thing I have ever seen happen in Vegas occurred. A group of dealers walked up to us at the craps table, one of them was the croupier that we were playing with, and handed Daniel a big stack of chips and told him that the ball had jumped out of it's original slot and landed on one of his numbers once we walked away. We all looked at him dumbfounded for a second. Daniel quickly took the chips, didn't ask any questions, and thanked them as they walked away. To this day, I am not sure what really happened. Maybe the ball did jump out of it's slot like they said it did, but we were standing around that table for a pretty long time after the spin. I do not want to make any assumptions, but there possibly could have been some sort of cheating on the croupier's part that got caught by the eye in the sky, and the pit boss made him make it right before we left. I am hoping that maybe there was some bad math when he was handing out chips after a win, and the pit boss caught it after they came to change out chips or bring new chips. Whatever the reason was, Daniel was back in the action with about half of his bankroll from the start of the night, and settled in to throw dice with the rest of the group.

The chips were obviously affected by The Cooler seeing as how they came about in the shadiest of ways, and Matt had been standing around the table when Daniel busted out, because Daniel never found a rhythm the rest of the night the whole group was together. We left that casino, and went to the other one that was right beside it, either the Venetian or Palazzo, and there was a big No Limit Hold 'Em tournament going on. We stopped to watch from the ropes for a few minutes, and I looked at the leader board on the TV screens, and recognized a few names from TV. I looked around at the players and was able to identify a couple of guys that I knew from watching poker on TV, and pointed them out to Lauren. She could have cared less, but acted interested while I was explaining to her who the guys were. We moved into the main part of the casino, and before we could find a table that had enough seats open for us all to play at together, Angela spots an actor from a TV show she likes watching one of his friends play blackjack. She stops and is star struck. We were about 25 feet from the guy, and Angela points him out. I had never heard of him, or seen the TV show, so I asked her if she was sure that was him. She said she was about 90% sure, so I offered to walk up to him to ask him if he was on the show she liked. She protested, but I have never really been a shy person, and could talk to a brick wall if it gave me the time of day. I strode over to their table, made eye contact with him, and stopped and acted like I had just spotted him. He knew I recognized him, and waited to see what I was going to do. I pointed at him and said, "Brothers and Sisters?"(that was the TV show he apparently was on), and he smiled and nodded his head. I told him that I did not mean to bother him, but my sister-in-law thought she recognized him, and was a huge fan. I asked him if he could just look over and wave at her, he would make her night. His buddy and he laughed a little bit, and he looked up and waved at Angela. She got real giddy and waved back, and we were on our way.

We found a blackjack table to play at, but could not get anything going. We decided to continue our night at Mandalay Bay since we had not spent much of our time on the trip there. We cabbed over, and I gave the group a little pep talk about how we were going to take down the first craps table we found, and have the most epic run we have ever had. We were all hooping and hollering and jumping around while we were walking in. Once we got inside, the place was DEAD! I was shocked. It was a Saturday night in Vegas, and there was hardly a soul in the place. We quickly found a craps table, and I immediately got an omen that we were going to run dead the entire time in there. The omen was nothing more than a person vacuuming the carpet near the craps table, but something just did not feel right. We all bought in for about $100, and spread most of our buy-in's around the table on just about every bet we could after the come-out roll. I rolled first, and immediately hit a seven. "Shit!" I thought. I knew we weren't going to find any luck in here. The rest of the group was still pumped, so everybody bought in for another $100, and we all laid our bets out the same way after the come out roll. We decided to let the birthday girl roll for good luck, and all of the dealer's called her Lady Luck to try to get a good session going. Lauren's hit seven with her first roll, and we all crapped out. At this point, the excitement was over, and everybody stood around and watched as the dealers took down all of the bets. We stood there for a long time not saying anything, and I am sure everyone was wondering if we were just going to call it a night at that point. Suddenly, I remembered that this was our last full night, and the promise we made to each other to go all out tonight. I gave another pep talk about everyday is the Super Bowl and Rule Number 76: No excuses, play like a champion, and what-not. Everyone got excited again, and we decided to head to NYNY to check out the rollercoaster and go to Coyote Ugly. We needed to take a break from the tables. We made our way into NYNY, and went up to check out the roller coaster. The line was insane, so we went over to Coyote Ugly where we caught our second wind thanks to too many drinks, and the birthday girl getting pulled up onto the bar to dance with the bartenders.

