#VegasHalloween 2021 -- day 3, part 2

Halloween 2021 was not what I expected. 

It was my seventh #VegasHalloween in 11 years, and my plan, typically, is to spend the evening downtown. 

In 2019 my life partner really wanted to see Lady Gaga on Halloween Night. She didn't want to pay $400 per ticket, and that was lowest priced ticket days before the show, if you were shopping the online ticket resale sites. 

Fearing a major overhaul was in the works at the dirty circus, we stopped at Circus Circus the day before  Halloween, in the middle of the afternoon. I hadn't seen the inside of that joint in years, and wanted to see it in its vintage glory, in case the recent sale of the property was soon to bring a whitewashing of the décor. 

Nobody heaps praise on Circus Circus. It's old, it's kitschy and it's not the least bit glamourous. But so many of us bemoan the loss of casino theming, it would be a shame to ever lose this Vegas relic.

A view from outside the dirty circus on Oct. 30, 2019. This view is going to change, one of these years. Allegedly change is coming in two years. Yeah, we'll see.

While walking around, we found a ticket booth selling show tickets. I knew it was a waste of time to price check what they had, but my life partner insisted. Much to our shock, we found tickets at approximately $135 each. I had been watching ticket prices drop a little bit from day to day, but nobody was dumping them that cheap a full day before showtime. Sure, they were near the top of the theater, which ain't great, but I've seen much worse seats. It's not the hockey arena we were visiting, after all. It was a ticket in, and we had no regrets. 

My 2019 cellphone wasn't going to get a good pic of the Lady on stage, or flying through the air of a dark theater, but I got a pic of the giant video display showcasing her piano prowess during my Halloween 2019 concert. My first Gaga concert, and probably the last. I'm cheap. 

Flash forward two years, and the three sisters are talking about going to Lady Gaga on Oct. 30. We saw the "Enigma" show, a corny production with a simple story that unfolds as Gaga performs the hits. Last month, she was doing the jazz and piano show she likes to do, and the sisters wanted to see it. I didn't need to go. Count me out. 

They didn't go to the show on Saturday, Oct. 30, because midway through the week the bride-to-be decided she wanted to have a dinner gathering for the 18 of us there in Vegas for the wedding. That killed any plans for the sisters to see Gaga. 

Given there was no formal group gathering happening on Halloween night, the sisters started talking about going to see Gaga that Sunday night. I learned about this on Sunday afternoon, after the wedding, while we were dining at Saltgrass. 

Somewhere in the discussion it went from a party of 3 to 4. The bride's father's sister became part of the plan. (She's not an aunt to the sisters, who are cousins to the bride. Let's leave it at that.) 

So after changing clothes at the Plaza, I headed downstairs, knowing that I'd eventually be hitting the road and dropping off a group of concertgoers at Park MGM. It was just before kickoff of  the NFL's Sunday night football game, and a World Series game 5. I wanted to place small wagers on each. I wanted to wager on the Atlanta Braves to win, and I wanted to wager on Dallas to beat Minnesota. 

I got there in the final seconds of the wagering for baseball, and as I was about to place a wager, it went off the board. Oops. So then I wagered on the NFL game. I wagered $25 on the visiting Dallas Cowboys. 

The moment I put my wallet in my pocket and turned around to head out of the sports book I heard the NFL pregame announcement. The Dallas starting quarterback was not playing, and a backup with no experience was starting the game. Dallas was a 5-point underdog, but suddenly this looked like an easy victory for Minnesota. Just my luck. 

At Circa I watched part of the game in the free seats in the sports book with the bride and groom, while other family members milled about at the Mega Bar. (It's a big bar in a huge casino. I don't know why that's so amazing.) As 7 p.m. approached, it was time to head to the concert. 

We drove over to Caesars Palace to pick up the bride's aunt, which I thought would be a nightmare, but we got lucky. Weaving in and out of Caesars entryway is a chore right now, thanks to construction, but we succeeded. Getting into the Park MGM area to drop off the foursome wasn't much of a challenge either. So far, so good. 

By the way, they had slightly better seats in the balcony than we had two years ago, and the tickets cost them about $180 each that afternoon via whichever ticket site they used. 

My options: Go back downtown, only to head back three hours later to pick them up, or find somewhere else to go. For those who think that they should have taken a cab back after the show, the sisters were splitting the rental fee for the SUV between them. All it cost me was gas money and my driving service when needed during the weekend. Fair trade in my world. And even without the fair trade, you put others before yourself sometimes. This was one of those times. 

Given every trip to Vegas for more than a decade has included a visit to the Pinball Hall of Fame, and I hadn't been there on this trip, and was resigned to the idea I wasn't going for the first time in many years, Lady Gaga gave me a convenient excuse to drop in. I had been to the latest incarnation on the south end of the strip in June, twice, so I knew what I was getting. It was a quick jaunt on the backroads to loop around Mandalay Bay and pull into the lot. 

I had a nice chat with a local couple, who had to be in their 70s. They were just getting in their car, and I said hello. We talked for five minutes. There they were, on Halloween night, getting out and enjoying pinball together in Vegas. Warmed my heart. 

Inside it was not very busy. It was Halloween night, plenty of people had other plans. I saw proprietor Tim Arnold walking around, something that's not uncommon. I've talked to him before, but he doesn't know me enough to remember me. But I said hello and asked how late he was open. He said that he's still maintaining reduced hours as a result of the pandemic, so he was closing at 9 p.m.

That gave me an hour to look around, see what I didn't recognize, play a few old favorites and head for the door. The first game I played was Theatre of Magic, a game I don't to play regularly back in Minnesota, mostly because I don't go to a lot of places to play pinball on a regular basis these days. I won three free games on top of the game I paid 75 cents to play, and chewed up a bunch of time on that machine alone. 

I played this machine first.

By the time an hour had passed, I had spent less than $3, and played plenty of pinball for that money. Almost criminal. My final game of the night, an Elvira-themed machine, is one of three Elvira machines that has been licensed over the decades. This one was the second game to feature Cassandra, and was manufactured in 1996.

I played this last. Seemed like an appropriate final game on Halloween. (Cell phone photography of pinball machines is not my strong suit.)

So it's 9 p.m. on Halloween, and I'm back in the parking lot. Where do I go from there? I contemplated the Orleans, a place I have stayed many times and typically visit when I don't stay there. Instead I chose to go check out a locals bar I read about, courtesy of one of the local TV stations, The Sand Dollar, a "lounge" along Spring Mountain Road. 

I'm not sure the Halloween makeover of a longtime bar warranted news coverage by one of the TV stations, but that's how I learned about it. I had considered stopping in on Friday afternoon for one drink, but was too tired and not in the mood. 

