A good night's sleep?

If you ever talk about a Vegas vacation with anyone -- yours or theirs -- there are certain to be two questions.

"Did you win?"

"Where did you stay?"

My first trip in 1997 included three nights at the MGM Grand, and I arrived on the night of a star-studded preview party at the New York New York, which was opening to the public the following morning. 

I have stayed at several properties up and down the strip over the years, and occasionally at downtown casinos. I have stayed on the strip once during the past decade or more, and that was at The Strat, about as far away from the action as you can get and still make a legit argument you're staying on the strip. 

If I'm not staying downtown, I'm usually staying at the Orleans. I have used timeshare-style properties a couple of times during the past decade or so, although I wasn't there because of, or for, a timeshare pitch. 

I rent a car every trip, and staying off strip is more my style. I should really book a room at South Point or Silverton one of these years, although I never play there, so they're not going to entice me with a discounted rate. And I do like being closer to the action. Orleans has been a great destination for me, for the most part, during the past decade. 

I like gambling, but I have little interest in gambling with my hotel accommodations. I don't visit Vegas during the biggest weekends of the year, so I have little reason to look to the smaller independent hotels and chains that are scattered all over Vegas. 

The website photos look nice, but I can't imagine I'll be booking a room at The Shalimar Hotel any time soon. 

But I often wonder, who stays at those odd, unassuming flop houses still in business east of downtown Vegas? 

Want a low roller vacation? Stay at Hotel Galaxy. Right across the freeway from the Luxor! It looks like a slice of paradise, according to the website, and nothing says low roller like a small, independent hotel that nobody will accidentally find their way to. And just minutes from the action! 

Like many other Vegas enthusiasts, I watch YouTube videos about Sin City. I don't watch any channel religiously, but I have sampled plenty of them. One of the more modest channels out there is NeonVacation. 

Del, the content creator, hasn't been hammering away at videos for years, but he has uploads dating back nine years. He has been more active in the last year or so, and has been producing content that I'm not seeing elsewhere. (Admittedly, I'm not looking for it, either.)

One of the things Del does occasionally in Vegas is stay at one of the older independent hotels, and give you a look at them, inside and out. No, these are not the most fascinating videos ever produced, but when you've been to Vegas more than 40 times during the past 24 years, as I have, you start to wonder about these places. Del gives me a glimpse into that world. 

Recently he stayed at the Thunderbird Boutique Hotel. Maybe it's not as old as I assume, but it's just up the road from The Shalimar Hotel, not far from The Strat on Las Vegas Boulevard. That whole stretch between The Strat and Fremont Street is a bit dingy these days, but there are wedding chapels as well as hotels along the way, harkening back to a time when downtown gamblers didn't venture as far as The Tropicana when they visited Vegas. 

I  correspond with Del occasionally, but we haven't discussed what his motivation was for staying at the Thunderbird. I am also curious as to what the room rate was, including taxes. Trivial stuff, I know, but interesting stuff for longtime Vegas enthusiasts, I'd argue. 

I was impressed by how nice his Thunderbird room appeared to be. I was expecting 30-year-old amenities and rather dull, basic furnishings, but that didn't appear to be the case. 

The pool looked rather unspectacular, but that's not a surprise. Old motor lodges weren't known for their elaborate pools. 

Much to my surprise, however, is that there's a wedding chapel and banquet room on the property. Going to Vegas for to get married? Why hassle with going to the top of The Strat for a ceremony when you can get married at the Thunderbird? 

Years ago I was making periodic solo trips to Vegas. I stayed at a timeshare property near the Orleans one year, and as a result I ended up at the Orleans on subsequent trips. I never considered booking a room at one of these quirky, odd, old school properties. 

Even with a rental car, the drawbacks of booking a room at a quirky old Vegas relic are obvious. The Thunderbird has a lounge with some sort of food service, but it's not as if you have easy access to numerous dining options. And there's no gambling and heading up to the hotel room from the casino floor at the end of your night. Those are things Orleans offers, and I value. 

If I lived in southern California and wanted to head to Vegas for short trips on a recurring basis, perhaps that would inspire a weekend stay at Shalimar, which has a Florida-themed bar and grill, as well as a coffee shop, so says the website. And I can get married there, too! 

When you drive east on Fremont Street toward Boulder Highway, you pass old hotels with quirky neon signs. Some still appear to be in business, some clearly are not. Many appear to be rather sad and pathetic. But they remind you of a simpler time, before Holiday Inn, Days Inn, Super 8, Motel 6 and the others took over the Vegas landscape. And there were even a few of those old, independent motels still hanging on along the strip in the late 1990s.

And thanks to Del's videos, I've seen the inside of a few such places still waging war against the casinos and national chains. 

Perhaps I'll get a chance to revisit that era of Vegas one of these years. I might even book a stay at the Hotel Galaxy.  

Neutered Vegas (day 2)

There wasn't much of an itinerary for last week's Vegas vacation, as proven by our first full day in town. 

My first full day is often a Monday, and it's a real treat to spend the morning relaxing in the room and watching The Price is Right. Monday's are not my fun days at the office, to put it mildly. But this Thursday, Oct. 8, was much like my normal Monday. The morning was spent in bed, relaxing and watching Drew Carey in action. Upon the conclusion of the fabulous, 60-minute Price is Right, it was time to get dressed and grab a meal. 

Despite my objection to eating at Steak 'n Shake in Vegas, I buckled. I had a gift card for Steak 'n Shake a couple of years ago, and went to pay for our meal with it at the former Hooters hotel. I was told that the price-hiked casino location would not accept cash that had already been paid to the corporate headquarters, which I find to be bullshit. I guess that's a concession the Steak 'n Shake corporation had to make in order to get its name inside a lackluster casino in Vegas. I don't get the benefit of that, but I'm not a Wahlberg, so what do I know about running a burger joint? 

I had been to the South Point Steak 'n Shake a couple of years prior, and decided that if I was going to pay for a premium for a burger I enjoy, and can't get in Minnesota, I'd at least do it at a casino I like. So we took the rental car and headed south for lunch. 

