Come Fly With Me

Day 10 - Mon Oct 31 - part 1

Hallowe'en at last!!! Oh I was excited when I woke up.

And I was also excited about it being Hallowe'en!

I wanted to put on my costume right away, but the Quad Queen told me that I had to wait until the evening, or the Great Pumpkin wouldn't come floating over my pumpkin patch.

Frothy and hot, just like Crystal Tiffany Chantal Lola.

"Wake up! It's Hallowe'en morning!" the Quad Queen yelled. "Let's off to the casino, where gorgeous cocktail waitresses, and $1 cappuccinos await you!"

The Quad Queen slid down her Quadgirl pole, starting at the top a sleepy, tousle-headed wreck, and coming out the bottom brushed up, looking smart and alert, and ready to gamble.



"Ugh," I said. But the seed was planted and I dragged my ass downstairs, wearing clothes even.

Here's one of the great things about the service at Wynn. I've mentioned it before... I flagged down a CW and said "Hey...aha... gurglezpitz... COFFEE... need... CAPPUCCINO.... arghhhhh... need a FIX, I'm hurtin'....".

I need my morning coffee.

Anyway, she said, "Crystal Tiffany Chantal Lola works this section - but I can take your order and pass it on to her. I take it by your bloodshot eyes and pidgin Ordering English that you need two Cappuccino's with sweetener - STAT!"

"...Yeahyeahyeahyeah...." I nodded up and down like a bobble-head Flusher doll.

After a while I spotted a CW with two tell-tale steaming hot cups in front of her. She also had coffees. (Oh, come on, you should be used to this sort of thing by now - Flushiepants is incorrigible!!!)

I had to leap up and head her off on the other side of the bank of machines.

"Yo! Crystal Tiffany Chantal Lola??? I think those are for me."

She came over.

"Oh. Alexxa India Jasmine said you were wearing a blue shirt."

"I'm not. I'm wearing a black shirt."

"Yes... I see that."

"But I do own blue shirts..."

We played about an hour. Here's the definition of success for me on this trip - we broke even.

Awaiting foodstuffs.

The QQ still had a sore throat - she desired foodstuffs, and retirement back to our lodgings. So we hit up the little coffee shop - the Drugstore? - and ordered some stuff. I didn't know what to have, but they had something called a brioche, which, as it turns out, means egg and cheese inside a bun.

The Brioche!

The brioche was still hot and soft when I got it up to our lodgings. I think you are meant to chomp it down without gazing upon its entrails.

I cut it open.

"THERE IS NO GOD!!!!!!!!.........." I exclaimed. "This food is the work of the DEVIL. Or maybe Steve Wynn..."

Brioche, just before being gutted, and aged for 3 weeks with the other sides of beef and such.

Mr. Brioche looked like a big pus-filled McBun. But I'll tell you what - it tasted good, as long as I had my eyes closed.

Now, meanwhile, I'd asked a favor of Piffles and we'd worked out a plan. I texted him and he and Ronco ("Roni.") would be ready to fly in about an hour.

I was really excited about what we were going to do, and finished my brioche off like a hungry waif eating from a dumpster. (I'm not really a waif, and I have the waif-line to prove it.)

The Quad Queen was snuggled back into bed with more potato chips and Jameson's and trash TV on and I grabbed my good camera (the Cameron G16) and hoofed it over to T.I.

Astute readers will recall that I had savvily valeted my rental car at T.I. so that I could a) get hammered there and walk back to Wynn the night before and b) make it easy to pick up Piffles and Ronco ("Roni.").

And that's just how it played out. I arrived at the T.I. lobby and they were ready and waiting. Ready and waiting at the far end of the porte cochon by Starbucks - as far from valet as you can get. As I approached, Piffles took off before I could catch him - running back into T.I.

"Morning Ronco," I said, joining her on a cement bench.

"Roni. Good morning."

"Where'd Piffles go? I saw him tear back into the casino."

"I had some luck last night but forgot to cash my ticket."

Five minutes later, Piffles showed up. Apparently he had issues identifying a cash-in machine. No biggie. We schlepped the luggage over to the valet desk, and I rang for the car.

A couple of minutes and three bucks later, we were on our way to Henderson!!!

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Ronco's sister and husband have a place in Henderson that they use in the winter. Saskatchewan winters require that everyone who can manage it vacate the province.

Piffles guided me in, calling out distance and altitude readings until we taxied up to the correct condo. A nice looking couple came down and greeted us.

Piffles said, "This is my cousin Royal."

"Hi," I said. I couldn't believe how much Ronco looked like her sister.

"You must be Kaytel!" I said.

"Kay."

We made nicey nicey small-talk for a while, and then Piffles, Kaytel's hubby Mike and I piled into the rental and headed off for the airport, Henderson Executive Airport, that is.

"Stanwyck's baby, huh?"

There was about $30M dollars worth of Maverick helicopters on the tarmac there, and a couple of hundred private planes. While we were removing the tie-downs from Piffle's Cessna, three hot low-wing jobs took off fast and hard, winging up into the clear, sunny skies, and moving into formation.

I found out after that one of those aerobatic 'combat' outfits flies out of the airport - that's what we'd seen.

Piffles doing pre-flight.

We got into the Cessna - I called shotgun - and strapped in. Piffles is an excellent pilot. He follows procedures to the letter, running through the checklists, testing the fuel from about six different places for water, making sure the radio is playing the right 'hits of the 60s and 70s'.

I strapped in and popped my side window open.

"CLEAR!" shouted Piffles and cranked the engine over. She came to life and after a couple more minutes of fucking with switches and knobs, and saying some shit or other to the control tower, we were ready to taxi. You can tell I know what I'm talking about, right.

We had to taxi up to the far end of the runway - it took some doing.


Piffles lined 'er up and gave 'er the beans and that Cessna roared down the runway. What a difference from the old '72 Skyhawk! You really got pushed back into your seat. With about a third of the runway used we soared into the air.

The plan was to fly east and catch a look at the Hoover Dam. It was off the port wing and I couldn't really see it - I grabbed a few pictures by shoving the camera in front of Piffle's face. That's okay, you don't need to see much to fly.

We turned right and headed back and the dam was behind us. I managed to turn my head enough, snapping two vertebrae in the process, to see the dam for approximately 1.3 seconds. My camera had better luck than my eyeballs did.

We saw some amazing mansions. Check this complex out!

Continued - click for lots more pics...