So there I was, shortly after 9 p.m., heading into the bar. I didn't plan an elaborate Halloween costume this year, but I had this cheesy manufactured costume I bought a few years ago. Basically you wear it over your normal clothing and you're supposed to look like you're at the podium, bidding on a The Price is Right showcase. It was a perfect, simple costume for a theme party a few years ago, and it was a simple, easy way to play along with Halloween without going to a lot of effort. I had no idea how grateful I was going to be for not planning an elaborate costume this year. 

Thank you, Amazon, for providing this stock image of my costume. The microphone looks more phallic than the picture suggests. People will remind you of that.

I threw on the costume and headed inside. The place was not packed, but there was a decent crowd assembled, most donning some sort of costume. This place ain't fancy, and it's a venue for live music. I knew that much going in. 

The entire place was decorated, but I wouldn't call it amazing. They had plenty of fake cobwebs across the ceiling, and lots of little decorative touches through the bar. Cute, but not jaw dropping. I wouldn't recommend going there just to see the Halloween makeover. I took a simple picture of the pool table area when nobody was in that corner, and a picture of the decorated entryway to the place. I didn't want to look like a tourist, taking pics of every decorative accent in the building, and it wasn't that amazing, anyway.

Again, cell phone limitations in play. But you get the idea. 

The nifty entryway into The Sand Dollar.

These were the only Sand Dollar patrons in costume I took a picture of. Somebody else had asked them to pose for a picture first. That was my cue to follow suit. 

The bar had Halloween-themed cocktails, but I ordered a simple cocktail to start. A band was warming up, so I was optimistic the music would start any minute. I wasn't in the mood to try to make chit chat with anyone, so I was content to stand and enjoy the music. I found spot to stand that wasn't in anyone's way, and waited seemingly forever for the music to start. Turns out the band didn't play until 10 p.m.

So the music finally starts playing. I figure the band is going to play cover tunes, and given it was Halloween, there would be something, anything, referencing the fact it was Oct. 31. 

My expectations were a little low. The six-piece band began with an instrumental tune. And after several minutes, they were still going strong. After 25 minutes it sounded like their opening jam was about to end. And then it picked back up again, and continued until 10:50, at which point they ended the jam and took a break. 

It was quite a surprise, and very entertaining. Not what I was expecting, but very enjoyable. There was no introduction or sign telling me what band it was, but my after-the-fact research tells me it was Überschall, an improv band that is composed of past and present musicians performing for the Blue Man Group, evidently. 

The Sand Dollar's Halloween decor wasn't worth the price of admission, (there was none,) but if you enjoy an improv band featuring three drummers, two guitars and a keyboard player, you'd be entertained by Überschall. They play at the Double Down Saloon periodically, it appears.

Lady Gaga's show lasts about 2-1/2 hours, I was told, and I assumed she wouldn't start at 8 p.m. sharp, so I expected to be getting a "show's over" text by 11 p.m.

What I didn't expect was to run into somebody I know at the Sand Dollar. 

Toward the end of the Überschall set, a guy approached the area where I was standing. He looked familiar to me, based upon his profile. But it's dark, there's music playing and I assumed there was no chance I knew this guy. A few minutes later the music ends, the guy turns around to head to another area of the bar, and looks at me, as if he recognizes me. 

My general rule: When you see somebody you don't immediately recognize, but are so sure it's somebody you know and haven't seen in a long time, you're probably right. 

I texted my friend Sam, who is a well-known scribe in Vegas, asking where he was at the moment, and if it was a lounge. I received a generic "LOL" reply, and I wondered if that was his way of telling me he was doing something far more interesting on Halloween night. Sure enough, that was Sam, and seconds later he walked up to me, asking why I what I was doing at the lounge. 

Sam knows I'm a tourist, and we first met in 2015. I have read his work for years, and enjoy much of what he writes. When I was in town this past summer, I interviewed him for an episode of my non-Vegas podcast. It was the second time we had met in six years. And I certainly didn't expect that Friday afternoon we'd cross paths again, if only for a few minutes, barely four months later. 

Sam was simply out and about that night, hitting up a few spots specifically because it was Halloween. He was soon on his way, and I took that as my cue to ready myself for the return trip to Park MGM. 

Sam is on the left, the decaying writer of this blog is on the right.

The return trip was quick and easy, the pick up was no challenge, and we dumped the aunt off on the Flamingo Road sidewalk alongside Caesars rather than drive her into the property. I offered to pull into that side entrance area on Flamingo that accesses one of the towers, but she wanted to walk around to the front of the property, so she did. And off we went to downtown. 

I dropped the sisters off at Golden Nugget and parked our rental vehicle at the Plaza. 

I grabbed my costume and headed out to Fremont Street moments before midnight in order to gaze at the spectacle that is Halloween in Vegas. Before I ever made it out of the Plaza, I ran into the Macho Man and Miss Elizabeth. I have a special place in my heart for the Macho Man, as he was my costume inspiration in 2016. 

You can find these folks on YouTube, I would later learn. 

I didn't request too many specific photos on Fremont Street. I'd often take pics of folks posing for somebody else, and sometimes that included a random person in the picture. And while I don't avoid pics of the scantily clad women parading about on Halloween, they're usually not my priority. Here's a sample of what I found after midnight. 

I did not tip this street performer for this picture. Shame on me. His balancing act was quite impressive. And yes, he picks up that bottle and uses it as part of his act. 

 

My second Macho Man of the night. I saw one more, but never at a good time to stop him and get a picture. Oh well.

These clowns were creepy, and garnered plenty of attention.

I didn't immediately realize the entire cast of Gilligan's Island was represented by this group. Once I realized they had all seven castaways, I waited nearby until somebody else asked them to gather together for a group photo. Then I grabbed mine. 

A simple costume idea. It would have played well five years ago. It still gets laughs, although Hillary Clinton never went to prison, but plenty of Trump bobos have. 

I asked this guy for his photo. His dedication to a creepy look was outstanding. 

This seemed like a pic worth grabbing at the time.

Bill Cosby's career is forever tarnished, and that likely includes appreciation for the old "Fat Albert" cartoons. Nonetheless, this simple Dumb Donald costume blew me away. I had to ask this guy for a pic.

I ended my evening back at the Plaza, where I bought in for $200 at a table game. It was my one big gamble of the weekend. I didn't win, but I held onto a little and finished my night playing a few bucks through the machines at the bar before going to bed. Another Vegas Halloween, as odd as it was, had come to an end. 

Not drinking much that night and not staying awake until 4 a.m. didn't bother me, I had an afternoon flight home. I typically avoid flying home the day after Halloween, but it made sense to do so for this trip, as my life partner and her sisters were doing so, and this was a bonus trip in my world. Three nights is short by my standards, but I'm so grateful it worked out. 

The final hours in Vegas were uneventful. I checked out of my room, picked up the sisters and drove us to Ellis Island, where we had lunch before heading to the airport. The lunch service was a lot slower than we expected. I'm pretty sure the waitress forgot to put our ticket in for a while, so we waited more than 30 minutes for our food. It didn't appear tables around us were waiting that long. 