With our confidence renewed, we hit Bellagio and Caesar's Palace to gamble some more, but that part of the night was kind of a blur. I don't remember how we did, but we must have finished about even, and it was getting close to 4:00 am. We made our way back over to TI, and I expected our night to end there. We grabbed some food from somewhere, and walked back toward the elevators. I started thinking about how great of a trip it had been, and about how I could not have asked for a better first experience in this great city with the people who I love the most, and I started to mentally rally to keep going. I asked Lauren if she wanted to keep going for a little bit, but her and the rest of the girls were ready to pass out in the rooms. I looked at the guys, and I could tell by the looks on their faces that they were thinking the same thing I was. Daniel piped up with, "I want to see the sunrise over the strip." and we all agreed. We kissed our significant others, sent them off to bed, and stumbled off to find a bank of penny slots we could all play at together and get our BAC back up to an acceptable level, not like it wasn't already there. Matt pulled out a few cheap cigars(I don't know how many of these things he had, but he always seemed to produce them at the right moments), and we drank vodka red bulls and bourbon until we could no longer understand what each of us was saying. I am not sure how we got there or what we did there, but we made our way back over to Venetian and Palazzo, and stayed there until dawn. Once the sun was about to come up, we refreshed our drinks, and walked to a cross walk over looking the strip to witness the sunrise, and toast an incredible trip. We were a drunken mess, we could hardly stand up, and we were as happy as we could possibly be. Mat pulled out 3 more cheap cigars from somewhere, and we smoked our cigars and drank our drinks reminiscing on the trip remembering all of the great times and laughing about everything. After about 30 minutes, I told the guys all good things must come to an end, and it was probably time to get back to the hotel to catch a couple hours of sleep and pack up before our 12:30 flight. They agreed and stumbled back to TI. Once inside, I headed towards the elevators, but Daniel saw the craps table, and had about $100 left from the night. He got this crazy look in his eye, and said he wanted to stay downstairs to play out the remainder of his bank roll. I could barely stand up, and knew I had to get into bed. I told him good luck, and left to go upstairs. I noticed Matt did not go with me, and wondered how long he would stay down stairs before Daniel angrily sent him upstairs for cooling him off. I climbed into bed, and immediately passed out.

The next day, Lauren and I went downstairs to get coffee and a light breakfast. She asked about the rest of our night, and I told her about staying up to watch the sun rise over the strip. She laughed, and then I remembered Daniel and Matt didn't go to bed with the rest of us. We saw Mike and Linda downstairs, and asked them if they had see Daniel or Matt. They both laughed and said that they had seen Daniel at about 8:00 that morning after he woke them up banging on their door. Mike answered the door worried, but Daniel drunkenly reported that he was on the heater of his life, and that Mike needed to get down there since he was the only one at the table. Mike told him he was happy sleeping the rest of the morning, and sent him away. That was the last they had heard of him. After breakfast, we went to find Matt and Daniel, and woke them up in their rooms about 10:00. I asked Daniel what happened to him the night before, and he said that he was the only person at the craps table, and the dealers agreed to lower the table minimum to $5. He sent Matt away before he started, and immediately got on a monster roll. He said he worked his $100 up to $1000 before he left to go get Mike. After Mike sent him away, he went back downstairs, and proceeded to loose every last cent he had at that same table. He was devastated, so he went to go find Matt at the penny slots, and Matt wanted to play some roulette before they went to sleep. Apparently they got on a roulette wheel with a group of guys who were up to catch an early morning flight, and Matt and Daniel started gambling with them and having a great time. Once the group of guys had to leave to catch their flight, one of them had a whole bottle of wine that he said he could not take back with him on the plane, so he gave it to Matt and Daniel. They said they passed the bottle between them, and finished the whole thing at the roulette wheel before calling it a "night" around 9:00. I could not think of a better way to end a trip to Vegas.

- - - Updated - - -

OK, grass is cut, house is cleaned, and family is on their way. Time to bang out the rest of this trip report so I can stop worrying about it.