We returned to the Orleans after lunch and headed to the pool. It wasn't very busy, and we didn't expect it to be. Despite the mandate that you wear a mask outdoors at pools, unless you're in the water or sipping a drink, it didn't appear that anyone was wearing a mask while relaxing in a lounge chair. A pool boy would occasionally provide a "friendly reminder" over the sound system that masks are required, but nobody seemed to care. I wore mine when I got up to get beers, or visit the restroom, but there was nobody near us while we lounged in our chairs, so masks really seemed unnecessary outdoors. But I'm not a public health expert, unlike most people using Facebook. 

Drinking cheap beer from an aluminum bottle while enjoying 90F weather in Vegas.
I'll take that any time I can get it. 

A long afternoon at the pool ended and it was time to clean up for dinner. Thursday night's dinner was prime rib at Ellis Island. Thanks to 2-for-1 coupons, I end up eating dinner at Ellis Island every year. The prime rib dinner is about $17, and you never know exactly what your cut is going to look like when you show up. This year we ended up with the thickest slab I've ever had at Ellis Island. 

My prime rib was not as rare as it looks.
Yes, there's a little fat on my cut, but not a lot, and it's a thick cut. 

Not the fanciest meal, but a good value if you like a basic prime rib meal without all the ambiance. 

I was able to watch my Chicago Bears prior to departing Orleans and at Ellis Island. I contemplated wagering $20 that afternoon on the visiting Tampa Bay Buccaneers, but didn't pull the trigger. The underdog Bears won outright, so it was a win-win for me, despite not wagering. I watched the final few minutes at the bar, running a few bucks through video blackjack while my girlfriend wandered off and played a slot machine she had never played before. 

It took her but a few spins after putting a $50 bill in the machine to turn a profit. 

She cashed out more than $150 ahead after 15 minutes of play.

After Ellis Island we headed back to Orleans, where I dropped off my girlfriend. I was headed to the Sahara. 

Earlier in the day I had received a Twitter message from Chris, who has been hosting his Faces and Aces Las Vegas podcast for years. I've been a fan of his podcast because it focuses on storytelling, not unlike my own, non-Vegas podcast. A few years ago he invited me to discuss Halloween in Vegas, as I had tweeted plenty about my Halloween adventures in Vegas over the years. We discussed Halloween in September, 2017, but that interview didn't turn up until more than a year later. The Mandalay Bay shooting occurred prior to Halloween 2017, and that shifted his podcasting plans for the months that followed. 

Chris was in town, as it turned out, and invited me to join him and a few others that Thursday night. My girlfriend wasn't interested in hanging around a couple of podcasting nerds, so she spent the remainder of the evening at Orleans while I headed to Sahara. In addition to Chris, I met Saul, a real Las Vegas junkie who I had corresponded with occasionally since he oversees the Las Vegas Junkies group on Facebook, and has hosted his own podcast under the same name. I also met two Vegas residents who Chris has known for a while. They are recent transplants in Vegas, and I'm pretty sure I remember both their names, but I'm not positive I can spell both of their names. 

After chatting at Sahara for a short while, where nobody was having luck gambling, Saul departed for the night and the rest of us headed to Westgate. I know all about the SuperBook at Westgate, but I had never set foot in that casino during my 40+ visits to Vegas. SuperBook is impressive, no doubt, but otherwise the rest of the casino is standard Vegas fare. I didn't walk around the property to get a feel for exactly how expansive it is, but driving around it gave me some idea. 

Chris and I chatted a bunch at Westgate, and by midnight it was time to head back to our respective casinos. I did a walk through the Orleans casino on my way up to the room, but didn't stop to play. 

I don't make a habit of tracking people down or meeting up with groups of random Junkies when I'm in Vegas, but the invite from Chris was a nice surprise, and I'm glad it worked out. 

Neutered Vegas (night 1)

Vegas isn't actually neutered, but I wasn't sure what the best adjective should be. 

And no, I didn't intend to let this blog sit dormant for a year. 

Once upon a time, I dreamed of celebrating a milestone birthday in Las Vegas. 

I had never spent a birthday in Vegas, but my 50th birthday seemed like a good one to spend in Vegas, for a variety of reasons. 

Then a pandemic began, and within a few months I had written off spending my 50th birthday in Vegas. There was no doubt that it wouldn't be the same Vegas I have known and loved, and I was certain my life partner wanted nothing to do with a pandemic vacation. 

We had alternate birthday plans in place, and then, out of the blue, my girlfriend asked me if I was still interested in going to Vegas for my birthday. With three weeks to go before the big 5-0, she said she'd be willing to travel. 

The decision was not automatic. A neutered Vegas was not exactly my idea of a dream vacation. We discussed the pros and cons and took the plunge. We booked a four-night trip, departing on my birthday: Oct. 7. 

We booked our trip on budget airline Sun Country. I used to love Sun Country. It's a homegrown airline, and offers direct flights to Vegas. And those flights are more affordable than the steady diet of departures offered by Delta, the local market behemoth. I loved Sun Country because it was well run and offered a pleasant experience from start to finish. A few years ago the company determined it needed to target the penny pinchers and compete with other such airlines. That means cramming a few more rows of seats into the plane and cutting other corners to keep the cost down, and the planes full. 

I'm not a big spender, but I have managed to avoid Sun Country in recent years, mostly because I've flown free via Southwest, albeit indirect, to Vegas. 

So my first Sun Country experience aboard the stripped-down airline turned out to be about what I expected. Nothing fancy, but not too painful. 

During the pandemic, I've heard stories, many stories, about how empty planes are. How airlines are cutting back on flights, struggling to stay afloat and leaving seats open to provide some semblance of social distancing. 

Not Sun Country. My Wednesday afternoon flight was full. I'm not the only person willing to gamble with my health, evidently. 

Yes, we're required to wear masks on the plane, and no snacks or beverages were made available, allegedly in the interest of public health. A few people didn't think masks were mandatory at all times, but for the most part people complied with the rule. 

After a boring, slightly uncomfortable flight, I arrived in Sin City. Sure enough, the airport on a weekday afternoon feels as barren as has been described repeatedly during the past several months. 