I ordered prime rib for lunch given I hadn't had my standard prime rib meal the entire weekend. Fun fact, other than a breakfast bar in my hotel room an hour earlier, I hadn't eaten a meal since Sunday afternoon at Saltgrass. Other than a little candy at the Pinball Hall of Fame, I ate almost nothing until lunch at noon on Monday. That happens to me in Vegas occasionally, and I didn't even think about a meal that entire evening. 

One food pic from my trip, prime rib at Ellis Island. No complaints for less than $20.

I gave myself about two hours to return the rental car and get to my gate for departure. The shuttle buses were slow at the rental center and security screening was super slow on Monday afternoon. A friend who was in town that weekend, but I had not seen, was on the same flight home as I was. She messaged me that it took more than an hour to get through the security screening. I was certain I would miss my flight, but TSA did something to pick up the pace, as the line eventually started moving far more briskly than it had been when I arrived. I was the last ticketed passenger to be seated, and they bumped me up to an exit row. I wasn't the last guy on the plane, there were a few standby passengers hoping and praying they'd get a seat to Minneapolis, as well. I think they did. 

My seventh trip to Vegas for Halloween in 11 years was complete. I wouldn't have been sad had I missed out, at least that was my thought leading up to the trip, but I suspect I'd have regretted not being there come Halloween weekend. 

Oh yeah, those Sunday night sports bets. I missed betting on Atlanta, and Houston went on to win that night, so it would have been my fourth consecutive failed sports bet of the weekend. As for the Minnesota-Dallas NFL game, I regretted betting on Dallas as soon as I walked away from the counter and learned that five-year pro Cooper Rush, who had never started an NFL regular season game in his life, was the Dallas starting quarterback as the Cowboys' regular starting QB, Dak Prescott, was a late scratch. 

I watched some of the first half at Circa and followed the scoring updates on my phone at the Pinball Hall of Fame. It looked like Dallas was going to struggle to score points, but Minnesota failed to light up the scoreboard, as well. Dallas not only covered the 4.5-point spread, but won outright 20-16. I won cash on Sunday night all because I was a minute too late to bet on baseball and because I bet against Minnesota seconds before I learned late breaking info that would have led me to switch my bet. 

When it comes to sports betting, I swear I'm wrong 90% of the time. I need to bet the opposite of my instincts. 

And so it ended

I spent 8 nights in Vegas, and it all went by in a hurry. It always does. 

Let's start with a recount of my final night in Vegas.

Most of my time was split with two friends. Thomas, my podcast producer, was there first. Dave, my college friend, came second. Their stays in Vegas overlapped one night. 

Dave took a red-eye flight home on Thursday, and I wasn't leaving until Friday afternoon, so I was on my own for the final night. After dropping Dave off at the airport, I drove straight to The Orleans, a place I have stayed many times.

Normally I'd park in the ramp, head in and hit the tables when visiting The Orleans. Instead I parked in the front corner lot, far from the door. There weren't many cars in the area. I was closer to Tropicana Avenue than I was to the front doors of The Orleans. 

I stood there looking at everything from a distance for at least five minutes, wondering if it was my last time at The Orleans. My future in Vegas had been on my mind periodically during this trip, as I noted in my previous blog entry.

It's the roadside sign for The Orleans, the casino I have stayed at multiple times over the past decade.
I have found myself sitting in a quiet corner of its parking lot for a few minutes the past few trips, contemplating life as I know it. 

I took a picture of the giant Orleans sign out front and finally headed inside to try my luck at cards.  

I spent a couple of hours playing Ultimate Texas Hold 'Em. I didn't win money. I lost about $65 during my time on the table. It was a mostly forgettable night of cards, save for two things. 

A dude, probably younger than me, but hard to tell for sure, ended up right next to me. This dude was wearing a track suit, and had an East Coast accent. He referenced being from Boston at one point. And he also mentioned something about being comped at the casino, suggesting he was not a Vegas transplant. 

His distinct look is not what I will remember most. It wasn't his incessant table talk that I will remember most. It was his cash that I will remember most. 

I don't walk the tables at Bellagio, Wynn or other swanky casinos. I suspect I'd see a lot of cash on some of those tables if I did. I see people with hundreds of dollars in chips sit down at Orleans tables periodically, but I don't recall having ever noticed anyone with $5,000 in chips seated anywhere on the floor. I'm sure I have, but it doesn't fascinate me enough to remember it happening.

Mr. Track Suit didn't have a huge stack of chips in his possession as he sat down, but he had a fistful of black chips. It looked like $1,200 or $1,300. That's a lot for a $5 Ultimate Texas Hold 'Em table, but not obscene. And he played $25 hands every time, talking up a storm and trying to decide whether or not to bet his 9 high pocket card following the river. Seriously, the guy talked a lot. Given I talk a lot, that's saying something. 

The thing that struck me as odd about his presence was the cash he was carrying around. I'm sure a lot of people are carrying more cash than I would guess. But Mr. Track Suit had a strap of $100 bills tucked into one of his pockets. I didn't gawk at it, but he pulled it out on two different occasions, looked at it briefly, and somewhat discretely, then put it back wherever he had it tucked. 

I suppose it could have been a single $100 bill on top of a stack of $1 bills, but I doubt it. I'm guessing they were all $100 bills, and it sure looked like $10,000 to me. Perhaps there was a little less in it, given he had more than $1,000 in chips on the table.

I'm sure most longtime gamblers have seen big stacks of cash flashed somewhere, but I don't recall ever seeing it, and I never would have bet on the place where it happened being The Orleans. 

I was lucky that night. As I said, I lost about $65. Hardly a disastrous night. But I was set to drop $170. No big deal, given I was up for the week. But I took home an extra $100 thanks to an error. 

Dealers make mistakes. It happens. I had noticed earlier in the evening, after the hand was done, that I was shorted $10 on a full house payout. I knew it didn't seem quite right at the time of the payout, but I wasn't sharp enough to catch why as I studied the payout.

Cards were scooped up, I pulled chips back, here comes the next hand. Then it hit me. I was paid even money on my "blind" bet, when I should have been paid 3:1. It seemed a little late to call for a check of the payouts, so I accepted it as a dealer error that went against me. Sometimes the dealer errs in the player's favor. That has happened plenty of times. So this one went against me. It likely wasn't the first time, but in this case, I realized it after the fact. 

So as the night goes on, my luck swings back and forth. I'm never ahead at the table, and as midnight passes, I'm down on my luck again. I need to check out of my room at 10 a.m. Friday anyway, and I'm betting with my last chips. There would not be another buy in. 

The dealer made an improbable queen-high straight, killing the table. Me, too, I think. I'm pretty sure that despite the king in my pocket cards, I don't have a straight. She looked at it for a moment, and I realized she was trying to analyze it. I almost told her I didn't have it, as I am certain I didn't. Then she paid my hand and cleared my cards. 