Day 3: I wake up early again, and shake my girlfriend awake and tell her, "Happy Birthday." Lauren is turning 21 today, and we have the whole day planned for things that she wants to do. We pop up, pull on some clean clothes, and go wake up the rest of the group. The first thing on the list for the day is a trip to a restaurant in, what I believe, was the Bellagio? They had an incredible breakfast, and we were able to walk around and see the Conservatory and Botanical Gardens. Once we were nourished, we walked to Caesar's Palace to let the birthday girl do some shopping in the forum shops, then we wandered through the casino playing random slots as a family for a little while. Mike loves playing the Wheel of Fortune $1 slots, and it is the only slot machine he will play. We got a few bonus spins, and cashed out up a little bit. We took our winnings to a drink stand in the casino that served big frozen drinks, and ordered a couple that she and I shared. I am not a frozen drink kind of guy unless I am at the beach, but these were excellent and made the perfect refresher on a hot day walking down the strip. After that, we headed to the Venetian and Palazzo and debated about taking a gondola ride, but by this time it was time for lunch, so we decided to head back to TI to eat at Kahunaville. Lauren loves the bartenders and the big fruity drinks there, so we ordered a light lunch since we were having a huge dinner that night, and a couple of weird island themed drinks. I think the one she got was supposed to be a smoking volcano complete with dry ice in the bottom to make smoke come out of the top of some fruit. Not my style, but the birthday girl was happy. After lunch, we headed up to the rooms to watch a couple of games that we had betted on, and made some strong cocktails to pass the day with. Around 4:30, we all went to take showers and get ready for the night. Around 6:00 we all met up and decided to have a drink at the Wynne and maybe find a good roulette wheel or a blackjack table we could all play at together. Once at the Wynne, the guys wanted to find the golf course to look at, so we eventually found a back exit that we could see a fairway from, I believe. It was not exciting, so I ushered the group back to the casino, and we hopped around from roulette to blackjack playing here and there. After that, we grabbed a cab to the Bellagio to eat at a restaurant that I can not remember the name of. I do know that we had to climb a couple of flights of stairs, and we were getting worried Mike might be getting a little bit tired since we had been walking around the whole first part of the day. Mike quickly brushed off our concerns, and ran up the second flight of stairs and started jumping around at the top to show us he was good to go. Once we got to the restaurant, there was a wait for our table, so I took the buzzer, and the rest of the group waited outside of the restaurant for our table to get ready. The running up the stairs and jumping around caught up to Mike at that point, and he needed to sit down and rest. There were no benches outside of the restaurant, so I went inside and asked the hostess if he and Linda could take a seat inside while we waited so he could rest and catch his breath. She quickly ushered up over to some comfortable seating, and told us to enjoy our evening. That really stuck out to me- we never told her he was sick, but somehow she knew that he needed to take a break, and went out of her way to find us some cushioned seats, and brought the group over some water. After she left a waiter came over to offer to take our drink orders. Everyone ordered a glass of wine or a cocktail, and he brought them over to us. We asked for a bill, but he said that he would put it on our tab at the table. He ended up not being our server, and I wanted to go find him to show him some gratitude for going out of his way to get us some drinks and make sure we were comfortable(I am sure he was busy that night since the restaurant was packed), but I never found him. The service of the employees of that restaurant was outstanding, and made an uncomfortable situation very comfortable for us, and added to an already great evening.

After dinner, it was time to do some serious gambling at Bellagio. Lauren and Daniel stuck with Mike for the first part of our night there. Daniel loves to play roulette with Mike, and Lauren wanted to learn roulette and craps. He spent two hours gambling with them, and teaching Lauren how to shoot craps, and I joined for a few rolls with them at the end of our session there. I was impressed by how quickly Lauren picked up the game, and had fun shooting craps with her for the first time. She employed the same strategy her dad taught her, and to this day, still does. I could tell that night that she fell in love with the game.