After picking up my rental car at Avis, which I had never rented from before and would rather not rent from again, it was off to the Orleans to drop off the bags and change clothes. 

For all the times I've stayed at Orleans, I've never been compelled to dine at their TGI Friday's. But I suggested stopping in there for a drink and appetizer since our dinner reservation was a late one that night. 

From Friday's it was off to the Golden Steer, the old school steakhouse that looks like some sort of cheesy steakhouse chain from the outside. The quirky strip mall location doesn't sell the ambiance, either. I had never been to Golden Steer, but it gets rave reviews, and I figured what better reason to splurge on a steak dinner than a birthday in Vegas. 

VIP seating for me.

My porterhouse steak and baked potato did not disappoint. And the restaurant most certainly has that authentic feel of yesteryear. 

Steak and potato, happy birthday to me!

The staff is what you'd expect from a steakhouse: Prompt, meticulous and professional. 

I won't make Golden Steer a regular destination, I don't often spend that much on a meal, but I will be back, without a doubt. 

Fun fact: Pandemic dining means fewer asses in the seats. In some restaurants, tables are removed. Not sure if any tables were removed at the Steer, but they had a fun way of designating tables as off limits. Here's one example: 

Seated at the table next to us!

I had suggested finishing our night at another new destination, The Golden Tiki. It seemed like the perfect way to wrap up my 50th birthday. But we had a late evening reservation at the Steer, and I was so full from dinner, and my complimentary 50th birthday dessert, that I couldn't rationalize trying to suck down a fancy cocktail at the Tiki. And I was tired. It had been a long day, given I gained two hours by flying west. I was ready for bed. No gambling on my birthday. I hadn't planned on it, anyway. I was tired and ready to relax, happy to have celebrated by birthday with a steak dinner in Vegas. 

The night before Christmas

I'm sitting alone, 90 minutes before midnight on Christmas Eve, and I have no complaints. Without explanation: I'll be home soon and will spend Christmas with my girlfriend. We had dinner with her family earlier this evening. I'm sitting here alone out of necessity, and it allows me an opportunity to do something I enjoy, yet don't make enough time to do as often as I would like: Writing.

I have vague recollections of Christmas Eve from my youth. Vague, at best. From my earliest days in Indiana to my teenage years in Minnesota, with divorced parents living in two separate states. Like most people, my Christmas memories are faded and dust covered after more than four decades.

I don't remember a lot from my college years earlier. I remember working early one Christmas morning at the local hospital when I was in college. I was paid double and was done working by 2 p.m., that seemed like a great deal.

During the past 20 years I've had memorable and not-so-memorable holiday celebrations. I'm always amazed how, at least here in the Minneapolis area, the world around us nearly grinds to a halt for 18-24 hours. Yes, thousands of people are working in a variety of capacities, both essential and non-essential. And yes, there are stores and restaurants that remain open for one reason or another, both late into the evening on Christmas Eve and during the day on Christmas. But so many things are closed, and for nearly 24 hours my day-to-day life changes, even if there's still Facebook posting happening and televised sports on TV.

I'm thankful I've never had to seek out that random bar that remains open late into the evening on Christmas Eve, and I'm grateful that I've always had family members to share Christmas with. Yet I'm fascinated by the contrast that Vegas provides, and a small part of me wants to experience it for myself. If I was a wealthy, self-employed blogger, vlogger, journalist or podcaster, perhaps I'd experience Christmas in Vegas firsthand. What exactly do I want to see? Allow me to explain.

For starters, I'd want to be able to spend a day or two scouting locations around Vegas, getting a sense of what is and isn't open on Christmas Eve and Christmas. Then I'd get plenty of sleep leading up to Christmas Eve, as I'd start at 5 p.m. and make a marathon session of seeing and exploring Vegas for as long as I could physically tolerate.

I'd love to see who is or isn't hanging around a lot of places. I think I'd start at the Tropicana. It's a sad, sterile casino these days, even with all those hotel rooms and, from what I can tell, decent occupancy. How depressing is it? I'd likely run over to Hooters, as well. Is Steak 'n Shake open? Who chooses an overpriced burger and fries for their Christmas Eve dinner, assuming it is open. Is it a festive environment throughout the casino, or a ghost town?

From there I'd head to Excalibur, New York New York and MGM. Would it be any different than any other night on the strip?

I'd have to check out the Miracle Mile Shops, as well. Are they all closed? How many are filled with last-minute Christmas shoppers and tourists who don't celebrate Christmas?

I suppose I'd have to head over to Bellagio, too. That place is always bustling. What is it like on Christmas Eve?

At some point I'd head down to the Pinball Hall of Fame, as it is open until 11 p.m. on Christmas Eve. They wouldn't be open if there weren't people coming every year on the night before Christmas. So who is there, families looking to go out and do something together, or lonesome singles trying to forget the world is celebrating the birth of Jesus.

After that I'd probably sit out in the parking lot of a 24-hour rub-and-tug massage joint. I've gotta believe those places aren't closing for the holiday, and I'd be curious to see how many people show up in a 30-minute span as midnight approaches.

I'd have to run downtown by midnight to see how sedate the crowd is. I have no doubt it's business as usual, but how does the vibe compare to a typical night downtown? I'd probably bop into a few casinos, as well, to survey the crowd. Would I be surprised by how many people are gambling in the early hours of Christmas? Would Santa hats be the only way I could tell it's the holiday season?

By 2 a.m. it'd be time to take off. I think I'd head north briefly to Jerry's Nugget. I finally had their prime rib dinner earlier this month, and spent an hour gambling there. I'd be curious to see how quiet a locals casino in the middle of the night. How depressing would the gambling masses be early on Christmas morning?

So by the middle of the night It'd be time to head to Frankie's Tiki Room. This might be the first time of the night I indulge in a cocktail. Who celebrates Christmas at 3:30 a.m. with a mixed drink at Frankie's?

I'd have to enjoy in moderation, but from Frankie's I'd stop off at The Mint and the Peppermill. The Mint is a cute, modest 24-hour bar, and I'd be curious to see what kind of crowd it would attract. I've never been to the Peppermill for cocktails after the sun has set, so I'd have no idea what to expect.

