Welcome to Fabulous Las Vega.

Day 1 part 1 Tuesday May 28, 2024 

Welcome to Fabulous Las Vega.

Well, I was starting to feel like I was just rattling around in the house as the weeks have gone by. I've set to cleaning, decluttering and re-organizing from top to bottom.

I found a re-organizing book that I'd read before and that never helped at all. And a week later, as I finally started to dig in, I dispatched a pile of stuff from the corner of a room, stuff that has been sitting there since the last time I attempted to get organized, probably five years ago.

Buried in that pile was another book, Organizing for Dummies.

Shaking off the shame blanket, I realized I needed to shake the funk. There are so, so many memories in our house and it was all starting to bring me down to an unsafe level of depression.

What better cure than to take a trip. A holiday. Yeah! An actual holiday from life. I tossed around ideas for a few days and quickly realized that I can only afford hotels in Las Vegas. Big fucking surprise, that's where I'm going!

I've never booked a trip so near in the future - just a week out - and it's never come together so easily.

My flight out was booked on WestJet, using (mumble mumble Quad Queen's) WestJet Dollars and a bit of cash, around $100. Breaking the usual pattern of a late night arrival, this flight leaves at 12:20 pm and gets in with a decent amount of the Vegas day still on tap.

My flight back was booked on WestJet, using my WestJet Dollars and the Travel Bank dollars still left over from the canceled 2020 COVID trip we never got to take (!). Cost out of pocket, zero.

Rooms came together in about two minutes. I decided on 3 nights at Park MGM, comped (but with resort fee charged), $20 in freeplay and $50 in resort credit. I still have $53 in comp dollars or something that I've never used up, so that will provide some food.

I've never stayed at Park MGM and barely set foot in the place when it was Monte Carlo. I like the idea of the non-smoking casino, and it'll give me a fresh perspective on the south strip.

My host at the Cal set up a 4 night stay for me. It'll cost me $100 for a tip. I probably have a bit of food and a bit of freeplay there as well. I asked for a meal book as well, so I should be good to go.

The week prior to the trip went quickly and I had a new hop in my step. I hopped here, I hopped there. I hopped to the kitchen. I hopped up the stair. I hopped to the bathroom. I hopped everywhere. I was hopping like a furry character in a cutesy children's book by Dr. Fucking Seuss.

I know a lot of you like live reports, and generally I like doing them, but it opens me up to a lot of meet-up requests, and I'm just not up to that right now. So, forgive me, but this will be written live as I go, but posted afterward.

I'll still be hiding some Official Lucky Royal Flusher Business Cards 2.0 around, so if you are headed to Vegas soon (or there now) hit me up and I'll give you a secret location to look in for one.

Instead of screwing around with the train, I decided to just drive to Pearson this time, and pay to park in the Value Lot. Where there is a Lot of Value, I guess.

A few days before the flight, WestJet gave me the option of bidding on an upgrade to Premium class (big seat up front, meal, drinks, snacks). OK, I'll put in a low-ball offer, I thought... the minimum bid was $340. Umm no.

At check-in, the day before the flight, I had a look and I could upgrade my seat to Premium for $199. I thought this over very carefully for about 6 milliseconds. SOLD! Flushiepants deserves a treat, don't you think?

Packing went quickly, and I set four alarms for 5:00 am. Just before bed, I got notified that my flight would leave at 1:20 instead of 12:20. I hoped this wouldn't be a creeping delay situation. I reset my alarms for 5:45 am.

And... I woke up at 2:00, 3:30 and 5:00. Out of bed at 5:10 and hit the road an hour and a half later. It was nice to not have to rush.

The drive was easy, and I did it in a straight shot, no stops. Getting to the Value Lot was incredibly easy, and the tram is right there to get you to the terminal. Everything was flowing beautifully.

I breezed through security and was ejected into the maw of the Duty Free. I packed light this trip and had room in my bag for a bottle, which I could stow after landing in Vegas. The prices at Duty Free aren't great for the most part, especially in the bourbon department. But I found a crappy bottle of vodka for $22 and went for it. I like to have a supply in the room for chilling out and pre-gaming.

Oddly, the duty free store didn't deliver the goods to me at flight time. The clerk just asked if I had room in my bag (I just said so!) and handed over the firewater. I could have gotten soused on cheap likker in the terminal if I wanted!

Since my last trip to Vegas, I've been dry except for two weeks after the Quad Queen's memorial, finishing off the leftovers. That's four and a half months without drinking this year. I figure I have enough problems right now without alcohol pushing me towards depression. And it's expensive in Canada. And it's unhealthy.

However, for Vegas, the taps will be turned on! And that seems appropriate.

I found myself with quite a bit of time to kill before the flight. I wandered here and there, ate an egg and cheese on a croissant, people-watched, daydreamed, played with my phone.

I kept an eye on the displays and the 1:20 pm departure time stood. With about an hour to go, I headed to the gate. To my surprise, the flight was boarding already. Shit!!! I checked at the desk and yes, this was the flight to Vegas, and yes, there had been some sort of communication snafu with the flight time. I'd even been paged but was out of earshot, watching some hapless traveler dump half a Cuba libre down her crotch. White pants. It was not a good look.

I'd lucked out going to the gate when I did. I won't make that mistake again. My boarding pass still said boarding at 12:40 not 11:40. Weird.

Swathed in leather.

The flight was very pleasant. The meal was delicious, although light on the beef. I made up for that with snacks. I enjoyed two vodka rocks, the season finale of Australia's Farmer Wants a Wife (poor Bert!) and 80% of a movie called Anne Hathaway Shags a Boy Band. Also titled The Idea of You. It was cringey during the performance parts, and some of the other parts, but Anne was easy to look at and the attraction between her and a 24 year old singer seemed credible. I enjoyed it enough that I will finish it at some point when my luck turns bad.

The best thing is that if 40 year old Anne was interested in a 24 year old sing 'n grind hump boi, logic dictates that as a 64 year old, I have a shot at getting with Anne Hathaway. Because turnabout is fore play.

We landed into a beautiful, scorching hot, windy Vegas afternoon. I grabbed a taxi, which I'd been dreading, because taxis have ranty drivers. I employed the 'I'm on the phone' strategy, calling everyone I knew (and some I didn't) to avoid conversing with the driver. This worked beautifully for 80% of the trip.

The driver was sane, as far as road skills go, which I appreciated. But I made a comment about Tropicana after seeing the destruction team dump a mattress out a window. The dude went on a rant about who owns the real estate in the world and blah blah blah and the mafia's kids got MBAs and now run the banks and on and on.

But, I was at Park MGM, and safe, and I already had my electronic room key. Sixth floor room. Oh well. I made two physical keys, shocked that the technology actually worked first try.

The room was fine, and I liked the decor and color scheme.

This was written at that table there.

After some unpacking, and a brief rest, it was time to really start the trip - and hit the casino!