Local For A Week.

We had a super great time in Las Vegas last week. The weather was so great with highs in the 80's a lot of sun no wind just perfect. Didn't even have to wear a jacket at all.
The flights both coming and going were very good as we arrived both times early and never had any issues with our bags or anything else. However at the LV airport coming home they use those new scanning machines and I was pulled over for extra screening due to the machine showing "something" up my left leg. I told them it was probably my 12 inch plate in my leg. They rub up my leg and lo and behold felt a plate! " Oh I do feel it sir" was all they could say. Next time maybe I should wear a towel wrapped around my head and not shave and thus the P/C thing to do would be to let me through without incident!
Stayed at the Palace Station which is a local's casino about 2 miles from the strip behind Circus Circus. Since my father in law needed a way to get to the car show we rented a car out at the airport. In LV they charge a 47 percent tax on car rentals! Kid you not. The quoted price for our small Ford was about 140 but after the taxes and gas etc. it came to almost 300 dollars! Ouch.
The rooms at the Palace were in fact quite nice and good size. The hotel staff was nothing but nice at all locations that we visited. However the food at times was not so great. We ate mostly at the buffet because it was cheap and decent food much like a Furr's would be. However we also ate at the cafe which was horrible and very over priced with terrible service. My 10 dollar hamburger ( when I finally got it) tasted like a manhole cover. We also had a meal at their steakhouse. The prices were quite high with my steak about 32 bucks alone. The salad bar and clam chowder soup were quite good but the steak itself was quite dry and had a very plain taste to it. Plus they only had one waiter that night to attend to over 30 people! Add all this into the fact that my father-in-law got sick just before he was served his meal and had to go back to his room, and well you get the picture. Then the bill came to about 160 dollars with tip.
Gambling wise the Palace Station offered a lot in the VP area in which to play this is due to being a "locals place" I'm sure. We did go to a lot of the strip places this trip and their VP offerings were quite horrible to say the least. They can get away with this because most locals do not ever play at the Strip places just because of this fact. My gambling results were not great but not bad either. I hit 3's with a kicker once for 200 dollars and Aces on BP once for 100. I could only play at the quarter level ( sometimes 50c) due to my low bankroll for the trip. Ended up winning 240 overall which is not too bad. Had a amazing 24 4 to the Royal hands during my trip! Oh well we will get them next time.
My wife had a great first night as she hit 10 Quads and was up close to 400 dollars! However the next 3 days she went "Quad Dead" and slowly took her winnings. She ended up about 50 bucks.
Funny things that happened: Well let me introduce you to Frank. He is a local 83 years old and drives a 68 Mustang. He comes in and plays the bar-top video poker machines twice a week for hours on end. I saw him on Wednesday night at 10pm and he was still playing at 4pm on Thursday afternoon trying to hit the progressive Royal which had reached over 1600 dollars! The bartender told me that Frank does this about twice a week in which he will spend almost whole days there at the bar playing! What a hobby but hey it allows him to have something to do and he gets around real well for his age. He also loves to smoke cigarettes so when he asked me for a light I used the time to talk with him for awhile. He lives but only 2 miles away and said he hits about 2 to 3 Royals a month during on average during his normal play. He never plays anything but quarter VP and just loves living and playing in LV. Hey I just hope I have half of this guys energy when I reach his age.
The other interesting thing was I kept seeing this other guy playing VP at the bar all week long. I knew that I had seen this guy somewhere at sometime during my life but couldn't place him. Finally on my last night (Thursday) I looked up and saw him looking at me and could see he was thinking the same thing. He came over and asked me my name and then it hit both of us where we had met. We were both part of a bowling team in Dallas Texas back in '92 when I lived down there going to school! Small world indeed. He is now retired and moved to LV back in 2001. Like Frank he lives in the neighborhood and plays VP there every night. He loves living there too as he said the fact that the food is cheap and no income tax really helps him. Plus playing VP as a hobby keeps him young. Just wild that we would meet some 2000 miles away 18 years later.
Coming home from a LV trip is never fun and having to get up at 4am to reach our early morning flight out really is not too fun at all! This week at work has been very hard since all I want to do is sleep it seems. But all in all we had a super great trip, and the wife got to spend some time with her father who said he had a great time as well. Hey we got out of time, won a little money and meet some old and new friends... can't beat that. Our next trip out probably won't be until Feb. but by then the bankroll should be back up and ready to go. More later.