German guy does it again (with friends). Will try to do it semi-live again

Outletcenter north was our destination for the next couple of hours, so no pictures of that, but after the shopping spree we were happy that we rented a suburban with lots of space in the trunk to haul all the bags back to our hotel.

It was almost dinnertime by then, so of to the camelot steakhouse we went. Had the 9oz filet mignon, K had the new york strip, and P opted for the ribeye. All cuts were cooked perfectly to the point. So good! We had sides of garlic fries, mushrooms and asparagus. Nice and tasty as well. Tried the lobster bisque as starter, which was delicious. Would choose it as starter any time again!

After dinner i really needed a good scotch single malt, so Macallan 12 was it. Sherry cask, dried fruits, plums... great stuff!








Gamblingwise no big wins today, but hours of fun and drinks on the floor, and a huge amount of tiercredits

To finish for today, here is yesterdays cigarporn of the day:

 

Sorry for the long radiosilence here. We basically had two days of only shopping, gambling and errrr... boozing, which might not be that much of interest.

Just returned from a day full of drifting along and racing supercars at exotics racing, and now we get ready for birthdaydinner tonight and later on enjoying cigars and fine spirits. Will report back late at night or tomorrow with cars, foodporn, cigars and stupid but funny challenges!

 

Seems, you are lost

 

I am not dead, but i have to apologize...

Writing a live tripreport is easy when travelling solo, because i can take my time to write the next part whenever i wish to do so.
When travelling with friends, it's much harder to get a break to sit down, unwind and write, especially when organizing and booking all the stuff to do for them and translate all the time as well.
So while in Vegas, i made the decision to finish this report back at home.

Well... that was the plan, but things went totally wrong 2 days after safely returning home. As some of you know from my last tripreport, i had some health issues with my right knee/leg due to an accident in the past.
So two days back at home i started to feel a bad pain in the leg, and the situation got worse into a severe health issue, which made me spend the next three weeks in the hospital. Thank god for the recovery, i was at the brink of loosing my right leg...

The very long break in this report definitly isn't what i had in mind while starting it, but now that i am up and running again, i will finish it, as promised!

So, again my apologies to all who may have been disappointed on this unfinished product, stay tuned!

 

Glad to hear your leg is ok!

 

Wow, after all of that I’m glad you recovered Take your time - we can manage

 

Glad you're ok. I enjoyed the trip report and the great pictures. Your cigar collection is very nice. I'm so looking forward to my trip in a few weeks.

 

Finally, after a very long time, the next part is here!

As this day would be my birthday in Las Vegas, we decided long before the trip started to visit exotics racing on this date. As i am a car guy with a love for fast cars from all over the world, what could be more appropiate then treating yourself with some nice supercars for your birthday?

So we booked a nice promotion weeks before heading out to Las Vegas and got some really nice cars for a fair price.

But never forget breakfast before you go racing! First stop was the Bayside Buffet at Mandalay Bay for a quick brunch, and away we went!



As we arrived at the racetrack, we quickly checked in and attended the "driving lesson", which rather is a short video and some quick jokes from one of the instructors. Having survived the jokes, we were ready to go.

Here is my selection of the day (7 Laps on each car):

Nissan GT-R Premium
Mercedes AMG GT R
Lamborghini Huracan LP580-2
Ferrari 488 GTB

P was rather seeking for maximum speed and fast laptimes, so he started with 10 laps on the Porsche 991 GT3 to get a feeling for the track and then switched for 20 laps on the Porsche 991 GT2 RS.

K is more into big pickup trucks, 4x4s and big toys like that, so he didn't want to race any supercar, but he wanted all of us to do the drifting-ride-along on the Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat.

Of course they made us go drifting AFTER we did our laps on each car, because you never know. Some say visitors have tried to drift their supercar as well and that some of them slightly lost control of the situation then.
All we know is... we might have done the same.