After Bellagio, we went back to TI for Mike to end his night with some Blackjack with Lauren. Around midnight, he was exhausted, and him and Linda told us all goodnight and headed up to bed. Since this was our last full day in Vegas, the guys and our wives had decided that we were going to go all out tonight. We did not have anything in particular planned except to hit as many properties as we could and at least play craps as a group wherever we went. We started out at either Venetian or Palazzo, and played just about everything in there. Mine and Lauren's luck was running good the first part of the night, so we were having a good time. Daniel's luck, on the other hand, had not really been there for him the whole trip. He was down to the bottom of his bankroll for the night, and laid his remaining chips out on some numbers at roulette. I played my typical red or black, and the ball was put into play on the spinning wheel. I hit my color, but Daniel missed his numbers. He hung his head for a minute knowing his night of gambling was over, but kept his spirits up and walked over to a craps table with Lauren and I to watch us. At this point, I should mention that Daniel believed that Matt was a cooler, and he would loose every time Matt came around a table he was playing at. We laughed about this the first part of the trip, but quickly started believing it as every time we were playing somewhere and Matt walked up, we would immediately start loosing. This ended in all of the guys usually drunkenly yelling at him to walk away when he walked up to a table we were at, and we even made him eventually leave the sports books before we placed a bet. As luck would have it, Matt was playing with us when Daniel got busted out, and we all gave him a hard time about cooling Daniel off that night. Matt walked away to go find a penny slot machine somewhere, and the rest of the group went to play craps. Daniel was toying with the idea for Lauren and I to stake him before out first roll, and we would have gladly done it, but he decided against it at the last moment. During that first roll, the strangest thing I have ever seen happen in Vegas occurred. A group of dealers walked up to us at the craps table, one of them was the croupier that we were playing with, and handed Daniel a big stack of chips and told him that the ball had jumped out of it's original slot and landed on one of his numbers once we walked away. We all looked at him dumbfounded for a second. Daniel quickly took the chips, didn't ask any questions, and thanked them as they walked away. To this day, I am not sure what really happened. Maybe the ball did jump out of it's slot like they said it did, but we were standing around that table for a pretty long time after the spin. I do not want to make any assumptions, but there possibly could have been some sort of cheating on the croupier's part that got caught by the eye in the sky, and the pit boss made him make it right before we left. I am hoping that maybe there was some bad math when he was handing out chips after a win, and the pit boss caught it after they came to change out chips or bring new chips. Whatever the reason was, Daniel was back in the action with about half of his bankroll from the start of the night, and settled in to throw dice with the rest of the group.

The chips were obviously affected by The Cooler seeing as how they came about in the shadiest of ways, and Matt had been standing around the table when Daniel busted out, because Daniel never found a rhythm the rest of the night the whole group was together. We left that casino, and went to the other one that was right beside it, either the Venetian or Palazzo, and there was a big No Limit Hold 'Em tournament going on. We stopped to watch from the ropes for a few minutes, and I looked at the leader board on the TV screens, and recognized a few names from TV. I looked around at the players and was able to identify a couple of guys that I knew from watching poker on TV, and pointed them out to Lauren. She could have cared less, but acted interested while I was explaining to her who the guys were. We moved into the main part of the casino, and before we could find a table that had enough seats open for us all to play at together, Angela spots an actor from a TV show she likes watching one of his friends play blackjack. She stops and is star struck. We were about 25 feet from the guy, and Angela points him out. I had never heard of him, or seen the TV show, so I asked her if she was sure that was him. She said she was about 90% sure, so I offered to walk up to him to ask him if he was on the show she liked. She protested, but I have never really been a shy person, and could talk to a brick wall if it gave me the time of day. I strode over to their table, made eye contact with him, and stopped and acted like I had just spotted him. He knew I recognized him, and waited to see what I was going to do. I pointed at him and said, "Brothers and Sisters?"(that was the TV show he apparently was on), and he smiled and nodded his head. I told him that I did not mean to bother him, but my sister-in-law thought she recognized him, and was a huge fan. I asked him if he could just look over and wave at her, he would make her night. His buddy and he laughed a little bit, and he looked up and waved at Angela. She got real giddy and waved back, and we were on our way.

We found a blackjack table to play at, but could not get anything going. We decided to continue our night at Mandalay Bay since we had not spent much of our time on the trip there. We cabbed over, and I gave the group a little pep talk about how we were going to take down the first craps table we found, and have the most epic run we have ever had. We were all hooping and hollering and jumping around while we were walking in. Once we got inside, the place was DEAD! I was shocked. It was a Saturday night in Vegas, and there was hardly a soul in the place. We quickly found a craps table, and I immediately got an omen that we were going to run dead the entire time in there. The omen was nothing more than a person vacuuming the carpet near the craps table, but something just did not feel right. We all bought in for about $100, and spread most of our buy-in's around the table on just about every bet we could after the come-out roll. I rolled first, and immediately hit a seven. "Shit!" I thought. I knew we weren't going to find any luck in here. The rest of the group was still pumped, so everybody bought in for another $100, and we all laid our bets out the same way after the come out roll. We decided to let the birthday girl roll for good luck, and all of the dealer's called her Lady Luck to try to get a good session going. Lauren's hit seven with her first roll, and we all crapped out. At this point, the excitement was over, and everybody stood around and watched as the dealers took down all of the bets. We stood there for a long time not saying anything, and I am sure everyone was wondering if we were just going to call it a night at that point. Suddenly, I remembered that this was our last full night, and the promise we made to each other to go all out tonight. I gave another pep talk about everyday is the Super Bowl and Rule Number 76: No excuses, play like a champion, and what-not. Everyone got excited again, and we decided to head to NYNY to check out the rollercoaster and go to Coyote Ugly. We needed to take a break from the tables. We made our way into NYNY, and went up to check out the roller coaster. The line was insane, so we went over to Coyote Ugly where we caught our second wind thanks to too many drinks, and the birthday girl getting pulled up onto the bar to dance with the bartenders.