Nobody said anything, not even Mr. Track Suit. We all sat there in silence for a second, then I lamented how the dealer's 9 in her pocket killed everyone else at the table. Onto the next hand, I'm still in the game.

I certainly didn't try to mislead the dealer, or suggest I had a winning hand, as Mr. Track Suit liked doing periodically. I'm 99% certain, based upon the cards I was seeing past midnight, that I didn't win. The silence at the table certainly suggested to me that I didn't, otherwise the other players would have commented about my nice hand. 

Was I wrong for not sharing my doubt about having a winning hand? Perhaps. You could argue it was unethical. If I'd had a straight, and she scooped my chips, I'd be quick to point that out, of course. 

On the other hand, I am confident a dealer mistake earlier that evening cost me $10. It's not an even mistake, I came out ahead, but until that point, I was shorted $10 by the house for more than an hour. 

I'm not losing sleep over this. 

I played a bit longer. I played the next hand, and put a $1 tip on the "trips" bet for the dealer. Given the gift it appeared I had just received, I figured I could offer a modest tip for the dealer. And on the very next hand I hit a full house. A nice little win for me, and a $9 tip for the dealer. 

I tipped a buck on the "trips" bet again during the next hand, but my luck had run out. After another modest win and a loss, I was ready to call it a night. I colored up for $100 that I shouldn't have had and made my way to the door. 

It was time to go back to my room at the Holiday Inn Club Vacations at Desert Club Resort. That's the name that shows up on Google, anyway. 

It's a timeshare joint on Koval Lane, behind the High Roller wheel at the Linq, and next to the MSG Sphere that's under construction. It's a decent place, and like many non-casino hotels, it has its benefits and drawbacks. Dave owns timeshares. Yes, more than one. He bought them on the cheap from disgruntled owners, and seems to like the perks and benefits he gets as a result. We paid for five nights at the Desert Club, we weren't using his "owned" week, or whatever he has. It was $200 for five nights, just a short walk down the street from Ellis Island. 

I spent five nights at the Desert Club Resort on Koval Lane. From the north boundary of the property you can get a good look at the fantastic MSG Sphere. A concert venue behind the strip? Why not, it works for T-Mobile Arena, although access to MSG Sphere won't be as slick. 

I returned to the Desert Club to begin packing and preparing for my Friday departure. I didn't have a ton of packing to do, but I did run a load of laundry before going to bed. Having a washer and dryer in your vacation unit is nice. 

Perhaps I'll elaborate on the pros and cons of the Desert Club in the future. 

My Friday morning was highly uneventful. I played a little pinball before returning my rental vehicle and heading to the airport, wondering when, or if, I'll have an appetite to do it all again. 

A Las Vegas obituary

I went to see the Las Vegas Aviators on June 14. That's a minor league baseball team, which plays in a fancy new ballpark near Red Rock Casino in Summerlin. The visiting Reno Aces defeated the Aviators 21-16 that night. Yes, it was a baseball game. 

I don't know what major media organizations do nowadays, but there was a time when they wrote early obituaries. 

Before the internet and TMZ made our world a better place, your major news sources had obituaries ready to go, in case word broke that a major celebrity or public figure died with little advance warning. Some form of that practice probably remains in place. When former president Jimmy Carter dies, you'll see information pouring out in rapid succession, Perhaps some of that will be the result of news aggregation, but I suspect there will be a few base pieces that were put together long ago in anticipation of the day.

What does this have to do with Vegas? 

It's too early to say my Vegas career is dead, but I really had to wonder when I left town this time. 

I just spent a week in Vegas. I had a good time, and enjoyed a lot of the things I did. 

At the same time, the things I enjoyed didn't seem to warm my heart quite the same way. 

I have been traveling to Vegas for 24 years. A lot changes during any 24-year period. And like all those who bemoan how Vegas was better when the mob ran the casinos, I'm starting to think Vegas was more enjoyable for me back in my glory days, too. I just can't thank the mob for that. 

I stayed on the strip almost every time I visited Vegas during those early years. I was young, and didn't have a ton of money, but that didn't seem to prevent me from enjoying the Vegas strip. I could play all the $5 blackjack I wanted, and there were plenty of cheap places to eat and drink. I was far less discerning back then, and had an iron gut, so that helped the cause. 

For the past 10-12 years I have been staying either downtown or off the strip. The Orleans has been a frequent destination when staying off-strip. There was no single reason I gravitated away from the strip, but there were a few contributing factors. 

I don't think my off-strip exploration had anything to do with higher minimums on the strip for table games. That became a factor in cementing my departure, but there were still $5 games to be had circa 2009, when I started making my move off the strip, as I recall. 

I think my disenchantment with the strip was driven primarily by two things: Low rollers were finding fewer options on the strip and the casinos became dull. 

At the end of the day, it doesn't matter if you're playing blackjack in Egypt, New York, Paris or under a circus tent, it's the game that matters. But I, like many, found the less colorful casino decor and abandoned themes to be less entertaining than their predecessors. 

Take away low roller gambling, make the casinos less fascinating and keep increasing prices of everything else in and around your casino... suddenly downtown Las Vegas looks far more appealing. 

Downtown became my savior, despite its lack of entertainment alternatives. There was no observation tower, fake volcano or sky parade to entertain the masses, but downtown casinos still valued those folks who don't need to burn through a C-note in 10 minutes to feel as if they're entertained. 

The days of the cheap table games, and cheap yard drinks, at Slots-A-Fun are long gone. (As are those 99-cent half-pound hot dogs I stopped eating in 2000.) And the $5 Spanish 21 tables up and down the strip are a dim memory. But I found a lot of replacements for those days, and I found them everywhere but on the strip. And that was fine. 

Two years ago my alternate-universe Vegas, the one that contrasted greatly from 1997 Vegas, was still a lot of fun. Vegas 2019 is gone, too, and what I'm left with has me wondering if there's a lot of Vegas in my future. 

I blame some of it on the pandemic. The pandemic forced casinos to raise their table game minimums, due to the limited capacity at each table under social distancing guidelines. Now that tables are full, the minimums are not going down. There's no shortage of players willing to drop their cash at a $15 minimum blackjack table, so why would a casino offer $5 tables? 

Sure, there are still 25-cent video poker machines and machines offering nickel-based wagering, but for those who like the table games, you'd better be happy with stadium gaming or a fully computerized experience. Some of that was coming, regardless of the table minimums. Automation and technology have long reduced labor costs for casinos, and such corners will be cut as often as possible. 

So is it simply the fact I can't spend an evening playing $5 blackjack at The Orleans that has me soured on Vegas? No. 