Oh boy, did we have fun during the hours we spend there. I highly recommend going there if someone is into cars and speeding, it's pure fun all day long!
Best part for P and me: One of their racing instructors is a very nice girl from germany, so no language problems for P. And for me, as i already know the racetrack from a past visit, and having spend many hours on racetracks in germany with almost every car i ever owned, we could enjoy some very nice and funny conversations while hammering down the track. Oh, did i mention that she is the former german playmate of the year 2008?
Here name is Doreen Seidel, if you are interested. If you get the chance to race with her, do it! Not only is she still a very pretty lady, but she is also very knowledegable when it comes to fast cars of all kinds AND she really is a speedfreak.
As she found out that it is my birthday today, she quickly radioed the office that we will to some complementary rounds for the birthday guy, so i even had 9 laps in each car. Strike!

Here are a few shots of the Hellcat, my two favourites (the Huracan and the "Green Hell", the Mercedes AMG GT R) and of the GT2, which made P sweat his pants after he had done 20 laps inside this beast!



As we arrived back at homebase early evening, we really needed a long cold shower. Supercars and a beautiful lady riding along with you.... every boys dream, right? Right!

Dinner was at Toby Keith's Bar&Grill at Harrahs. Simply, because i like this bar & i can sing along alot of his songs Not that anyone would want to hear me doing that, but anyway...
We really enjoyed our dinner there. I had the prime top sirloin, K tried the new york strip steak, and P had a full rack St. Louis ribs. Everything was delicous. The guys really enjoyed it, and to wash all the meat down, we each had a mason jar with tennessee sweet tea. Really love the taste of it!



After the meal, and after a second tennessee sweet tea, K had a nice decent buzz going on, and we encouraged him to do the stupid worm-challenge there. As K pretty much eats everything from meats of all kinds of animals, fish, seafood and even insects, it was a pretty easy quest for him. Just simply enjoy the shot of Mezcal and eat the worm in it, done.

Well, it WAS that easy. He did so fast i couldn't even make a picture of him eating it, so here is just a pic of the shot with the worm (taking a bath in Mezcal, right beneath the slice of lime).



Well, we had a lot of fun this evening, but if i would have known what consequences this stupid wormchallenge would cause even days later, i maybe wouldn't have K encouraged to do it, but that is a story for another day....

 

Glad you're ok, again. Wish you the best.
Great report.

 

I had to google Doreen Seidel

 

Is it another day yet? I need to hear what happened

 

We will get back to this story later on in this report, i promise!

 

Ok, so after the actionpacked day before, we decided to do a roadtrip the next day. Destination: Valley of fire.

I've been there on other trips before, but as i mentioned in my last trip report, i really love driving around and i also love the landscape all around Las Vegas.
P and K have never been to the valley of fire before, so that was another good reason to venture out there.

First stop for breakfast however was the Rio. P had made a great deal with a groupon for breakfast there, open bar included. I admit i was a bit sceptical on what to expect from the Rio buffet, but it was not bad at all.

They even have a made to order ramen station. Different types of noodles to choose from, rich and very tasty broths and a nice selection of greens and herbs to pimp your ramen even more.



Yepp, tasty!



The desert selection was also quite nice. A lot to choose from, and also very tasty! And yes, i am a bit of a desert junkie ..



P and K did also use the open bar because why not. As i was the designated driver for today again (which is pretty fine for me), i did stick to peach iced tea.
I do get some speeding tickets casually here in germany, and i know that a little speeding is not ok, so i pay them without any complaints, but when it comes to hard No-No's like DUI, i strictly stick to the rules, for my own safety and the safety of everyone else too of course. BTW, here is a nice little story of James May about german drivers and hard rules, and i think it is absolutely on the point:

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But back to the report, after breakfast we did continue our trip to the valley of fire. We did spend several hours there, checking out almost every important point of view and simply enjoyed the beautiful scenery and peaceful silence there.
So amazing to just admire the beauty of nature. So here are some pics...