With our confidence renewed, we hit Bellagio and Caesar's Palace to gamble some more, but that part of the night was kind of a blur. I don't remember how we did, but we must have finished about even, and it was getting close to 4:00 am. We made our way back over to TI, and I expected our night to end there. We grabbed some food from somewhere, and walked back toward the elevators. I started thinking about how great of a trip it had been, and about how I could not have asked for a better first experience in this great city with the people who I love the most, and I started to mentally rally to keep going. I asked Lauren if she wanted to keep going for a little bit, but her and the rest of the girls were ready to pass out in the rooms. I looked at the guys, and I could tell by the looks on their faces that they were thinking the same thing I was. Daniel piped up with, "I want to see the sunrise over the strip." and we all agreed. We kissed our significant others, sent them off to bed, and stumbled off to find a bank of penny slots we could all play at together and get our BAC back up to an acceptable level, not like it wasn't already there. Matt pulled out a few cheap cigars(I don't know how many of these things he had, but he always seemed to produce them at the right moments), and we drank vodka red bulls and bourbon until we could no longer understand what each of us was saying. I am not sure how we got there or what we did there, but we made our way back over to Venetian and Palazzo, and stayed there until dawn. Once the sun was about to come up, we refreshed our drinks, and walked to a cross walk over looking the strip to witness the sunrise, and toast an incredible trip. We were a drunken mess, we could hardly stand up, and we were as happy as we could possibly be. Mat pulled out 3 more cheap cigars from somewhere, and we smoked our cigars and drank our drinks reminiscing on the trip remembering all of the great times and laughing about everything. After about 30 minutes, I told the guys all good things must come to an end, and it was probably time to get back to the hotel to catch a couple hours of sleep and pack up before our 12:30 flight. They agreed and stumbled back to TI. Once inside, I headed towards the elevators, but Daniel saw the craps table, and had about $100 left from the night. He got this crazy look in his eye, and said he wanted to stay downstairs to play out the remainder of his bank roll. I could barely stand up, and knew I had to get into bed. I told him good luck, and left to go upstairs. I noticed Matt did not go with me, and wondered how long he would stay down stairs before Daniel angrily sent him upstairs for cooling him off. I climbed into bed, and immediately passed out.

The next day, Lauren and I went downstairs to get coffee and a light breakfast. She asked about the rest of our night, and I told her about staying up to watch the sun rise over the strip. She laughed, and then I remembered Daniel and Matt didn't go to bed with the rest of us. We saw Mike and Linda downstairs, and asked them if they had see Daniel or Matt. They both laughed and said that they had seen Daniel at about 8:00 that morning after he woke them up banging on their door. Mike answered the door worried, but Daniel drunkenly reported that he was on the heater of his life, and that Mike needed to get down there since he was the only one at the table. Mike told him he was happy sleeping the rest of the morning, and sent him away. That was the last they had heard of him. After breakfast, we went to find Matt and Daniel, and woke them up in their rooms about 10:00. I asked Daniel what happened to him the night before, and he said that he was the only person at the craps table, and the dealers agreed to lower the table minimum to $5. He sent Matt away before he started, and immediately got on a monster roll. He said he worked his $100 up to $1000 before he left to go get Mike. After Mike sent him away, he went back downstairs, and proceeded to loose every last cent he had at that same table. He was devastated, so he went to go find Matt at the penny slots, and Matt wanted to play some roulette before they went to sleep. Apparently they got on a roulette wheel with a group of guys who were up to catch an early morning flight, and Matt and Daniel started gambling with them and having a great time. Once the group of guys had to leave to catch their flight, one of them had a whole bottle of wine that he said he could not take back with him on the plane, so he gave it to Matt and Daniel. They said they passed the bottle between them, and finished the whole thing at the roulette wheel before calling it a "night" around 9:00. I could not think of a better way to end a trip to Vegas.

