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Las Vegas
Laura and I went on our second vacation of the year, this time with my family, to Las Vegas. Various pieces of my family go to Vegas at least once a year, sometimes more... and this trip was planned because Laura had never been there.
We all flew out of Cincinnati... it was Laura and I, my parents, and my grandparents. Unfortunately, Joe couldn't join us, he had to work in New Orleans... or so we were told!
We got into Vegas on Saturday afternoon, got to our hotel (We stayed at The Orleans), unpacked a bit, and then went down to the casino to eat. We had just ordered our food, when we hear someone behind us ask “Is this seat taken?”, we all look, and it was Joe! He and dad had planned it all out to surprise everybody... he had gotten off work and not told anybody. It was good to have him along. After dinner, we gambled for a while before bed.
Joe and I slept in a bit on Sunday, after everybody else had breakfast, we went down to the strip and walked along half of it. Went into Encore, the Wynn, the Flamingo, the Venetian, Treasure Island, the Mirage, Caesar's Palace and Bill's Gamblin' Hall and Saloon. At Caesar's Palace, we went to the Forum Shops, and stopped by Field of Dreams (Sports memorabilia store). Joe and I are both big memorabilia collectors, so we wanted to check it out... and when we got there, Pete Rose was inside signing autographs! Apparently, he's there pretty often. Mom talked to him for about 10 seconds, and I thought she might pass out... she was funny =) We went to the Gold Coast after that for Prime Rib at the Cortez Room... DELICIOUS! After dinner, we went to see Jubilee at Bally's, one of the real “Vegas Style” showgirl shows. It was very good... and the topless girls didn't hurt... hehe. After the show, we watched the fountain show at the Bellagio before going back to the Orleans for a little gambling before bed.
On Monday, Joe and I joined everybody for breakfast after not hearing the end of it for skipping it the day before! Laura, Joe, mom, dad and myself went back to the strip after breakfast. First, we went to Bally's for a backstage tour of Jubilee. Got to see the dressing rooms, sets, costumes, etc. After that, dad went back to the Orleans, and the rest of us walked the other half of the strip that we didn't see on Sunday. We walked through Paris, the Hard Rock Cafe, and MGM Grand. Then we got to New York, New York... and Joe, Laura and I tried to do an O-H-I-O picture with the Statue of Liberty. It didn't turn out quite as well as we'd hoped, but good enough. We then went through the Excaliber, New York, NewYork, and the Monte Carlo on our way back. That evening, Laura and I had dinner reservations at the Eiffel Tower restaurant in Paris... so we headed over there around 5:30. The dinner was VERY nice... probably the nicest restaurant I've ever eaten in (And definitely the most expensive!). Laura and I each had the chef's sampler, since we didn't know what the heck to order. It was a 7 course meal! I don't even remember what most of the stuff was... but there was an appetizer course, a soup, a salad, a fish dish, lamb chops, a cheese course, and then dessert. The food was amazing, and the view was great. After dinner, we headed back to The Orleans and played a bit on the video poker machines (My game of choice for the trip). Mom and Joe were watching Toy Story 3 in the casino's movie theater when we got back, but they joined us afterwards. Just as we were getting ready to head up to bed... Joe hit a Royal Flush on his machine with a 5x bonus activated! He won $1000 on a freaking nickel machine! After that, he cashed out... so of course, I grabbed the machine! I played for a bit, and then hit 4 of a kind with a 5x bonus activated! Mine was only for $60... but hey, I'll take it! I lost a bit of that, and then decided to cash out, so mom sat down at the machine. She lost $5 right away, so we went to bed.
Tuesday, mom, Joe, Laura and I took the shuttle to the strip, and then got a taxi out to the World Famous Gold & Silver Pawn Shop... better known as the pawn shop on the hit show Pawn Stars on the History Channel (If you haven't seen it, I recommend it!). When we got there, we were told that the Old Man and Big Hoss were there, but they were in the back. We had missed the Old Man by about 10 minutes, they said he was just out taking pictures and signings autographs and things. We checked out the shop and waited around a while, hoping they would come back out. We heard someone say they were outside, so we ran out and saw them each walking in with security. They weren't stopping for anything, just on their way in from checking out something in the back. So we went back in. Big Hoss went on break then, and he came out. We each got our picture taken with him and had him sign some shot glasses for us. We waited a while longer to see if the Old Man would come back out, but he didn't, so we headed out. That night, we went downtown to Fremont Street for the Fremont Experience. After that, we walked down Fremont Street and checked out the Fremont, Joe and I got our picture taken with $1,000,000 at Binions, and then we played a bit at the California Club (They still have the old style machines that use quarters instead of printing out tickets). That night, Joe and I stayed up late playing on our last night... and he was having horrible luck on his machine. I told him I'd show him how to do it, and moved over to his machine after he lost his money. I played for a while and lost some, and then hit four dueces on the bottom row of triple play (The cards you hold continue up to the top 2 rows... effectively giving me four dueces 3 times), and then on the top row I got the kicker card... which doubled the prize for that row! Again, only $80, so can't compare to my brother's win... but was a good way to end the trip.
The next day we got up and headed home. Very fun trip!