From there, assuming I'm safe to drive, I'd drive around and check out a variety of off-strip joints to see what's happening, places that are always open, such as the "Pawn Stars" pawnshop, smaller restaurant/video poker joints and anything else I could identify as a 24-hour business that's not simply a grocery store or gas station. I suppose I'd like to see what the Ellis Island crowd is like after 5 a.m. on Christmas Day.

I'd also want to see how few, or how many, people are gambling at the Orleans. How quiet is the poker room?

I think I'd spend the rest of my day, for as long as I have the energy to do so, checking out the Christmas morning atmosphere mid-strip. What restaurants are bustling on Christmas morning? Are tourists out and about, sightseeing, like any other day of the year? Are people hustling tours, time share presentations and rap music CDs? Are the small, strip mall businesses near the north end of the strip open for business as usual on Christmas morning? Is there a different sentiment among those walking up and down the strip because it is Christmas morning?

Vegas is a 24-hour city, but things get awfully quiet on the strip, and in casinos, after 4 a.m. on a nondescript weeknight. I suspect Christmas Eve/Christmas morning are a bit quiet by Vegas standards.

I'd love to see it for myself. Unlikely I ever will, but damn, I'm curious.

The Christmas spirit is everywhere in Vegas

I haven't found time to write about my early December visit to Vegas, but that will change soon.

For now, here's a collection of Christmas tree pictures from my recent trip. I hope I remember the location of each of these. Correct me if I'm wrong.

I'm not a shutterbug, but I have carried a digital camera with me in the past. Cellphone cameras are so good these days that I am content with relying upon it for capturing images from my trips. I have plenty to share in the weeks to come. I won't win any awards for my photography, but I can live with that. Photography is not an art form I have the time or patience to study. Plenty of people are better than I ever will be, and I appreciate those who share their work with the masses. How did we enjoy life without the internet?

Merry Christmas!

Outside the New York New York, I believe. (Dec. 3)

Big tall tree in the outdoor park area of Park MGM, leading up to T-Mobile Arena. (Dec. 3)

Modest trees inside The Shops at Crystals. (Dec. 3)

And then there's the Swarovski crystal tree at the Shops at Crystals. (Dec. 3)

This giant tree looms large over Fremont Street in downtown Las Vegas. (Dec. 3)

This modest tree was near the poker room at The Orleans. (Dec. 4)

A lovely tree near the entrance to the cafe at Ellis Island. (Dec. 4)

A fancier tree display near the hotel check-in at The Orleans. (Dec. 4)

One of the trees along the retail mall area leading into Bellagio. (Dec. 5)

An off-center shot of another tree inside Bellagio. (Dec. 5)

The big tree inside Bellagio's conservatory. (Dec. 5)

A tree inside Caesars Palace. (Dec. 5)

A tree outside The Cromwell (Dec. 5)

A tree and menorah inside El Cortez (Dec. 7)

Small, but festive, this tree can be found inside The Mint. (Dec. 7)

How am I going to Vegas twice this summer?

I've been going to Vegas since January 1997. Most years I've made at least one trip, but there were a few years when I never made it.

I didn't keep detailed trip reports of my visits. The Internet was barely a thing in 1997, nobody was thinking about blogging or posting trip reports. I'd love to have a list of the trips, travel companions, nights spent, hotel(s) occupied and fortunes lost over the past 21+ years.

By my calculations, I've been to Vegas more than 30 times. My first solo trip was 27 hours. I spent less than 24 hours in Sin City during a trip to Laughlin several years ago. I tend to go at least five nights when I travel these days.

I started traveling solo to Vegas circa 2004, before I knew that was a thing. I figured if I couldn't find a friend who could commit to a trip, why should I forgo a visit? I've done the solo trip at least a handful of times, including Halloween 2011. My first Halloween in Vegas. I loved it so much that I've spent five of the past seven Halloweens in Vegas.

For a few years I was averaging two trips to Vegas per year, but that is no longer the norm. My girlfriend and I started dating in early 2012. She went to Vegas with me for Halloween that year. She doesn't love it like I do, but she loves the cheap vacation, and knows it's one of the few places I want to go. So for most of the past six years we've split our vacation time between Vegas and a destination of her choosing. I won't go to Nashville with her, but in recent years we've been to San Antonio, Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, New Orleans and, as of a month ago, Key West. I had been to three of those places and liked them well enough that I was willing to return, but they're not places I plan to visit annually.

I was in Vegas last Halloween, and I expected my next visit to Sin City to be this coming Halloween. That changed a few weeks ago.

For the past several years I've been getting together during the summer with one or two college friends and attending a Major League Baseball game at a ballpark I've never been to. In 2012 I was in Boston. In 2013 I was in Dallas and Houston. In 2014 I went to Pittsburgh. In 2016 I was in Tampa and Miami. Last year I went to St. Louis, Atlanta and Cincinnati.

This year the trip was supposed to be to San Francisco and Oakland. Actually, it was supposed to be to happen last year, but it was postponed. A few weeks ago it was postponed again.

That's because it's not cheap to get to San Fran when you want to go by train from Chicago, and that's part of the San Fran itinerary. One of my buddies, Woody, has been saving Amtrak points via his Amtrak credit card for about five years, but it's not cheap, or easy, to convert the points into the train ticket we want. So three or four weeks ago we postponed the train yet again and considered other destinations. Woody has been to all 30 current ballparks as of last year, so now he's doubling back to previous destinations, in part because I'm going to try to get to all 30. I've been to 18 of the current ballparks as of today.

We considered three cities as options for our 2018 trip after we aborted San Fran for the second consecutive summer. There were a few cities we ruled out this year for various reasons. Our options were San Diego and Anaheim, Kansas City or Arizona.

Kansas City is easy to visit any year I want. It's about six hours from Minnesota. And it's not far from Woody in Milwaukee. Our third friend, Roast Beef, lives in Boston and doesn't always make it on our baseball trips. He has family in Kansas City, so I thought that might have appeal to him, but he preferred to go somewhere that would feel more like vacation this year. He found great rates on weekly timeshare rentals, and soon we were booking seven night in Vegas during that same early August week we had blocked off for San Fran.

