#VegasHalloween (day 6 and 7): A quiet ending

Unlike those who like to go out with a bang, I tend not to overdo it during my last day or so in Vegas.

I'd rather not drink all night and head to the airport hung over and tired. I'm old. I'm boring.

I had hoped to meet up with Karla for breakfast on Friday, Nov. 3. She flew into town two nights earlier from Minnesota, missing all the Halloween fun, and was heading home on Friday night. She had flown to Vegas, along with her heterosexual life partner, to gather with a few other Prince fans for two nights that really had nothing to do with Prince, the little purple musician from Minnesota who died less than two years ago.

Karla couldn't shake free of her conclave to meet up for breakfast, even though I was willing to drive down to Mandalay Bay to meet up with her for an hour. So instead I had another egg breakfast in our Tahiti Village unit and drove over to Orleans for a couple of hours of cards. My girlfriend wanted to take it easy and read a book, and we had decided we weren't going to spend our afternoon at the pool. It was still sunny and pleasant, but it was a bit windy, and not as warm as it had been at the beginning of the week. Oh well. We still have a great week by the pool, something we weren't going to get in Minnesota.

I drove over to Orleans and found, much to my disappointment, that they weren't dealing $5 double deck blackjack, again. I played Ultimate Texas Hold 'Em and didn't have much luck. A guy sat down next to me and was betting big right from the start, and he hit big hands quickly. I think he raked in about $1,000 while he was there, betting a lot of $25 hands. I couldn't get a decent payoff to save my soul for about 30 minutes. I eventually made a few decent hands to start to reverse the trend, but that didn't last long enough for me to break even. I finished my session down $145. Not a huge loss for the day, but combined with my losses the previous night, I was in the hole with 24 hours to go. Not by much, and that's fine. I'm  happy if I can break even for my week.

I picked up burgers and fries from Jack in the Box for lunch. There was a location south of Mandalay Bay that was easy to hit up on my way back to Tahiti Village. I don't normally dine at Jack in the Box when in Vegas, but it was easy, quick and not something I get here in Minnesota. We didn't love it, but it was fine.

Our afternoon started with a trek over to the Pinball Hall of Fame. That's the one place I get to during every trip to Vegas, at least once, no matter what. I'm a bit disappointed I didn't spend more than a couple of hours there during my six-night stay, but time is a precious commodity.

I won't say much about the HOF. I have long intended to write about it, although it has been featured in hundreds of blogs and Vegas tourist websites. It's not a secret at this point. Here are a few pictures from this visit.

This game is often hard to photograph. It's called "Pinball Circus" and this is a prototype machine that's more than 20 years old. It was from the early '90s, and is unique in that it's a pinball machine built within the confines of an arcade video game cabinet. The project was shelved, and this prototype was eventually donated to the Pinball Hall of Fame years later. It's the only one you can play here in the United States, and perhaps the world. I'm still not clear about where any other prototypes are, and opinions differ as to how many were produced. Some say two, others say four.

This long, silly, old baseball game involves rolling an object (puck, if I recall correctly) into the playfield, sort of like Skee Ball. It's silly, it's old-fashioned fun, and you likely won't ever find this old game anywhere in the United States

This machine has a very old-fashioned playfield, but it was produced in 2015. It's very creative and cheesy, and a little suggestive, obviously. It's not the most exciting game to play, but somebody decided there's a market for new retro pinball gaming, and this is the end result of that. 

Nothing special about this old, simple pinball machine, but you will find dozens of old machines like this, and many more from the past 40 years, at the Hall of Fame.

Here's another classic machine that is impressive to see. I always play several games. It's a poker game where balls bounce into a 25-hole board that represent playing cards. You get to "discard" the cards you don't want for a second chance at making a better hand. It's pretty neat to see how well this machine works, given it was created long before arcade games have any sort of "computer" components within them. It's one of several old relics you won't find on display in many places. I have seen this game on display at some roadside attraction video I watched on YouTube once, but I've never seen it for myself anywhere else, and I'm quite sure I never will. This game likely dates back to 1959, based upon my Internet searches. 

We left the HOF and made the long, slow trek to downtown about 5 p.m., taking Maryland Parkway much of the way there. Damn, Friday afternoon traffic is a slow, tedious exercise.

We parked in the California's ramp, which didn't have many spaces to spare, and used a Las Vegas Advisor coupon for two-for-one dinner in the cafe. We both had the prime rib meal, which is decent and offers you plenty to eat for, including a salad bar, for about $10. I expected it to take 30 minutes to get a table, it always seems to at dinnertime, and yet we were able to get a seat without having to wait. So weird!