I never found that an evening spent listening to free cover bands on Fremont Street, elbow to elbow with drunk strangers, was an important part of my life. I'll listen to a little music, sure, but dancing around like I'm having the greatest night of my life as Zowie Bowie pretends to rap "O.P.P." is beyond preposterous. And the light show up above Fremont Street is pretty impressive, but after a couple of trips downtown, it's not all that fascinating.

And my disinterest in downtown is not just at night. On a recent Sunday afternoon they had a "dancing DJ" or whatever it is they're selling, cranking out the tunes for those walking by. I didn't have to shout in order for my friend to hear me, but I didn't need a dance party at that time of day, either. 

Couple that with the buskers and homeless clogging up Fremont street, between kiosks selling crap I want no part of, and Fremont Street is a big disappointment to me. And nothing pisses me off more than the "circle jerks" whose dance crew, bucket drumming or audience-participation spectacle creates a choke point on Fremont. Yeah, it's the pedestrians that create the circle, not the performers, but their spectacles aren't cut out for the performance circles that were intended for showgirls, creepy KISS dudes and Star Wars rejects.

Fremont Street has lost me, too. 

I can find plenty of favorite places and activities to visit in Vegas that still make it a great city to visit. And it's still a low-cost city, if you want it to be. But after nearly 25 years, I have walked away from Vegas wondering why I'll be in a hurry to go back. 

So I'm not saying I'm done with Vegas. But it really feels like my Vegas days are numbered. And I'm not interested in going back right now. That tells me a lot. 

Some people really don't like the Pinball Hall of Fame's new home on the Las Vegas Strip, I learned on June 18. 

Pinball players hate the Pinball Hall of Fame

I'm a pinball player, and when I visit Las Vegas, there's one place I make it a priority to visit every single trip, the Pinball Hall of Fame. 

I've written about the Hall of Fame in the past, and I have recommended it countless times.   

I know its story and history, more or less, but let me recount it, as best as I can recall. Don't hold me to having every last detail perfectly accurate. It's late, and I don't feel like trying to research every last tidbit. This is a blog, not the newspaper of record for Clark County.

The Hall of Fame evolved from the massive personal pinball collection of Tim Arnold. Arnold grew up in Minnesota and started making money in the pinball business before he was an adult. He made a lot of money courtesy of the video game industry during the 1980s in Michigan, and purchased a lot of old pinball machines that were gathering dust and taking up space. He was able to retire at a young age and moved to Las Vegas, trucking his massive collection of machines to the desert. 

He started the Hall of Fame by hosting game nights in a pole shed, with local players gathering occasionally. From those game nights came the Hall of Fame, and a dedicated space in a strip mall for more than 100 machines from his massive collection. The first Hall of Fame was a few miles east of the Las Vegas strip on Tropicana Avenue. 

More than 10 years ago the Hall of Fame moved to a standalone building on Tropicana, closer to the strip, but still a couple of miles away. 

The Hall of Fame operates as a nonprofit business, staffed by volunteers. The quarters spent to play pinball pay the bills, and additional revenue is donated to charity. This has been going on for years. 

A few years ago the Hall of Fame announced its most ambitious plan, to set up shop on the Las Vegas strip. Incredibly, profits from the Hall of Fame's operation were set aside for the project, and used to buy a large piece of land on the far south end of the strip, near the "Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas" sign. It's not the heart of the strip, but it's a far more accessible site for tourists on the strip. And the new home of the Hall of Fame is going to blow away its current home, which hosts more than 200 pinball machines. 

The Hall of Fame stopped donating its profits to charity so that it could bankroll the project, both the land acquisition and the construction of a building. Unlike its first two locations, the Hall of Fame will have a brand new building to call home, designed for hosting hundreds of pinball machines and other coin-operated machines of years past. It's going to be an amazing display of American history, ingenuity and creativity. 

The Hall of Fame owns its building on Tropicana Avenue, and an adjacent empty lot. The sale of those will help offset costs for the new project on the strip. But the new project is far more expensive than the value of those parcels, without a doubt. It seemed to me, a guy who doesn't know much about financing a commercial construction project or anything about Las Vegas strip real estate, that the Hall of Fame was rather proactive in financing the project. 

I don't recall the details of the plan when it was first announced, but I thought there was some level of debt that would befinanced in conjunction with this project. The organization is a proven success, however, and I suspect that any debt load wouldn't take decades to pay off. Arnold has stressed that his goal is to resume donating profits to charity.

So, all that said, the project commenced last spring, after the pandemic shuttered Vegas. The project had been in the planning for many months, and the financial pieces were in place, so construction proceeded as planned. 

Here's the well-known wrinkle in all the planning: It was anticipated that the Tropicana Avenue Hall of Fame would continue producing revenue during construction. The pandemic put a big dent in that projected revenue, and recently Arnold initiated a fundraising campaign to make up a deficit of $200,000.  

According to his campaign, the new Hall of Fame is a $10 million project, and will be paid off upon completion. If that's correct, meaning there's no debt to pay off after the fact, my mind is blown. Without a final $200,000, the project won't be completed, he claims. 

The campaign has circulated among pinball players and Vegas nerds for a few weeks now, and as of tonight a little more than $100,000 has been donated. 

I saw yet another mention of the campaign earlier today, with the suggestion the new Hall of Fame might not see completion. I was among the doubters. There's too much invested in the project, and too little to finance, for it to suddenly go belly up.

Some pinball players are happy to donate to the project. Others think the late fundraising campaign is despicable. More than a few. I was a bit surprised. 

I get the vitriol, sort of, regarding Arnold and the Hall of Fame. Folks claim he's a curmudgeon and that he or the volunteers are rude toward visitors who don't follow a very strict, unwritten protocol. This is not new, I've heard this before. Is it a fair representation of the Hall of Fame? Hard for me to say yes, I've been there at least 25 times during the past 13-14 years, and I've never seen it. 

A few people bemoaned the fact that of the Hall of Fame's 200+ machines, there are always machines that are in need of a tune up, if not outright repair. I guess it's easier than I would imagine to maintain dozens of machines that are 40-60 years old, as well as dozens more that are only 20-30 years old, all of which are played 365 days a year. Regardless, the machines do not play as if they're showroom new, so the venue isn't worth supporting, evidently. 

More fascinating than the hatred for a guy whose personal collection is available to play 365 days a year is the financial wizardry and knowledge of many pinball players. Several have concluded that Arnold is a clueless dolt who has mismanaged this project spectacularly. He is $200,000 short, after all, so he must he be an idiot. 

Here I thought a guy who has shepherded the Hall of Fame for more than a decade, banking cash and donating to charity, must be doing something right. If it's a $10 million project, he came up $200,000 short due to the financial hardships of a pandemic that nobody projected, or planned for, two years ago. Foolish me, I'm impressed by what has been accomplished so far. The new building on the strip is nearly complete. 