Why Vegas? Woody hasn't been there since 2000, and is curious to see how different it is. He doesn't love it, but he had been there a few times during the 1990s. I'm pretty sure he made his first trip to Sin City before I did.

Woody also knows that I have long wanted to see a minor league baseball game in Vegas. So the idea was that we'd go to Vegas for part of a trip and drive over to Phoenix for an Arizona Diamondbacks game. And that's what we're doing in two months.

Fun fact: Beef has only been to Vegas once, to the best of my knowledge, and that was with Woody and me in April 2000. So the three of us will return together more than 18 years later, and it will be the first return visit for both of these guys. I've been there at least 25 times since then, and probably 30. Needless to say I'm the driver and tour guide for this trip.

The thought of hot summer nights in Vegas never crossed my mind a month ago when I was in Key West. I was sure I'd be going to San Francisco this summer. And within days of returning from Florida: Boom, a bonus visit to Vegas.

I still intend to go to Vegas for Halloween, so this is most definitely a bonus trip.

And then a funny thing happened late last week.

My girlfriend and I have stayed at The Orleans a handful of times, although not since 2015, as we stopped getting good offers from our favorite Vegas casino. We're not high rollers, but we'd get decent offers that would entice us to stay and spend money there, as opposed to downtown.

Although I put in more time gambling at Orleans than my girlfriend does, she was the only person to get an email offer last week. She priced a five-night hotel stay over Fourth of July week and found that we could stay there for $257, resort fee included. (It's waived for this offer.)

Obviously the Fourth of July week isn't a super busy week, and reservations are light, otherwise she wouldn't be receiving a $50/night offer. Although Vegas isn't her first choice for a vacation destination, she knows how cheap it can be, and she wants an excuse to travel this summer if at all possible.

Last year we jumped through the necessary hoops to score a great deal from Southwest Airlines. She signed up for two credit cards and we used them to charge the minimum required on each within three months. We earned bonus miles for both cards, and my girlfriend earned a companion pass from Southwest for the remainder of 2017 and all of 2018. We have only used it thus far to go to Vegas last fall and Florida this spring, but my girlfriend has plenty of points left in her account and wanted to go somewhere this summer and fall. So with free airfare for both of us to Vegas and a $250 room for five nights, she offered to go to Vegas in less than four weeks.

Needless to say, she didn't have to twist my arm.

I have yet to tell my buddies I have booked a pre-Vegas trip for our August Vegas trip. I'm still in awe of the fact that five days ago I was tickled by the fact I'd get to go to Vegas once this summer. And now I'm going twice.

And yes, Halloween in Vegas remains on my to-do list this fall. Wish me luck!

#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 (day 4): The worst day of the year

If you really love a holiday or a day of celebration, the day after can be a bit of a let down.

Yeah, the spirit of Christmas lingers on after Dec. 25, but for most Hallmark occasions, there's little happening after the fact. For some folks, that's fine. For me, there's a sense of disappointment when Halloween is over. With the exception of the years when Halloween is on a Friday, the only Halloween leftovers to be found come Nov. 1 are discounted decorations and candy, and a bunch of pumpkins left sitting on the front steps of houses in the neighborhood.

Given how anti-climatic Halloween night is for me, I'm glad that I've spend five of the past seven Halloween nights in Vegas. Vegas provides a big flourish for Halloween, bigger than I'd get on a Tuesday night in Minnesota, making it an appropriate way to end a season of silliness and scariness.

Having spent eight hours downtown and not getting to bed until 3 a.m., it was a slow morning for us at Tahiti Village. When we finally got around to cleaning up, we didn't have a simple egg and bagel breakfast. We decided that Wednesday was our day to put miles on the rental car, have a late breakfast and violate one of the Five Hundy by Midnight podcast rules. We drove to the Suncoast Hotel and Casino for breakfast at Du-Par's.

What rule did we violate? Co-host Tim, in his guidebook published a couple of years ago, explains that it doesn't matter how extraordinary a meal might be. When he's in Vegas, he's not going to spend 20 minutes traveling by car for a breakfast when he can get a good meal at his casino, or next door to his casino. I agree with the logic, to a point.

Regardless, I never experienced the glory of the Du-Par's pancakes when the California institution operated a restaurant at downtown's Golden Gate. I like pancakes, but it was never a priority. Unfortunately, when talking about the places that Vegas fanatics love, it came up in a conversation, and my girlfriend decided she had to find out what the hype was about. That was a couple of years ago. Since that time the Golden Gate location closed. So she wanted to experience Du-Par's before the Suncoast location closed, and this was the trip to do it.

We both ordered a stack of pancakes, sans meats or any other add on. They were as big and filling as advertised by everybody on the planet. And they were better than any pancake I had ever consumed at any restaurant or church fundraiser. They live up to the hype, no doubt. Would I drive 20+ minutes from Tahiti Village to Suncoast again? Nope. I tried them, I understand the hype. Unless I have another reason to travel that direction, I'm not stopping at Suncoast again.

There was a benefit to hitting up Suncoast the day after Halloween.

When I dropped my girlfriend off at a nail salon on day 2 while I went to the haunted attraction, she got long, black, fake fingernails to go with her with costume. She doesn't do long, fake fingernails, and found them to be highly difficult to live with for 36+ hours. For example, she never considered how she would take her contacts out with long fingernails. She found a Youtube video with tips on how to do it, so crisis averted, but even using her cellphone was a challenge with those nails.

While she could have gone anywhere to get the fake nails shortened to something manageable, we had to pass the exit we hit on day 2 for the salon and haunted attraction. So we hit it again and went back to the same strip mall salon.

Since we were going to be there for a while, I decided to indulge, as well. I got a pedicure. I do a terrible job of trimming my toenails. They always look mangled by the time I'm done. And they were due to be cut, so I paid to have them done.

