Nothing’s “Cheap” In Vegas – Part 1 *

 

The only thing cheap in Vegas these days appears to be the porn pamphlets that get snapped in your direction on certain blocks on the strip, a regular porn gauntlet if you will, and maybe a few of the trashy hookers hoochies slouching around random streetcorners.  Seriously, when you pay $3 for a drip coffee, and $12 for a small drink by the pool, you can no longer consider Vegas a cheap getaway.  But we still had fun.  Yes, we did.

And apparently, so did the Canadians on our flight down.  We had a direct flight from our hometown to Vegas, and as we live fairly close to the northern border between Canada and the US, there were quite a few of them on our flight.  I swear they all started getting their drink on by at least 6 AM because there was way too much tomfoolery going on around the plane for a noon flight.  In fact, I overheard some rather amusing conversations through the gin-soaked miasma behind us.  In the row directly behind I us, I heard this:

Voice 1: O.k.  You’re Jessica, right?
Voice 2: Right. And you’re?
Voice 3: I’m Chantel!
Voice 1: I’m Susan, you’re Jessica, and you’re….. What are you again?
Voice3: Chantel!  I’m going to be Chantel!
Voice 1: Right, you’re going to be Chantel. Good one.

It was all I could do not to choke on my laughter, until I heard from somewhere in the back on the left side of the plane, this conversation:

Female voice:  She wants to find a husband this weekend!
Unintellible male voice answers something
Female voice: Well, we figure she can meet him on Friday night, go out with him on Saturday, and be married in Vegas by Sunday.
Annoying shrieky guffaws follow from various seats around the female voice (and continue throughout the duration of the flight).

Keep in mind, the plane hasn’t even left the tarmac yet.

We arrived in Vegas in the middle of a humid, brewing storm.  “Ha ha”, we laughed to ourselves.  How funny that we left rain, only to experience rain somewhere else.  What kind of vacation would that be?  As we hailed a cab and headed off to a 9:30 showing of Cirque du Soleil’s Ka, thunder rumbled around us and jagged ribbons of lightning erupted between the massive casinos, outshining even the millions of neon lights in a city that never seems to darken. 

The show was positively stunning, with one heartpounding moment when one of the acrobats almost fell from a wildly spinning contraption that he had previously been jumproping on.  It was so worth the trip, if only for that show! 

And of course, it’s not a real trip without a new hat for Knittymuggins……

Despite the rain on the first day, the rest of our stay was gorgeous.  We walked the strip quite a bit on our second day and did some shopping and eating (of course!) since we don’t gamble much.  This was our first time staying at Mandalay Bay, and holy crap was it awesome!  I never sleep well in hotel beds, but this one was dee-vine, all full of downy feathery goodness.  The room was gorgeous too.  Think I could have them decorate mine at home?  The only drawback was no coffee pot in the room.  Thus, the need to shell out $3 every morning for our drip coffee.  Oh well.  We were on vacation, so “When in Rome…..”  I’ll leave you with some assorted pics of the surrounding hotel grounds.  So luxe!

Wendee: Check out the heffalumps! I found ’em!

Stay tuned for part 2…..

* Blog post broken into parts for the benefit of the scroll-weary and those opposed to excess verbiage