Other financial geniuses suggested that Arnold foolishly started the project last spring after the pandemic shut down Vegas casinos for more than two months. I don't have a clue what the financial ramifications would have been to suspending the project indefinitely and sitting on the vacant land instead of keeping construction workers employed during the pandemic, but pinball's Mensa members know that Arnold is a financial fool. 

Point of reference: I have seen plenty of construction projects continue, or commence, since the pandemic graced Minnesota with its presence last spring. Why didn't all of those grind to a halt? 

A few financial gurus noted that they have or do run a pinball business, and they don't ask pinball players to donate to their business. Fair enough, although none of them mentioned running their business as a nonprofit or noted how many thousands of dollars they have donated to charity.

If there's anything I question, it's the need to raise $200,000 from the pinball community. Some pinheads wondered why there isn't some sort of corporate sponsorship or other fundraising mechanism to help build an oversized arcade dedicated to preserving the history of pinball. Fair question. 

Arnold isn't interested in amassing debt in order to build a Las Vegas strip Hall of Fame, although it can't be that hard to finance the final $200,000 of construction costs for the project. But it appears he just doesn't want to do it. Building a big new Vegas attraction without a huge debt to pay off? How un-American! 

One way or another, we'll have a new Hall of Fame in Vegas, on the strip, and likely before my next visit to Vegas.

It will attract thousands of tourists per week, if we ever get past the pandemic. Most of those tourists will go home with a smile on their face, having relived their youth or experienced something new, something they never imagined. 

And yet half the pinball community, if Facebook discussions are to be believed, absolutely despise the place.

Neutered Vegas (day 4)

 I've been putting off writing this final chapter, perhaps because it lacks a spectacular final moment. 

Saturday, Oct. 10, followed a similar script. No breakfast, just a breakfast bar in the hotel room. But instead of heading out to lunch, we headed out to the Fashion Show Mall. I didn't stay at the mall, however, I was simply dropping off my life partner. For me, it was off to the Pinball Hall of Fame.

Every Vegas trip for at least a decade has included at least one visit to the Pinball Hall of Fame. Some trips include more than one visit. Some trips feature the HOF as a final stop before returning the rental car and going home. Our departure on Sunday morning was too early for a pre-flight visit, so Saturday's trek to the HOF was all I was going to get, and I promised to stay for one hour. 

I've written about the HOF before, and shared mediocre pictures of its games. I won't recount its history, or any more of my history with it. 

It's 2020, what better time to develop a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles pinball machine. (It's not the first, there was a game produced in 1991.) I played it one time, and it seems like a lot of fun. I look forward to playing it again. 

The latest pinball machine to feature Elvira, the ageless mistress of the dark, was released in 2019.

The Pinball Hall of Fame has an assortment of video games and other coin-operated machines, including a pair of 1961 machines from Disneyland. These are not Mold-A-Rama machines, at least not in name. I assume it's the same technology at work. But Mold-A-Rama, the name brand associated with this type of machine, debuted in 1961. The Mold-A-Rama technology dates back to the 1950s, according to Wikipedia.

Fun fact: I own one pinball machine, the game seen on the left side of this picture.

Not to my surprise, just about every other machine was turned off to help provide social distancing. There are two front doors, and one is now designated the entrance, the other the exit. There was a turnstile to ensure one door was for exiting only, and there was a sign at the entrance regarding safety protocols and rules. 

I'm not paranoid about getting sick by playing pinball, so it didn't bother me that I didn't see any indication that the volunteer staff was wiping off machines after people finished playing them. I didn't see any hand sanitizer available, either. I'm not saying that there was no such protocol, I just didn't see it. Although I wasn't looking for it. 

I played a couple of new machines I had never tried before. There's a new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game that is a lot of fun. Elvira, the mistress of the dark, has licensed her image to machines twice in the past. The HOF has all three machines, so I was compelled to play all of them. 

I'll spare you the pinball analysis and simply note that the machines were produced in 1989, 1996 and 2019. I had played the 1996 game, Scared Stiff, occasionally over the years, and enjoy it. I don't recall ever trying the 1989 game, but found it to be enjoyable, given its vintage. I played the 2019 game one time, and wasn't dazzled by it. Perhaps I'd enjoy it more after learning the rules better. It's got modern bells and whistles that weren't being used in pinball manufacturing 23 years earlier, but that didn't make it a better game overall, based upon my first play. 

An hour passes, I head back to the mall and we head back toward the Orleans. It's pool time. But first, we need to pick up lunch. We opt for Jack in the Box, a chain we don't get back here in Minnesota, and something different than the past two fast food lunches. There's one very close to the Orleans, and after picking up an order via the drive-thru, we parked in the nearby Home Depot lot and ate. Fancy! 

Time to head back to the hotel. I decided to take an access road near strip mall buildings across the street from the Orleans, sure enough, it's an easy shortcut between the Orleans parking and Jack in the Box, eliminating the need to pull onto Tropicana Avenue. I had just discovered an amazing Vegas hack! 

One final afternoon at the pool for this trip. Another Vegas afternoon in the 90s. Oh how I miss that. 

The pool staff wasn't obnoxious, but there were a few "wear your mask" touts directed at us loungers during the afternoon. It got to the point that whenever I noticed a staff person starting to walk around the pool, I slipped my mask on and/or grabbed my beer. 

We stayed out at the pool for a few hours before cleaning up and heading to Ellis Island for a cheap barbecue dinner. Two chicken and rib dinners and one coupon makes for an insanely cheap night out. We didn't have to wait long, either, much to my surprise on a Saturday night. 

Obligatory dinner photo

There wasn't much gambling on Saturday evening. I dropped a few bucks in a machine or two and we headed back to the Orleans. Final night in town means big gambling, right? Nope. I picked up cheap postcards at the souvenir store near Ellis Island and spent Saturday night scribbling short notes to eight people. I'm weird, I know. I just didn't have the gambling bug during this trip. 

We headed for the airport about 8 a.m. Sunday, as we were flying out about 10:30 a.m., and I'm old, I guess. Three hours sleep before heading to the airport is not my idea of a good time. 

I don't regret going to Vegas. I'm very appreciative of the fact I was able to spend a birthday in Sin City, even if the city is less vibrant and pandemic tinged. I didn't think I'd be going to Vegas at all this year, so the fact I did seems like a win. But I wouldn't have been bitter had I waited for the pandemic to end before returning, and now that I have, I'm more determined not to go back until it looks and feels like Vegas again. 

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.

I interrupt my Vegas vacation for a mid-week report

Thanks to a buddy who is essentially committing four hours for a massage at a national chain commonly found in suburban strip malls, I have time on my hands.

And only because of my own idiocy, I have the capability to provide a mid-trip report here in the greater Vegas area.

Never mind the fact I haven't written one thing about my Fourth of July week visit.

This trip is essentially an annual gathering of college friends. Beef, Woody and I all know each other through college, and have all traveled very different paths since our time stomping the campus grounds of our western Wisconsin alma mater.