As evening started to begin, we returned to Las Vegas and made another quick stop at the Rio for a quick dinner. We did came across the Smashburger in the morning and decided to check it out for dinner later.
All of us love to try some new to us burger places, and we really weren't disappointed. Cheap burgers, nice onionstrings and over all a great taste. Would eat there again!



Finally back at homebase, we enjoyed the evening while gambling and drinking an unknown number of jake&cokes. No big wins to report, but some nice and decent ones, which kept us pretty much even all the night.
Here is a nice hit at one of the lightning link machines. Of course the very last ball didn't show up, but i won't complain about the smaller jackpots settling in.



And in the next part:

I win some money.
P shoots some guns.
And K walks sideways.

 

Always love a trip report with lots of pics!

 

Aaaand we're back for the next day!

So, after the long night of gambling yesterday, we decided to skip breakfast, because we had a ride scheduled to pick us up at 09:30 am.
The Destination: Battlefield Vegas to shoot some guns and have a lot of fun. Getting picked up and driving around in an original HMMWV surely is a lot of fun, but things got even better after we arrived.
I have been there before, so i decided to only shoot quite a few magazines each in three historic pistols. All the stuff you could eventually see in museums over here in germany, but you can't touch them, yet even shoot them.

So i did choose the Mauser C96 (imperial germany, WW 1), the Walter P-38 and my favourite, the Luger P-08 (both **** germany, WW 2).
K had some fun with the Hamburger Hill Experience, and P had the Black Ops Gamer Experience, with the addition of quite a few other guns and rifles, so the RSOs needed a second cart just to carry around his selection.

To make it short: It was awesome and well worth the money. P and K liked the insanely huge selection they have there, and for me, being interested in military history (especially WW 1 and WW 2), it was an amazing experience to shoot those historic weapons. If you get the chance to go there and shoot some rare guns, do it! I can only recommand it. Even the ride back was great fun. Our driver was blasting some dark industrial metal from his spotify playlist of an unknown german musician. Unknown for him, because i did know the songs very well. He was coincidentally blasting one of my favourite bands through the speakers and he was more than happy to crank up the volume even more, as i started to growl along with the songs. What a great way to roll around Las Vegas! Great fun, no doubt!



Old tanks and a lot of other military vehicles on the property.


After shooting all those guns, we finally felt hungry, so we headed over to Nacho Daddy next to the miracle miles shop at PH. Never been there before, but i thought we should give it a try.
I think we made a good decision, because the guys really liked it. Had the Nacho Average Burger Nacho, P the flaming filet mignon fajitas and K some sort of burito. Could have been the fajita burito, i'm not sure about that.
Food was delicious and the drinks were pretty good as well. And that was where the day started to get a little bit out of hand, drinkingwise...

K really dug into his bloody mary so fast, he ordered the next one even before his food arrived. P had some sort of frozen something (which i forgot the name, but as he said it was fantastic) and i did try the Daddy's stout, a very tasty stout, that made me order another one of it surprisingly fast... and after the meal we had a shot of some sherrycask aged tequila, just because...




Hands down: Great food and drinks, but maybe a bit much alcohol to start the daytime drinking, but anyway... we went over to the Linq. We had thought about doing a trip on the highroller before we started our trip, so today seemed to be the right day to do it. As we waited in line to purchase our tickets, P suggested to do the happy half hour in the evening, to enjoy some drinks and the lights of Las Vegas. Sure enough, we DID purchase those tickets, but we had some more hours to kill until it got dark in the evening. What to do? Easy thing... went over to O'Sheas and sat down at the outside bar for a cup of guinness (or 2 or 3). We did spend about 3 hours there, drinking, joking around and enjoying random conversations with other people showing up there.


I would never pass on a nice sip of guinness, i guess...