After dinner we went to Main Street Station. My girlfriend likes their microbrew, so we always end up having a couple of beers at the Boar's Head Bar. This time, however, I left her behind and trekked down to El Cortez, expressly for redeeming my free play coupon from the Las Vegas Advisor coupon book. I'm not militant about using every free play, but I always make a point to visit El Cortez, and my girlfriend didn't want to walk back and forth.

I ran $10 through video poker and won a few bucks more than that. Rather than chase a big payoff, I took my modest cash payout and headed back toward Main Street Station. During our stay there I did play a little $5 double deck blackjack. I didn't win much, but I got a beer out of the deal.

After Main Street Station we popped in and out of a few casinos, turning in a couple of match plays and free plays. We eventually went to the Fremont, where I played more $5 double deck blackjack, with no luck. I was about $30 down by the end of our night, which ended a bit early for a Friday. We weren't going to stay out and booze it up until 1 a.m.

We drove back to Tahiti Village and enjoyed one last late night session in the hot tub. The tub was a bit crowded as a bunch of folks who were in town for the annual SEMA show and were soaking up the warm water. I listened as several people traded stories about how many time share weeks they own, how great of a deal they got for the second week they purchased, all the ways the time share property try to upsell people who already own a week, etc.

Nobody asked if we were owners, so I didn't have to tell them I bought a week of time share at Tahiti Village through the resale market for less than these folks pay for their annual maintenance fees. Entertaining stuff.

After the hot tub we called it a night, as we had to pack up and be out by 10 a.m. on Saturday.

Our final morning was uneventful and we had a late first meal back at Ellis Island. I had another two-for-one cafe coupon, so we had lunch. I ordered the ridiculously sinful half-and-half burger. The patty is half ground beef, half bacon. I'm sure my blood pressure went through the roof following that meal.

We had an early afternoon departure, so Ellis Island was our last stop. While waiting for a table in the cafe, I played a few $5 blackjack hands. I was down $29 to start the morning, and won $15 before lunch. I figured if I could break even it would be a huge victory, despite my lousy luck the previous 24 hours.

I had but a few minutes left after lunch before it was time to head to the car rental center. I played $5 hands at third base, and lost seven in a row, including a double down hand. And I made a couple of decent hands during those seven, yet would be beat by the dealer every time. Disgusted with the seventh consecutive loss, I grabbed my remaining chips and cashed out. Had I not sat down after lunch, I'd have been down $14 for the week, and that includes at least $14 in table chips that had been used as tips.

Instead I lost my final seven hands and left Vegas down $54. Not a bad week by any gambler's standards, but so damn annoying as I'm about to leave town. Such is life in Sin City.

#VegasHalloween (night 1): They scared the hell out of us

Halloween 2011 was on a Monday night. It was my first Halloween in Sin City. I won't rehash that trip today, but I promise to do that next fall.

Five years later Halloween is again on a Monday night. In 2011 I made a solo journey to Vegas. This year I traveled to Vegas with four friends. The five of us would never have met each other had it not been for the haunted attraction we work at each fall here in Minnesota. Joe, Jon, Mike, Trista and I spent four nights together in Sin City, and it worked out pretty well.

Having been to Vegas for Halloween from 2011-13, I talked it up quite a bit around my co-workers. Mike suggested to me at some point prior to May 2015 that we should plan a group trip to Vegas. The wheels began to turn. Because Halloween 2015 was a Saturday night, and we'd all be working that night at our haunted attraction, it made sense to plan a group trip for 2016, as our haunted attraction isn't open when Halloween falls on a Monday night. So in May 2015 I began promoting a 2016 Halloween trip to Vegas. Yes, 18 months in advance!

I knew it was unlikely we'd have a huge group, and I was pleased to have a group of five. We didn't all take the same flights in and out of the desert, but we all worked on Saturday night, Oct. 29, and boarded planes on Sunday, Oct. 30, for Vegas. Mike and I were the last two arrivals. We were on separate flights, but arrived at approximately the same time. We met at the McCarran rental car center, picked up our SUV and headed downtown to meet the others, who had all arrived together earlier in the day.

Our first meal together was dinner at Market Street Cafe at the California. It's always a wait to be seated for dinner at the Cal, but I wanted to start my week off right, with a cheap prime rib dinner.

Priority one for our first evening in Vegas was a visit to one of the local haunted attractions. I've been to two outstanding haunted attractions not associated with Circus Circus during my previous Halloween trips. (I've never been to the Circus Circus Fright Dome, and everything I've read about it discourages me from ever visiting.) Assuming we would only have time to visit one haunted attraction that night, I had to choose the most unique, creative attraction I've ever been to, the Freakling Bros. Trilogy of Terror.