This wasn't intended to be an annual trip when it started humbly enough in 2012. Beef was living in Boston, Woody in Milwaukee and me in Minneapolis. Woody wanted to travel to Boston and visit Beef, and he encouraged me to join along. The itinerary was light, but the primary goal was to attend a Boston Red Sox game at Fenway Park.

Woody has been attending games at MLB parks for years, and as of last year has been to all 30 parks. I've never shared his goal, but through previous travels I've attended games with him in Seattle, Los Angeles, Detroit, Cleveland, Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Chicago and Baltimore.

Now I'm on a quest to visit all 30 ballparks, too.

Since 2012, Woody and I have taken a few trips to destinations around the country. Some of those trips were second visits by him to a ballpark he has been to before, some were to destinations on his list.

In 2013 we went to Texas for games in Arlington and Houston. In 2014 we went to Pittsburgh. In 2016 we went to Florida for games in Miami and St. Petersburg.

During that 2016 trip, we called Beef, jokingly, and asked when he was going to join us in Florida. Much to our surprise, he wished he could have done so. He's not a huge baseball fan, but he would have enjoyed touring Florida with us.

So last year he joined us for half of a road trip that included MLB games in St. Louis, Atlanta and Cincinnati. This year we were aiming for a trip to San Francisco and Oakland, but we had to postpone it. When looking at the replacement possibilities that made sense for 2018, we decided we'd visit Phoenix.

Woody and I had discussed the Phoenix trip a few years ago. We decided that when we did it, we'd go to Vegas and drive over to Phoenix. Woody hasn't been to Vegas since 2000, and is always curious about how places have changed since he last visited. He doesn't love Vegas, but liked the idea of revisiting a city he had been to a few times for work purposes.

And as a bonus to our Phoenix game, we agreed we'd have to see a minor league baseball game in Vegas.

So with plan B in motion, Beef flew into Minneapolis last Friday, spent the night at my place and flew out with me on Saturday afternoon. Woody flew in from Milwaukee a couple hours later. Well, three hours later, as his connecting flight into Vegas was delayed about an hour.

Beef and I had picked up our rental vehicle for the week and checked into our accommodations for this very atypical Vegas vacation. We're staying at a timeshare metropolis.

Beef is a government employee who happens to work for the military. He gets access to some of the deals offered to those who are serving in the military, and one of those deals is access to cheap use of timeshare units at places all over the country. (And perhaps internationally, I don't know.) For three of us, a regular hotel room might not been the best arrangement. But a timeshare unit has worked out great, even if we're five miles south of the strip.

We're staying at Grandview, an eight-building complex with a ridiculous number of units. It's across the street from South Point, where I've never been, and it was cheap. Our total bill for 7 nights is less than $400.

There are pros and cons of a timeshare unit in Vegas, and perhaps I'll detail those another week. For now, on with the trip report.

So what do three dudes do on a Saturday night in Vegas? Grandview gave us discount coupons for the Silverton buffet. No, not the South Point buffet right across the street, the buffet a couple miles up the freeway. So we went there. With coupons we all got a 50-percent discount on our meals. For Saturday night's buffet, which has a bit of a Hawaiian theme, the cost is $24. We paid $12 each.

Decent food, slightly disappointing overall variety. The place was quite busy at 8:30, and they made it clear that at 9:15 the food disappears. Service was a bit lackluster. They cleared plates, but didn't seem interested in refiling drinks.

Food was decent, and I ate too much, but I didn't love it. I wouldn't hurry back, and I'd rather have a normal meal than pay $24 on a Saturday night for their buffet. But at $12: What a bargain!

I was on fumes by Saturday night, so after our late buffet we came back to the timeshare and had a beer, purchased prior to Woody's arrival at a local Walmart. There was no wild Saturday night in our futures.

Sunday comes, we're a bit slow to get the wheels in motion, but Woody and Beef go to the fitness center for a while. I decline, as I brought the laptop with me, as there were a few work-related odds and ends nagging at me, and I didn't want to let them go unattended prior to Monday morning. So I spent an hour or so working on my first morning in Vegas.

Perhaps I could have left the computer at home if I had worked longer on Friday night back in Minnesota. I was up until 3 a.m., but Beef and I spent a couple of hours having beers and playing pinball at the ultra-hip retro arcade bar in Minneapolis. Guys have priorities.

Brunch for us was at the South Point buffet. Good, and slightly cheaper than advertised since a portion of the buffet is under renovation and therefore they don't have as many serving stations as usual. They had plenty to offer and we liked it better than Silverton.

Our Sunday afternoon began with an hour or more of pinball at the Pinball Hall of Fame, and then we headed to the strip for some old-fashioned sightseeing. We started at Tropicana, which is still a nice, old-time property devoid of any atmosphere or energy. It's sad, it wasn't that way 20 years ago.

We moved over to New York New York where we wandered around like typical tourists. I'm pretty sure neither Beef nor Woody had ever seen the inside of the place. I warned them that many of the strip casinos wouldn't be quite so ornate.

From there it was over to MGM, which I hadn't set foot inside in at least a decade. I didn't recognize anything, as it has been renovated plenty since the days when I roamed the behemoth.

We did find Level Up, the millennial-inspired gaming area that mixes arcades and gambling. As everyone else has reported, it's not very lively. Beef played a $1 game of giant Pac-Man, so I guess the concept is a success.

They did have the community gaming stations there, but weren't dealing community blackjack, or whatever they refer to the concept as. I am mildly interested in trying it, but it may not happen on this trip.

Woody, who isn't much of a gambler, decided to put a few bucks in a machine at MGM. With not much of a buy-in, he managed to trigger a bonus round that paid him $91. It was pretty entertaining to watch, and he was quite proud to be a winner.

We decided that Sunday night's dinner was going to be at Ellis Island, where we went to the BBQ restaurant, and used the reliable Las Vegas Advisor coupon for one free meal. Everybody was fat and happy, and the price was right.

We stuck around long enough to redeem the coupon for three free drinks at the bar. Woody wasn't drinking, so he tried his luck on the slots at Ellis Island. He had won another $30 or so on a machine there before we sat down for dinner, so he was convinced he was on a hot streak. That ended with the chicken and ribs, evidently.

After Ellis Island we returned to Grandview. I still had an hour or so of work to do before bed. Woody and Beef went to South Point. Beef wasn't interested in staying long, but wanted to go for a short stroll before calling it a night. More than an hour later Woody returns, without Beef. We were asleep before he returned, and I still don't know what the hell he was doing over there since he's not a gambler, either.

Monday morning arrived and we made eggs and toast in our Grandview unit. That was enough to get us started for the day. We were off to Phoenix for our baseball game. We had about five hours of driving ahead of us, and the game started at 6:40 p.m.

