Viva Las Vegas!

Sunday, I and a coworker (Holly) at Berry flew to Las Vegas for a conference - similar to the conference I attended back in March. Somehow, when I was looking at the flight itinerary, I forgot/ignored the time difference, so what appeared to be a short two hours from Chicago to Vegas was, in fact, a four hour flight. You know me, long legs, bad knees, so I had picked an aisle seat and the leg rooom wasn’t too bad. But there was this older lady sitting in the middle seat beside me, and her hubs was in the aisle seat across from me. I stupidly changed seats with him - dumbest thing ever! I swear it had two feet less leg room than the other one (exaggerate much?), but still, very cramped. And the couple beside me drank like fishes and, when they weren’t getting frisky with each other, they were wanting out to go wee. Sigh.

We arrived at LV about 7:30 pm. Getting the luggage took forever, and then finding the place where we were supposed to meet our Uber driver took some time, so we got to the Rio about 9-ish. Between being hot and tired and all the lights and noise, I was exhausted. So upon getting to my room, I took a quick shower and dropped into bed, asleep within seconds.

Of course, the mass shooting happened that evening, not too far from the Rio.. I was on the 10th floor and slept through it, but Holly, on the 15th floor, but on the side facing the Mandalay Bay, got to see and hear all the lights and sirens.

The first I knew about it was Monday morning when I nabbed my phone and saw these texts from people wanting to make sure I was ok. The best/oddest one being “I know you weren’t at the concert, but are you ok?” Finally, I made it thru the list to the first one where Holly had texted me about it. Of course, FB was filled with it.

My body, being on CDT, was up really early, so I had plenty of time before meeting up with Holly to watch the news and just get bummed. I was sitting there on the couch thinking, “I want to go home... Don’t want to be here.” But fortunately, seeing Holly made me feel better. It’s still rather nerve-racking that you can go to some silly concert and never come home.

About 10-ish, we managed to find breakfast, at Hash House a Go-Go. I got the French Toast, (been on a French Toast kick lately) with bacon and scrambled eggs. WAY too much food, but it was very good. Holly and I sat there over our bacon and got to know each other.

I have to preface this by pointing out that prior to our flight from Evansville, we’d spent all of 15 minutes in each other’s presence. Being an introvert, I don’t open up to strangers very easily/quickly, but one day, while IM’ing back and forth regarding the conference, she mentioned booking flights so we flew together and I said, well, we can fly out together, but I’m planning on staying for a couple extra days. We chatted a little more, and then I found myself saying, “you’d be welcome to stay and see Vegas with me.” Again, I knew nothing about her... she could have been a serial killer (too soon?) or even worse, Canadian! (Inside joke there, no offense to Canadians... may need to move up there at some point.)

But back to our bonding over bacon (bacon and cheese, brings the world together), I just felt like I’d known her forever. One thing about this woman, is a world class haggler. For example, when we checked in, she was offered the ability to waive housekeeping in exchange for a $50 credit good at any restaurant in the hotel. I was not. But again, I was too tired to do anything about it, Monday morning we went to the front desk to inquire and were told that you had to do it when checking in. We pointed out that it wasn’t offered, and they shrugged. This is the point where I would have wandered off muttering to myself. Not Holly, she ended up talking to a couple of people, but she got me this waiver/credit thing! There’s another couple of examples, but I may cover them later on.

After breakfast, we checked out a slot machine, I lost $10, like super fast. We roamed around some, but then shortly it was almost time to start getting ready for the classes we’d signed up for that started at 2pm. We trekked the half mile back to our rooms and then back. We still had a couple of minutes, so I slipped another $5 into a machine and won $50!! Now, I realized I’d spent $15 for this $50, so I really only won $35, but I was perfectly happy and stopped there.

After sitting in a meat locker, er.. attending our 4 hour classes, we met up with the third member of our team, Shannon, who flew in from Charlotte Monday afternoon. Personally, I don’t know if I’d have flown into a city the day after there was a mass shooting in it, but she did.

It had been a long 24 hours for all of us, so we dumped our stuff in our room and then went to the 50th floor to the Voodoo Restaurant for some steak. I had a filet and it was THE best hunk of beef I’ve ever eaten... and my mac and cheese, was made with truffle oil - it was divine. The grand total of this meal, including tip, was over $400 for the three of us. I’m pretty sure it’s the most expensive meal I’ve ever eaten, but totally worth it!

After the meal, we went out on the balcony to see the view, at night, and it was wonderful. 

Matt, our account rep from the software company, Conga, was planning on taking us to see Love, the Cirque de Soleil show set to Beatles music, Monday evening at the 9:30 p show. But due to the massacre, the show was cancelled, out of respect, I suppose. So, since her tum was fully satisfied with beef and comfort mac and cheese, Rose, whose body said it was 10:30 pm, went to bed..