And what a deal that was! I have had a pedicure once, about five years ago. I knew what to expect, more or less, and the woman doing my pedicure was thorough and outstanding. She did foot massaging in addition to all the work on my nails, and the chair I sat in was very relaxing. It was one of those massage chairs, so that was a nice bonus. And as I sat there in the chop shop, on a pleasant Vegas Wednesday, with the doors of the chop shop open, I looked to my left, and through the windows I could see the Stratosphere off in the distance. I loved it.

I knew to expect the service to cost about $30. The woman spent more than 30 minutes working on my nails, so $30 seemed reasonable. And as I stood at the register to pay, the cashier told me the total was $23. I was amazed. That was one hell of a deal. I paid by credit card, and tipped $7, as I expected to pay at least $30 before the tip.

The cashier asked to see my ID since I paid by credit card. She was surprised to see I was from Minnesota. This ain't a place that sees a lot of tourists, I'm sure. She asked me if it was cold back in Minnesota. I told her it snowed the past Friday, which it did for a while, even if it didn't last a day.

By mid-afternoon we were back at Tahiti Village for pool and hot tub time. As the sun started to set and the warmth went with it, we cleaned up and headed to The Cosmopolitan for dinner. We don't spend much time on the strip, and we don't dine at many buffets, but my girlfriend had wanted to try a high-end buffet. The Cosmo had a 2-for-1 coupon in the Las Vegas Advisor coupon book for its buffet, Wicked Spoon, so we gave it a try.

First off, we had to pay for parking. It was my first time paying for parking on the Vegas strip. I wasn't excited about it, but I wasn't going to spend an hour trying to circumvent the parking fee by walking a mile or riding the bus up the strip. I will say this, the red light/green light system and tabulation of available parking spaces is slick.

We went inside, signed up for player cards and headed to the buffet. It's about $45 per person for dinner on a Wednesday night.

The food is well done, overall. They had pre-split crab legs, so it was easy feast upon my second-favorite Vegas delicacy. They serve many of their entrees in single-portion dishes, which is a nice touch. I tried a variety of them and found most to be very satisfying. I had a couple of slices of their prime rib, too. It's my favorite Vegas indulgence, but I wouldn't go back to Wicked Spoon for it. The first trip to the carving station produced a satisfactory, thin slice. On my second trip the cut I had wasn't as good. If I go there again I'll certainly have a slice, but it didn't dazzle me like I expected given the Spoon's reputation.

Obligatory photo of the buffet sign.

I can't tell you what's in that little dish, perhaps it's the fancy mac and cheese, but on the right is one of my favorite Vegas delicacies, crab legs. The only drawback to buffet crab legs in Vegas, they're often served chilled. But good crab meat and hot butter is never a losing combination. 

I don't love sushi, but I don't hate it. I stick to the basics and had one serving at Wicked Spoon.

Fancy desserts are tasty at Wicked Spoon, but not to die for. 

Overall I was highly satisfied with my meal at $22.50 per person. Our server was prompt in clearing our plates, but not very proactive when it came to refilling my beverage. Oh well, he saved me a buck on my tip.

Plenty of fancy desserts available at the Spoon, as you might expect. I sampled a few. They were very good, but I didn't fall in love with any of them.

We did gamble a bit at Cosmo after dinner. I dropped $40 in a Top Dollar slot machine, and although I did get the bonus twice, my bonus offers weren't much more than $10 at best. I was not impressed by the machine.

My girlfriend had read about the Verbena, a unique drink they serve at Chandelier. So we made it a point to venture over and try it. I won't try to describe it if you don't know what it is, but it's a unique cocktail sensation I've never had anywhere else. It was $16 per drink, I think, and that's typical for cocktails at Chandelier. It was worth trying.

I'm not exactly Cosmo material, but it was fun to clean up and spend a few hours among the beautiful people, watching the parade of well-funded men and women parade to and from. Cosmo is a nice place and I like it. Perhaps one day I'll forgo the vow of poverty I took when I chose my career and will be able to afford to drop $100 or more on a few rounds of drinks without thinking twice about it.

Some day.

Which way is up? I'm not sure, but it's a photo I took at The Chandelier inside The Cosmopolitan. I won't be winning any photography awards any time soon, clearly.

Funny thing about my brief cameo at Chandelier. I looked toward the bar and saw a woman walking away. I didn't get a head-on look, but I got a profile view. I was sure it was Marci, a frequent visitor who shares a lot of pictures and stories of her Vegas travels through Facebook groups dedicated to Vegas travel. I know several names and have seen pictures of the most prolific contributors to these groups, but I wouldn't expect to see or recognize them while wandering about. I didn't chase the woman down as she was walking away from my area, but I checked on Facebook that night, and sure enough I spotted Marci, one of the frequent contributor to a group called Talk Las Vegas. It was like spotting a celebrity.

We left Cosmo before four hours had passed. I paid $7 for parking. Not the end of the world, and I likely would have been ready to leave even had parking been free, but the fact that the base rate for parking increases after four hours was all the incentive I needed to move along. Who knows how my night might have been different had I not been paying for parking. I was content with paying $7 in order to park for dinner and a cocktail, but I didn't want to pay more than that. No big deal, I'm not Cosmo material anyway.

Our next stop was Orleans, the casino I liked staying at during the past several years. Unfortunately those comped weeknights that my girlfriend and I received two years earlier have stopped coming. We spent five nights at the Orleans in September 2015, and four of those nights were comped. We paid for the fifth, ate meals on the property, drank beers at the pool and charged it all to our room. And at that point they stopped comping me weeknight rooms. I don't get it.

I was disappointed on this Wednesday night to find that all of their $5 tables were auto-shuffle machines. I swear they were. I looked, and looked again. I use to be able to count on $5 double-deck pitch games, but not that night. I was highly disappointed.

I used that as a sign that it was my night to play Ultimate Texas Hold 'Em. I had good luck over the course of a couple of hours, winning $150 on $5 play. I cashed out and used a $10 match play to win a $10 spin on roulette. After tipping a few dollars, I finished my night at Orleans up $166.

We were on the road back to Tahiti Village around midnight, early enough to close out our night with a visit to the hot tub.

