The Road Trip Chronicles: Day Four

Cousin and I bunked together at Red's house on an air mattress. We went to bed sometime around 1am, and didn't budge until around 9:30. When we did finally get up, Red made us some coffee and Nurse was outside on the phone with her soon-to-be finance. The part of this that I haven't blogged about is that she was on the phone with him a lot. A whole lot. At one point he actually chewed her out for talking to him with us in the car. But not because she was being rude to us, but because he didn't want us to know what they were talking about. Ummm, hello? Are we supposed to pull over so Cousin and I can stand out in the middle of the hot desert so she can talk to you? NOOOO!!! Anyhow... Red was left to entertain us. This woman is looney tones, but in a lovable, adorable way. She's wild and crazy, smart and caring, and talks more than I do. Honestly. Around 10:30, I got a much-needed shower, and Cousin got hers when I was finished. We both actually put on make-up on this day and we felt like new people.



Before Cousin and I had even rolled over that morning, Red and Nurse had taken the Mustang to a shop. Before I got in the shower, we all sat down and discussed very seriously the fact that we were not going to make it to San Diego in time to catch our flight the next morning. It would make more sense to change the flight plans from San Diego to Las Vegas. That would give us more time to see Vegas and not be so rushed. While I was in the shower, Cousin got on-line and made the necessary arrangements. Our flight was "leaving Las Vegas" at 11:30p.m. Awesome.



Around 1p.m. we had lunch at the Boulder Casino, which is located off the strip. We saw the cutest little old woman with a cute bling-bling hat. It had an American Flag, trolls, and all sorts of stuff all over it. We asked her is we could take our picture with her. She informed us that she is spending her retirement as a career gambler. She has won as much as $16,000 at one time before, and averages winnings of over $1,000 a week. I'm in the wrong business...



Anyhow, then we hit the strip. We stopped off at a souvenir shop first. Red was getting impatient with how long we were taking in there, but we were having fun! The next casino we visited was Circus Circus. We went to the middle floor to watch the circus. We were simultaneously entertained and disturbed by the human contortionist. Weird... Then we were back on the strip. I don't remember the exact order of everything, but I know that we visited Caesar's Palace. While we were there, we saw the big statue of David... the one where he's naked. Only just the week before Caesar's had celebrated their 40th anniversary with a big toga party and David was still sporting his toga. I asked the obvious question, "Why aren't more people trying to peak under his toga? That would just be funny." So I took it upon myself to do so, and Nurse took my picture. Fabulous.



We left and went back to the shop to check on the car. It was finished (for the life of me I can't remember what they said the problem was, but it was a $520 lick to her checkbook). We dropped her car off at Red's apartment and headed back to the strip. Red was completely in her element acting as our own personal tour guide. She wanted to show us everything. Time wouldn't allow, so basically she just pointed stuff out; we made a mental list of things to do the next time we were in Vegas. We went to The Belagio. Gorgeous. They have an art-display area there, and while we were there, the display was... I don't remember the name, but basically it was Americana... Carved in wood. It took up an entire room. New York City, Vegas, Mount Rushmore, The Grand Canyon, and tons more things were represented. They had archways of water floating over the walk-ways. Cousin and I were so tired by this point that the thought of going one more step was nearly more than we could manage. When I'm that tired, I'm either ill or silly. Cousin was ill and I was silly. We were walking out of the room when I made her so mad. I couldn't keep my hands to myself a minute longer - I just had to know what would happen if I ran my hand through the water archway. What happens is that you disturb the flow of the water and whichever direction your hand goes is that way the water goes too. Unfortunately, my hand was going in the direction of Cousin's hair. People aren't allowed to bother Cousin's hair, and I managed to drench it - in one big glob right in the middle. I thought she was going to kill me. She shot me a bird with her eyes and said, "You just don't need to talk to me for a minute." Ok...



The art display was pretty, but it was not the best attraction that Vegas had to offer. But it is the place where Nurse got camera happy. She took four pictures of every part of it, which meant we were still standing there long after we were ready to move along. But finally we did leave. We went outside and waited for the Dancing Fountain show to start. We had to wait a while, but it was worth it. It was the most gorgeous and most peaceful thing I think I've ever seen. And the song for that show was one of my all-time favorites, "Your Song" by Elton John. We also saw the people on the sidewalks handing out "business cards" for the local "escort services." So trashy and so classic. One couple that we kept running into had tons of the cards. The man, in his fifties, told us he was collecting as many as possible and was going to put them on his co-workers' car windshields when he got home. Hilarious. We kept a few for our scrapbook. We also saw a few of the "escorts" walking around town, scantily clad, with their sugar-daddy of the hour. Wow. That's all I can say about that. We saw everything else on the Strip, but missed all the other shows and attractions. Perhaps my favorite part about Vegas is that it is a smoker-friendly city. That's hard to find these days. Arkansas and Oklahoma are both non-smoking cities, which means you have to stand off in B-F-E to grab a smoke. In Vegas, I was actually walking through the forums in Caesar's Palace with a cigarette in my hand the entire time. The only non-smoking places to be found in Vegas are elevators and restrooms. By the time the dancing fountain show was finished, we had lost our steam.



We went to Denny's for supper - yes, you read correctly - there is a Denny's right on The Strip. Why wouldn't there be? Hahaha. Then we spent a few minutes at Coca-Cola/M&M World, and then it was time to go to the airport. Which brings me to another point. I think I would die if I had to drive in Vegas. The people there are crazy. Fortunately for us, Red fit right in. There were times we were in real fear of our lives, but she managed to get us to the airport. We said good-bye at the drop-off and went in to navigate ourselves around the airport. We got our tickets from the keyosk, checked our luggage, and went through the security check. We had about an hour to kill before boarding the plane, so we sat at the sports bar so I could smoke. Then we boarded the plane, which caused Cousin to have a little bit of a panic attack because she had never flown until then, on purpose, and wasn't excited about doing so at that moment. But we made it just fine. We settled in and enjoyed seeing the city lights one more time from the air. I was excited because they were playing "Over the Hedge" and I had been wanting to see that, but it was short lived. Once the peanuts were eaten and the trash was collected, we were both out cold. It had been a long day - a long week for that matter - and we were finally on our way home.