 

Thanks for sharing your Vegas TR!

 

Thanks for sharing! I can't believe Daniel ran it up to $1000 on a $5 table and lost it all back! Ouch!

 

Man, I loved riding the wave of your first trip with you. It makes me miss the feeling of those first couple trips. None of us had that much money, but we always got dressed up and had drinks and listened to music and gave each other shit before heading downstairs. Everything was so new and different and unknown. Cherish that feeling, because once it's gone, you won't get it back!

 

Amen, brother. I have been back and gambled at new places since then, but the feeling of us all being there, the comradere of everyone and knowing that anything that happened would be remembered forever is priceless. Thank you for your kind words.

 

Neither could we. No one would have believed it if Mike would not have told us he woke him up so early in the morning telling him he was on such a hot table and showing him the chips, and Matt being there to witness the whole thing. One thing I did not mention was that the commute home that day was awful. I was the first guy to go to bed, and I was feeling terrible. Once we got to McCarren, Matt and I sat on the ground to wait for our flight out, not that there were too many people at our gate, but because we were so hung over we needed to feel that cool tile under us. The rest of the group went to get us lunch at a burger place in the airport. Daniel was still drunk at the airport, so he was doing well. I still can't believe he got his bankroll up to $1000, but The Cooler, Matt, vouched for everything that happened that night, and swore he lost it as quick as he won it.

 

Thank you to everyone who took the time to read this report, and especially to those who shared kind words for this trip report and my family. Nothing makes me happier than thinking back to that first trip and remembering how much fun everyone had. Even though my wife and I have been back, and Linda has been back with her sister since then, none of our trips have quite been the same. You see, Mike owned a couple of sandwich shop franchises called "Sub Station II" in Lexington, SC. He was known throughout our community as Mike who owned Sub Station II, but more for his smile and his magnetic personality. There was not a stranger that he ever met. Mike was a great guy, and he passed about six months after that trip. I was at Lauren's, my girlfriend at the time, house, and I was by his bedside when he went to meet Jesus. While he was getting pumped full of morphine, and was unresponsive, I shared with his family and friends a story about our first trip out to Vegas with everyone, and everyone got a kick out of it. I know he was smiling while he rested peacefully and not in pain.

I owe a lot to Mike. Lauren called me while I was at work one day and told me that the home healthcare nurse had told the family that Mike was in his final hours, and that it would not be long before he passed. I remember rushing to their house to meet Lauren, and us walking into his room together, and telling him, "Good Bye" as a couple. While Lauren loved on her father and told him how much she loved him, she could not keep it together, and walked away. Even though we had had vague conversations about this moment, I took the opportunity to tell him that I would always look after his daughter, and that my intentions were to make her my wife. He smiled at me and said, "Good. I know that you truly love her, and I have no doubt that you will take care of her." Those were the last coherent words he spoke to us, and he died about 12 hours later.

I cherish the moments I got to spend with Mike, and I am forever grateful that I got to have "The Talk" with him about my intentions for his daughter. I think he knew what our plans eventually would be, because him and Linda recorded a few voices for the grandchildren that were on the way at the time to tell them that they were happy to greet them as a couple into this world, but that even though he would not be around to watch them grow up, that he loved them, and that they should listen to their parents, haha. He also recorded a special part for Lauren saying that when she picked a husband, and that he hoped it was me, that he hoped she picked someone who loved her and respected her. She did just that, and I have not stopped loving that girl since the day that I first saw her in the book store at USC.

Thank you everyone who took the time to read this. I know it was long, and I know that it was not an easy read, but it became somewhat of a momento to MIke and all the fun times we shared with him. Mike paid for my first flight and room at Vegas, and he created the most beautiful and special girl that I know and now call my wife. He has four wonderful grandchildren, and his kids have not stopped there. Lauren and I love to be Aunt Lala and Uncle Jay right now, but are anxious to start a family of our own. I just hope that I am half the man to my kids that Mike was to his children and their spouses!

 

Great report, one of the best ones I have read in awhile. Thanks for sharing all of the memories