It was symbolically one of the saddest days of the year for me, but it turned out to be a pretty good one. Thank you, Vegas.

#VegasHalloween (day 5 and 6): Flying solo

My group was leaving on Thursday, Nov. 3, and it was an anti-climatic day, as it should be.

Given I was up late on Wednesday night, I wasn't in a hurry to get up Thursday morning. We were all meeting about 11 a.m. to load up the SUV. I managed to wake up early enough to clean up, pack and load my bags before making a final appearance downtown. I needed to buy one of those ridiculously cheesy "women of Las Vegas" calendars for a buddy at one of the downtown souvenir stores. I had a simple contest for my Facebook connections, and the person who came closest, without going over, to guessing the total in the coin collection pictured on my Facebook page was to receive a tacky Vegas souvenir. Given the winner was Jared, the ridiculous, impractical calendar was a great gift. And since they were two for $4, I now have one, too.

I also had time that morning to play a $25 Plaza match play I had not made a point to use during our stay. I feel like I come up on the short end of match plays too often, but I owed it to myself to take a shot with the $25 match play. I chose roulette, and nobody was playing. I bought in for $25 and decided that rather than look at the previous spins and guess where the ball was going to drop, I'd let the clock on my cell phone decide. If it was an even minute, I bet red. An odd minute, I bet black. My play was on red.

Normally I don't watch the ball drop when I have a match play working, but I decided to change up my strategy. I stared the ball down as it dropped into the wheel, and it found its way into a red number. I won $50, putting me up a few bucks for the week. I tipped the croupier a $2 bill and went to cash out.

Our last meal as a group was at In-N_Out Burger, and not that ridiculously busy one at the freeway exit, just down from New York New York. I'm smarter than that. Following lunch we finally made an appearance at the Pinball Hall of Fame. We weren't there long, however, at least not all of us, as Mike was the first to depart. Since his flight was separate from the rest of the group I had to drop him off a couple of hours prior to the rest. I left Joe, Jon and Trista at the hall of fame and dropped Mike off. When I returned to the hall of fame everybody was ready to go somewhere else. Nowhere in particular, but an hour of pinball was enough, unfortunately.

We drove west and found our way to The Sci Fi Center. It's close to the Orleans, which stunned me when I read about it a year or so ago through an online list of ways to "geek out" in Vegas. I imagined a giant store full of comics, movie memorabilia, toys and other sci-fi goodness. I was disappointed.

The Sci Fi Center has comics and other stuff for sale, but it's not exactly a retail hotbed for the latest in sci-fi books, T-shirts, games or anything else. The inventory was far less than I imagined, and rather random. I couldn't help but wonder if anyone buys merchandise there on a recurrent basis.

Although the retail business was underwhelming, there's a very cool element of the Sci-Fi center. Part of it is a makeshift theater, with seating for 65-70 people. This small theater is used to show B movies double features, live cast performances of Rocky Horror Picture Show and other occasional entertainment, such as a burlesque review. If I lived in Vegas I suspect I'd find the entertainment and crowd that gathers for it to my liking. Unfortunately I'm unlikely to see any of their Rocky Horror presentations, which often have special themes, as they perform them on Saturday nights, and I'm rarely in Vegas on a Saturday night.

Following a brief stop at The Sci Fi Center we went down the street to Club De Soleil, a timeshare property west of the Orleans, and my home for the final night. Rates were more than I cared to pay for a night at the Orleans, and I found an online deal for a glorified hotel room at Club De Soleil.

I stayed at Club De Soleil several years earlier. They rent out their units when they don't have them booked by people who own timeshares. Every major property on the strip, downtown and close to the strip wanted $100 or more for that Thursday night since it was during a major convention. I found an online booking through Trip Advisor for less than $65. I planned to have a rental vehicle for the final night, so Club De Soleil worked for me.

Although we went to check in early, somehow they didn't have a room ready for me. But we killed a little time there, sitting by the pool. The fact the pool has a hot tub which is accessible 24 hours per day was enough to make my friend jealous.

From there we stopped in at the Orleans, so I could show my friends the pool area I use most often in Vegas. At this point we were killing time, and it wasn't very exciting. Nobody was interested in gambling or anything spectacular prior to their departure. When the time finally arrived to drop the gang off for their flight home, I made them go to the car rental center with me and take the shuttle bus to the terminal. Their flight on the prestigious Spirit Airlines was already delayed, so they had a little extra time to kill. We turned in the SUV, said our goodbyes and I went to pick up my Mustang convertible for the final night of my trip. It was about $5 more than a regular car, so I figured I should spoil myself.

I rent from Alamo, typically, and like the fact I get to pick my car and color. They had a bunch of mustangs, as well as a couple of Camaros. I have rented a Mustang before, so I considered trying a Camaro, but after sitting in one I didn't like the feel of it, so I opted for a Mustang. I didn't want a typical touristy color, so I chose a dark gray car.

I never took a photo of my convertible in the sunlight, or with the top down. I'm an idiot. 

My first stop was the Silverton Casino. I had never been there, and I had read about their mermaids over the years. Seeing the mermaids wasn't a priority in the past, but I learned this past summer that my nieces are fascinated by mermaids. So I went to see them, and connected with my nieces in Minnesota via Facetime. Once we had the connection set up with their iPad I walked back into the casino from outside the building, making sure they couldn't see what I was about to show them. I carefully delayed the reveal for a few seconds, and as soon as I turned my phone toward a swimming mermaid I could hear their excitement and amazement through the phone.

There were two mermaids performing at Silverton, although you wouldn't know it from any of my pictures. 

I took several selfies, and the look on my face was typically ridiculous. 

After spending time filming video and taking pictures of the mermaids I headed back to Club De Soleil, with a brief stop at a nearby grocery store. I had the basic mini-suite, or whatever they call it. It's a decent room with a nice bathroom, and it has a mini-kitchen. By mini-kitchen I mean a mini-refrigerator and a microwave. I knew this, given my previous stay, so I picked up a few snacks at the grocery store, including snack food for Friday's flight home. I also picked up a 25-ounce Bud Light for the hot tub at the end of the night.