I visited Freakling Bros. on Oct. 30, 2011, during my first Halloween in Vegas. The location had changed in 2016, but there I was, back for my third visit, five years to the day. (I also visited in 2012, during a Halloween trip with my girlfriend. It was the last haunted attraction she has ever visited. She retired from the haunt scene after enduring Freakling Bros.)

I won't go into detail about the Trilogy of Terror, but I will note that their creativity is spectacular, and they put on a great show. Unlike haunted attractions that push hundreds of people through every hour, the Freakling Bros. mazes have design elements that limit entry to small, staggered groups. You won't run into a long line of people ahead of you because their mazes don't work that way.

This also means that admission to their mazes commands a premium price, but the experience you get from their three mazes is well worth it. You can buy a ticket for just one maze, or for $35 you can get a ticket for all three mazes. Each maze takes about 10 minutes to complete, so you're getting about 30 minutes of live entertainment for your money, and you're getting something unique. The price is only a few dollars more than you would pay for a comparable experience in Minneapolis, and probably no more expensive than you'd pay for a similar attraction in New York, Chicago or Los Angeles. Freakling Bros. is definitely worth the price of admission if you're the type of person who enjoys a standard haunted attraction in your hometown. 

So what did my co-workers think? We work for a haunted attraction, so it takes a bit to impress us. Here's what they had to say to our online world: 

Joe: "Holy sh*t was this place amazing. I have not legitimately been scared in a haunted house for years but did get scared in each of their 3 attractions. So worth everything!!"

Jon: "Omg this is f*cking amazing!"

Mike: "las vegas haunted house's!!! It was a blast. Full V.I.P. treatment. Back stage. Best time i have ever had in a haunted house!!!"

Trista: "Having a haunt meltdown freakout! Got VIP wristbands, AND getting backstage tours after each attraction! They wanted to show some Halloween love to our out-of-state group of haunters"

Yes, we were treated like royalty. I had contacted the folks that run Freakling Bros. prior to our arrival, and they responded by rolling out the blood-soaked red carpet upon our arrival. (Figuratively, of course.)

Duke and his son JT are the proprietors of Freakling Bros., and they went above and beyond in welcoming us. I had met them back in 2012, but only briefly. They didn't know me, or have a reason to go out of their way for my group, but they did. We were simply a group of five out-of-state haunters who came to see their show, and they acted like we were doing them a favor. It was incredible. 

I won't go into detail, but Duke gave us a behind-the-scenes tour of one of the mazes, and explained many of the intricacies that go into their annual production. As a three-time visitor to their attraction, I knew a few tidbits about their operation, but I learned quite a bit late that Sunday night. Duke shared details about how and why they do some of the things they do, and spent about 30 minutes doing so. Sure, there's a method to the madness, but it was Duke's explanations that made me realize just how thoroughly and purposefully everything is done in each of their mazes. 

It's an incredible show they've put together at Freakling Bros., and I was happy to share it with my co-workers that Sunday night. The VIP treatment we received made it extra special. I can't thank them enough for that. 

Without giving away details, here are a few tidbits to keep in mind if you should want to visit in the years to come: 

The mazes are not handicapped accessible. And there is at least one instance where you'll need to crawl. I note this because Mike wasn't expecting it, and while he was able to do so, he has a bad knee, and he needed help getting up. 

The Gates of Hell, their R-rated maze, involves minor contact. They won't strangle you, but there is contact. A few people I know don't like haunted attractions where there's contact. If you're that type of person, you'll want to skip Gates of Hell. 

The Trilogy of Terror is mobile. The mazes were in a different location in 2011, and in both instances I had to drive at least 15 minutes to get there. If you didn't drive to Vegas or rent a car when you arrive then you'll have to decide if the cost of cab or Uber fare is worth it to you. 

So how did we conclude our first night in Vegas? After a cameo at a nearby Walmart we returned downtown. Jon and Trista retired for the evening while Joe, Mike and I headed over to Main Street Station for microbrews. I was sad to learn that the days of the $1.75 pints had come to an end at the Boar's Head Bar. Pints now cost $2.50. While we were sitting at the bar the power went out for about two seconds. That was a weird experience. Everything lost power, but generators kicked in and within a couple of minutes it was business as usual at the slot machines. Vegas is amazing like that. 

Click here for day 2. 

On Saturday night, Oct. 29, we were working at Valleyscare, a haunted attraction in the Minneapolis suburbs. On Sunday night, Oct. 30, we visited the Freakling Bros. Trilogy of Terror in Las Vegas. We had a blast.