April 12, 2001
We headed out to meet other Aol Baby Boomers from across the US in Vegas, my first trip there. Jena's Easter basket was hiding at Bri's and the girls were headed for a huge family shindig that Sunday.
Dinner was at the Hungry Hunter in Bakersfield, Salmon and Prime Rib, the night was spent at the Travel Lodge at Tehachapi.
Breakfast was at the Roadhouse in Kramer Junction [-1] because Big Daddy's was gone!! : (
We stopped at the Calico ghost town, quite a tourist stop but still fun, and then stopped at a Calico archeology site. A great sign seen was "Don't Annoy The Crazy Person."
We took a bug stop west of Bakersfield, and had lunch at the Primm Valley Resort and Casino for a real turkey sandwich and a patty melt. I just about fainted when they asked "Smoking or non-smoking?"
We drove into Vegas about five in the afternoon, met Julia at the Piano bar, who was on the phone to Anne right up to the moment they saw each other. We still scream like high school teens! Wild, Tim, Christine were already there.
We rested up in our room, 1035, then found the Boomers again where Mano and Stu had appeared.
Then we walked the strip to see leather lingerie, a massage parlour, a ship in a bottle, a white tiger, a volcano, a fountain performance, the rain forest cafe and aquarium, Aladdin and the Mirage Tropicana, lots of really strange people, went up the Effiel Tower (wow!) watched a helicopter circle (were we bored here?) and spent fifty dollars on two drinks somewhere. Quite an education, that was.
Dinner was at midnight at the San Roma Cafe with aching, dead tired legs. The waiter heard us gently moaning during the meal, which he tried so hard to hide but I saw his eyebrows!! I will always wonder what he thought.
Before breakfast, David gambled and played $11 only to win back $20. I gambled away a whomping twenty dollars, wondering if gambling before noon was indicative of a problem. A gambler I am not. Breakfast was somewhere in the casino with Away and her hubby, Ray, Kzack and his wife, Marlene, Yankee and Wolfie.
Off to travel the deserts again, and bought a beautiful cameo at "Where On Earth" in Boulder, NV, blended in with 14,562 other tourists at Hoover Dam where we bought tee shirts because we didn't bring cool enough clothes to walk across the dam. The security there was a jolt. Lunch was in Boulder at the Happy Days Cafe where we waddled back to the car.
The drive though wedding chapel was really a first for me. Do people really do that??
John Sr and Debbie were found in the bar, and we all wandered to the reserved room to meet Red, Away, Vol, Yankee and Wolfie, Kzack and Marlene, Katrina, Sexe, Geez, Steven, Wild, Christine. The key words for the night were "Don't go there!" We had to take a break just to get our faces to stop hurting from laughing. After dinner dancing, Vol under a table, followed by gambling with Yankee and Wolf until one in the morning, which was promptly followed by a total crash and burn.
We sadly said our goodbyes the next morning, toured NY NY, bought cactuses for my daughter and headed home by one in the afternoon. After just five miles, we came to a dead stop, which turned into a two to five mph crawl for twenty nine, long, hot, torturous miles and several hours. After a while, being rather bored, we were entertained beyond our wildest dreams. A few people started driving onto the shoulder of the road and passing all the patient, waiting cars. Well, that really pissed the rest of us off. Two really old ladies, in a big green pickup truck started easing onto the shoulder every time she noticed another cheater sneaking up. People around her caught on and joined in, preventing anyone from sliding around in line. There was a red convertible Caddy piled with the kind of kids I never want my daughter to associate with, who refused to let go. They ended up going out into the actual desert to avoid the women, who won our support and cheers for many cars around.
At seven in the evening, we pulled into Mike's Roadhouse Cafe in Mojave, and reached our own little beds by eleven thrity.