I was getting hungry, and my final dinner of the week was going to be back at Ellis Island. I considered using my half-price Silverton buffet coupon from the Las Vegas Advisor book, but I had an extra coupon for the Ellis Island cafe. That meant a cheap prime rib dinner for me.

Unfortunately I had to wait about an hour for a table for one. But that gave me an excuse to play blackjack for only the second time all week. I didn't win big, but I won a few bucks while killing time, and that was good enough for me.

After dinner it was time for a night of gambling at the Orleans. I like their casino and try to make an appearance there even if I'm not staying there. Perhaps they'll get the hint that I'd like a room offer for a future trip, I figure.

I started by playing Ultimate Texas Hold 'Em, and didn't have much luck. It was a full table, and I won't soon forget the loud, annoying woman that sat down after I did. She'd yell out the cards she was looking for, and she'd get them often enough, prompting a celebration on her part. I'm all for being enthusiastic, but she was a bit too much to take.

I never had a good run of cards, and I don't think I hit a full house one time. After losing $100 I moved over to a $5 blackjack table, and proceeded to play for about four hours. I wasn't having much luck there, either.

A dude at my table lived in Vegas, and had lived in Minnesota for about 30 years prior to moving west. He had intended to move to California, but somehow he ended up not getting that far. He claimed he was finally going to move to California in a few months.

The dude was enjoyable to talk to, although he became increasingly distracted as the night progressed. The woman sitting next to me was not happy about it.

I started to think I was doomed to a long night of losses at the Orleans. I was near $200 down, which wasn't a big deal when looking at the big picture, but it was annoying. As I started to wonder when I had to give up and call it a night, I finally hit a nice run of cards. I started winning more often than I was losing, and I pressed my bets a bit.

At one point I was ready to call it a night and said that if I lost the $10 I set aside, I'd cash in and call it a night. I'd have still been in the hole, but by less than $100 at that point. Instead of having to cash out, however, the cards kept falling my way. So I rode it out and worked my way back to even with bets of $5 to $10. Approximately four hours of slowly burning my chip stacks were erased in 30 minutes or less. As it was rapidly approaching 3 a.m. I decided I had better be happy with not losing money. Did I want to try and win a fast $100 at that point? Sure, but had the cards turned on me, I'd have been rather pissed to walk away $75 or $100 in the hole after all that time. Breaking even for the night made me happy.

And technically I cashed out $2 ahead. All my tip money came from my chip stacks, and I tipped my final dealer several dollars in tip bets as I was winning my buy-in back. So it truly was a winning evening.

I retired to Club De Soleil, grabbed my beer and headed to the hot tub at 3 a.m., where I spent about 30 minutes under the stars drinking Bud Light and eating Pringles. I posted the following pic for my friends back home to see, noting it was 5 a.m. back home.

Not the best lighting for a 3 a.m. photo at the hot tub, but you get the idea. 

A short night of sleep gave way to my final few, uneventful hours in Vegas. I checked out of Club De Soleil at the 11 a.m. check out time, headed down to the Pinball Hall of Fame for a few hours of pinball action and headed for the car rental return center. I wish I had given myself more time to exploit the joy of driving that convertible on the open highway. I was tempted to drive back to Seven Magic Mountains simply for a chance to cruise with the top down, but pinball was more important. I didn't even have lunch before heading to the airport on Friday afternoon.

It wasn't the most exciting night of my life in Vegas, but I was glad I stayed one final night and was able to do things on my schedule. I wish I could do that more often.

For the week I finished up about $40 at the tables. I always tell myself I need to dedicate $20 or $40 to the slot machines so I'll have a chance of pocketing $1,000 during my week in Sin City, but I rarely pull that trigger. Maybe next time.

It's better to be lucky than good

During my May trip to Vegas I didn't have very good luck. I didn't even gamble during my first day in town. My Sunday night began with an appearance at the Riviera, and during the time my girlfriend and I were there, we had drinks at the bar. The tables were full for the final night at the Riv, and it looked like a fun atmosphere, but my girlfriend doesn't play cards, so I figured I'd spend an hour playing blackjack on Monday morning.

Of course I arrived on Monday morning to find out the tables were already closed. And I'm not much of a slot machine or video poker player, so I never gambled a final $20 at the Riv.

Four nights of our trip were spent at the Orleans, and the final two nights were downtown at Downtown Grand. I had lousy luck at the Orleans. Really lousy. Luck was not on my side.

I had a few match plays for the Orleans, and I had one left on Thursday morning before we relocated to downtown. My luck had been terrible, so I decided that my luck couldn't be worse by using a match play at the roulette table. And instead of picking red or black, I made my girlfriend pick the color.

The match play was for $10, so I put it and $10 down on the color my girlfriend chose. I won $20 just before I walked out the door of the Orleans. I'm a low roller, so winning $20 on my way out of the casino was a nice consolation prize. I was down about $250 at that point. That's an hour's worth of gambling for some. For me it represents a couple of nights of non-winning blackjack.

I had match plays for downtown, some from the Las Vegas Advisor coupon book. Downtown Grand also gave us match plays since we were hotel guests, so I had a few to play there. I had a pair of $25 match plays and one $10. I didn't play them all at one time, but my girlfriend went three-for-three with them. Three correct calls with match plays netted me $120.

I also cashed in a $25 match play coupon at The D. And sure enough, my girlfriend picked the right color again. (Every bet was red or black. We never picked odd/even or 1-18/19-36.) That was another $50 in my pocket.

Now here's another example of how not chronicling everything immediately after my trip turns out to burn me. I'm not sure where I played the final $10 match play. It had to be downtown, but I can't figure out where. Perhaps I had two $10 match plays for Downtown Grand.

What I do know: I played six match plays on roulette, put up $105 for the bets and won all six of them, netting $210 in the process. According to one online source I found, the odds of betting correctly on six such bets is 74.4 to 1. There's a 1.33 percent chance you'll pick six in a row correctly.

And since we had multiple match plays at Downtown Grand, my girlfriend played a $10 match play with her own money. And of course she lost.