We had plenty of time to spare, but a major accident on Highway 93 south, along a two-lane stretch of undivided highway, ate up that spare time. Had we passed through that area 10 or 15 minutes earlier, perhaps we would have avoided it. But traffic was closed in both directions and we were stuck on the highway, along with hundreds of other cars in both directions, for about two hours. We started to doubt we'd be going to Monday night's game.

Not much to do while stuck on the highway but go for a walk in 106F heat.

But we made it to our hotel, a short walk from the ballpark, with little time to spare. We got to our seats at Chase Field just as the game was beginning. What a relief.

It was a fun game, albeit a long one. The home team, the Arizona Diamondbacks, defeated the Philadelphia Phillies 3-2 in 14 innings. The Phillies were leading 2-0 in the bottom of the ninth, and we had no idea more than an hour of baseball was yet to be played as the bottom of the ninth began.

Since we hadn't really had lunch, and didn't eat anything at the ballpark, other than peanuts, a late meal was necessary. We drove to a nearby In-N-Out for a midnight meal.

Tuesday's itinerary concluded with a return to Vegas, and I'll detail that further when after this trip is completed. I have a busy two days ahead of me, and Beef is due to return any moment from a massage he was seeking four hours ago.

Pinball: The best bet in Vegas

Slot machine players are as superstitious as they come.

Anybody who plays the slots frequently will eventually determine which machine is lucky, which game is the best for bonus payouts and which machine or game never pays anything.

I've never been much of a slot machine player. Even with fancy bonus games and giant video boards that turn a slot machine into a miniature video game, I'm just not that interested.

My favorite machines to play in Vegas still take quarters, and they rarely pay anything back. But dollar for dollar, the best entertainment value I find in Las Vegas is a pinball machine, and I can find plenty of them in Las Vegas at the Pinball Hall of Fame.

I learned about the HOF the same way many others have, through an article extolling the jaw-dropping sight of dozens of pinball machines, ready to play, in one place. I don't remember where I saw the article, but it was prior to January 2007. Since that time there have been countless articles, blog posts and tips from me, and others, to check out the best bet in Vegas.

I was a typical '80s kid. When video games exploded, I was hooked. Sure, I spent money on comic books, baseball cards and candy, but plenty of my dollars went toward Pac-Man, Donkey Kong and the games that followed.

I didn't play a lot of pinball during my youth, but for some reason I was drawn to one of a handful of pinball machines at the mall arcade in the early to mid-80s: "Space Shuttle." That was the only pinball game that I'd play with any regularity.

Until college. I dabbled with a game at the video store in downtown River Falls, Wisconsin, during the late 1980s. I can't definitively say what the game was, but I'm pretty sure it was "High Speed." There was a modest fascination circa 1992-93 with "Cue Ball Wizard." It's a fun game, and was in a local bar that I'd stop in at during my final year of college.

My last dabbling with a specific pinball machine was circa 1994. As a young college graduate who commuted between Small Town, Wisconsin, and the Minneapolis suburbs every weekend, I'd stop at a truck stop along the freeway, which had a game room. I found "Tee'd Off" there, and I was hooked. So much so that nearly 20 years later I'd buy one of those machines.

I played my share of video games throughout my life, and never lost my love for those '80s classics. When I was in St. Louis in 1994 I visited some sort of arcade museum that had playable video games from the '80s. It was the most amazing thing I had ever seen. Little did I know that 20 years later we'd be seeing "barcades" paying homage to those same machines.

I enjoyed the sometimes simple home video games of the '80s and '90s as well. I'm not a modern video game player. I haven't bought a home video game system in more than 20 years, and I don't anticipate doing so in the next 20 years. My old systems have been sitting in a storage bin for years. I just don't have the time to enjoy them, especially since I spend too much time online obsessing about Vegas.

In 2007 I had no intention of becoming a devotee of pinball, but my natural curiosity for arcade machines of yesteryear changed my life during a January trip to Vegas.

I didn't typically rent a car back in those days, but I needed one for a portion of  that trip. Yes, needed it. (I suppose I could have paid for cabs to get where I needed to go, but I probably would have spent as much on cab fares as I did on the rental car. (Long story for another blog post.)

Since I had the rental car, I made a point to find my way to the first home of the HOF, since I had read about it recently and was naturally curious to see it for myself. I wasn't a huge pinball fan at the time, but that all changed when I stepped into that strip mall arcade and found 100 or more pinball machines crammed inside, along with a smattering of vintage video games. I didn't have a ton of time to spare that day, maybe 90 minutes, but playing pinball games from multiple eras, all at one place, was incredible. I don't exactly know why, but I was hooked.

Since then, every trip to Vegas has included a visit to the HOF, if not more than one. I play some of my old favorites, including "Tee'd Off," which is playable in my basement right now. And I play games I've rarely, if ever, plugged quarters into.

Yeah, I can find pinball machines all over the Minneapolis area, and I'll play pinball locally on a regular basis, but there's nothing like the HOF. You not only get a healthy variety of machines from different eras, you get a chance to play games that are rather rare and hard to find elsewhere around the country, even with online maps that tell you what bars and arcades have machines in your area.

Beyond the 200+ pinball machines in the HOF today, there are a couple dozen classic video games, and a variety of odd, quirky machines that you probably never knew existed. Some of these old gaming machines, such as an electro-mechanical poker machine, are simple, yet amazing to play. That quirky poker machine is from the '50s. It doesn't have a screen or a computer inside of it, and yet it knows how to assess the poker hand you've made from a bunch of bouncing balls that fall into the holes of the playfield. Simple, yet fun.

But yeah, the pinball machines are the primary reason I'm there.

So why is it I have this late-in-life fascination with pinball? I'm not entirely sure, but I have a pretty good idea.

I've always loved video games, and pinball is a similar concept. You're using skill to succeed at a game. A friend I met a couple of years after that 2007 Vegas trip, who owns several pinball machines, did a nice job of explaining the appeal of pinball to me. He noted that unlike a video game, where your game is bound by the limits of a programmed environment, there's a physical element to pinball that can't be programmed. Yes, the targets and playfield are designed, and there are rules to the game, but all the skill in the world can't overcome the fact that within the playfield of a pinball machine, you can make the same shot 99 times in a row, yet that 100th shot might not roll the same way, even when you think you'd hit the shot the exact same way.

That's not to say the game is random, but it definitely has an element to it that's not subjected to computer programming. Couple that with challenging shots, rule sets that provide bonuses, such as multi-ball play, to the game, colorful graphics and innovative designs elements, and suddenly you have a game that's far more compelling than you realized.

Because I play a mix of pinball machines I'm good at, and games I'm not, I will spend several dollars per visit. But I typically spend less than $10 during a two-hour visit to the HOF. Other than people watching, name a better source of entertainment that costs less than $5/hour in Vegas.

There's no jackpots to be won at the HOF, but I come away a winner every time I visit. For my money, it's the best bet in Vegas.