But then it was time to head home to change for the evening. The walk back gave us some time to get rid of the growing buzz we had, but sure enough it all started again as we arrived back at the High Roller and entered the open bar cabin with a bunch of other thirsty riders. The barkeeper was amazingly fast in making the desired drinks and was joking around all the time while making sure that everyone could get as much out of the half hour as possible. Everybody in the cabin had a real good time, laughing and cheering and helping each other with taking pictures, so much fun. AND ... if i remember correctly, each of us had at least five pretty strong drinks... might have even been six, but i'm not sure about that. Needless to say that our buzz was back and even stronger than before, as we finally left the highroller...



P did buy the pricy tourist photo at the exitshop of the high roller, while i was chatting with a nice couple from canada, when suddenly K loudly announced that he wished to eat another worm and get another free tshirt now. We looked at him quite puzzled, but as he ordered us in an almost military speech to move our a**es over there, we just laughed and went right over to Toby Keiths bar again. Seems K had a real good buzz going on right then....

Back at Toby Keiths we got some free seats at the bar, where K almost immediately ordered another wormshot, but being the fellow soldiers in every drinking battle we are, P and I ordered a shot of Jägermeister to join him. What a mistake...
After eating another worm and getting the second free tshirt, K ordered more rounds of Jägermeister and then some more and so on.... We REALLY started to feel quite drunk by then, but anyway... as we finally left the bar, it was fair to say that we were pretty hammered.

And here is the part i don't understand today. I must have had a complete blackout in my memories right at that moment. I remember everything until we left the bar. Next thing i clearly remember is us arriving back at the excalibur after taking a cab.
But what happend in between? Strangely THAT part of the day is very well remembered by P und K. It seems i have led them all the way through Harrahs back to the Linq for some reasons, then took a cab from there back to the excalibur. During the ride, i somehow must have started to talk to the cabdriver... well talking means that two people take part in a conversation, but in this case it seems it was more of a tsunami of smalltalk that kept crashing on the poor driver. I think we were lucky that he didn't throw us out somewhere on the way, but i guess cabdrivers are used to nonstop talking drunken idiots... oh well...

I DO remember clearly our arrival at the excalibur. Without any words, we somehow silently agreed that the driver did deserve a real good tip for driving us drunken fools around, so we left his cab, piled up some money and handed it over to him.
All of a sudden, he seemed amazed and pretty happy while asking us, if he now had to do something sexual to us after he took a look at the stack of money in his hand. I don't recall how much he got, but i am pretty sure it was way more than an average tip...

Somehow at this point, i started to feel much better again, while P and K were making their way through the casino towards the elevators. Well, P was walking, while K, massively hammered was more or less tumbling around, tumbling back and forwards, stepping to the sides, seeking his balance, so P grabbed him by the shoulder to give some guidance and to prevent K from crashing into some slots or faceplanting on the casino floor. I couldn't help but walking a bit behind them to snap a picture and laugh my ass of on that sight.


Give Way! Oversized load!

As P and K went to their rooms to pass out calmly, i couldn't resist to do some drunken latenight gambling. I tried one of the rather new quickhits slots, and got some real decent wins during a short time.
I ended the night and cashed out a bit more then 1K and called it a night.


Drunken late night gambling, yeah!


And in the next part:

"I have nothing to offer but blood, ink and beers...."

 

Finally, after a very long time, the next part is here!

So glad to see the rest of your awesome trip report, and even better that you are now OK!

 

What an awesome report!! By the stories and the pictures, you guys had a blast in Vegas. And glad to hear that you are all recovered from that leg scare!! Great report!!

 

Did K eat this, since he eats animals and insects alike?

 

And after all the christmas celebrations and diner feasts done, here is the next part of this report. Hope you all had a very rockin' christmas!

So, the next day started with my cellphone ringing wildly for a few minutes until i finally woke up to realise what was going on.
It was K, still a bit drunk and somehow a bit in panic asking me if i had any band aid or other first aid stuff in my luggage. I usually do have some sort of first aid in my luggage, mostly because it's better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it. Still a bit puzzled, i asked him what's wrong, and he told me in a rather confusing way that he was standing in his bathroom with his hand bleeding, that his door is open and that he was waiting for me to help.

WTF did he do? Instantly being awake now, i grabbed my stuff and rushed to his room, still only in shorts and tshirt. Luckily he was on the same floor, so i was there within a minute or so.

It did turn out that he tried to open a bottle of carbonated water, and he somehow managed to rip of the bottleneck of the glassbottle in his still drunken clumsyness. He couldn't recall how he managed to do that, but the result were two cuts in his finger and his hand. HIs bathroom was a bit of a mess with blood all over the sink and on the floor. Good thing that i am one of the first responders in our company, so i managed to stop the bleeding from his cuts, rushed back to my room to get dressed and drove him to the medical center on east harmon. A few stitches there and some new band aid, and he was good to go again. What a way to start the last complete day in Las Vegas.

Anyway, P was kind enough to clean up the mess in K's bathroom while we had been in the medical center (had given him K's roomkey right before we went there), and he even packed up the wrecked bottle carefully with a note on it, so that noone from housekeeping could get any injuries while cleaning it up, so we could finally start our day after a quick breakfast at Johnny Rockets.


Next time, only plastic bottles for K, for safety reasons! (And, as some people can't see blood, no pictures of the bloody bathroom)


We then went out to the Silverton Casino to visit the Bass Pro Shop. As K likes fishing and the outdoors, he didn't think about his hand any longer and was more than happy to get some new fishig baits and other stuff i couldn't even name, while P was looking around this big shop and the Casino. I did buy some new squeakytoys for my dog, as he just loves his collection of squeakytoys.



I really like the Bass Pro Shop and the Silverton, a lot to see there and a very releaxed and quiet atmosphere. I dropped the guys of at the MGM Grand and returned our rental car. I usually do this one day before leaving, as it is pretty convenient to me to take a cab right to the airport terminals and not having to drag all the luggage around the rental shuttle again right before heading home.

We met again at the Coca Cola Store on the strip to try the tasting menu with 8 different flavours and matching floats. Well, lets say it this way... some flavours are great and i wish i could get them over here, while others are.... rather questionable at best.


After all that tasty sips, we went to the Linq for an appointment i had set up days before at the local tattoo store there. I had exchanged quite some mails with one of their artists beforehead to discuss some designs i like and he did come up with one i really loved, so the next few hours i would spend on his chair to get some ink done on my chest. P and K left me there to have a beer or two at O'Sheas. Leo Montanes is a great guy there at Club Tattoo and we had a lot of fun during the next hours.
Chatted almost all the time while he was working on the tattoo. I will be back there the next trip to have another one done by him, but for today, after about four and a half hours, his work was done.


Not everything stays in Vegas...

I picked up P and K at O'Sheas and they obviously had enjoyed their time there pretty much. They weren't as hammered as yesterday, but it seems they had quite some beers again, so i carefully advised them to play it slow now, because i really had no interest in having another trip to a medical center again. Seems they understood, so we walked slowly back to the Excalibur for a nice feast at Bucca di Beppo. Huge servings there and really tasty. Sadly, i forgot to take pictures there, maybe because i was really hungry, but all of us enjoyed dinner there.

P and K did gamble a bit after dinner and had one or two more drinks, but went to their rooms soon. Maybe the day before still took its toll, who knows.
I enjoyed a nice Montecristo cigar after diner and gambled a bit more, no great winnings, but still up a few hundred for the day.



Knowing we had to leave the next day, i decided to do a last walk on the strip and enjoy bright light city once more, so here are a few shots from my walk.



Still a bit pumped, i started to pack up most of my stuff to save some time the next day for a bit of gambling in the morning and went to bed, hoping no emergency call would bust my plans for the last few hours of this trip.

And in the next part: What a great way to end a trip....

 

That guy was way to fast for K to eat. Also, i think he'd rather would liked to have him fried before eating...