Our story begins on a cool Friday morning. A newly birthday-ed brunette wheels a large suitcase down a city street slowly awakening with the bustle of a workday morning...
[I will skip the part where I made my connecting flight out of Charlotte with only minutes to spare, because everyone has one of those stories.]
However, I will regale you with an adventure I like to call "Shana and Amanda Take a Taxi to the Hotel," wherein our fearless heroines stand in line at a taxi stand at the McCarran airport behind 150 other people, some of whom are slightly to extremely inappropriately dressed even for the city of sin, wherein it dawns on them that they are the last people in line. They then proceed to spend the next 30 minutes debating about whether they should move to the other taxi stand line until it's finally their turn. Cue action sequence: our plucky protagonists hold on for dear life as the driver, mistaking instructions to take the fastest route to the hotel for an earnest plea to scare the bejesus out of the passengers so that they might enjoy their vacation more, slams alternately on the accelerator and the brakes while careening across lanes in Strip traffic.
After our refreshing life and death adventure we finally arrive at our hotel, Bill's Gamblin' Hall and Saloon (howdy pardner), which was appointed nicely enough. Apparently several people I talked to who visited the website were very impressed with the televisions in the rooms.
Welcome to Bill's, home of the 40" plasma screen.
[I will skip the part where I made my connecting flight out of Charlotte with only minutes to spare, because everyone has one of those stories.]
However, I will regale you with an adventure I like to call "Shana and Amanda Take a Taxi to the Hotel," wherein our fearless heroines stand in line at a taxi stand at the McCarran airport behind 150 other people, some of whom are slightly to extremely inappropriately dressed even for the city of sin, wherein it dawns on them that they are the last people in line. They then proceed to spend the next 30 minutes debating about whether they should move to the other taxi stand line until it's finally their turn. Cue action sequence: our plucky protagonists hold on for dear life as the driver, mistaking instructions to take the fastest route to the hotel for an earnest plea to scare the bejesus out of the passengers so that they might enjoy their vacation more, slams alternately on the accelerator and the brakes while careening across lanes in Strip traffic.
After our refreshing life and death adventure we finally arrive at our hotel, Bill's Gamblin' Hall and Saloon (howdy pardner), which was appointed nicely enough. Apparently several people I talked to who visited the website were very impressed with the televisions in the rooms.
Welcome to Bill's, home of the 40" plasma screen.
There was an immediate need to seek out some type of food so we ate the Tropical Breeze Cafe in the Flamingo Hotel (what can I say? I was cranky and it was right next to our hotel. Mahalo!). I had a turkey club sandwich and Amanda had the open faced hot turkey (dirty!) with gravy. A lot of gravy, enough gravy leftover for my naked, ungravy-covered, freedom fries. Unfortunately there are no pictures of our very first, gravy-covered Vegas meal, but just you wait: food pictures are plentiful and forthcoming.
Given that neither Amanda nor I are big huge gamblers or clubbers and in the interest of not spending $8-10-plus per drink anywhere on the Strip in pursuit of our preferred activity, we caught "the Deuce," the Las Vegas Citizens Area Transit (CAT) double decker bus that runs 24/7 up and down the Strip from the south end all the way to Fremont ($2 for a one-way pass, $5 for unlimited rides for 24-hours).
See, when people say "life is about the journey, not the destination," I think about how I don't really like sitting on the top part of double deckers, or fat midwesterners for that matter, and then I think, 'suck it, destination-haters.'
So. But. We finally arrived in old Las Vegas where I immediately steered our path away from the "Fremont Street Experience." [I'm not so sure I appreciate being presented with a pre-declared "experience." I believe I should be allowed to name my own experiences so officiously. Like "the Nordstrom shoe department Experience." Or, more appropriately here, "the Cafe Bellagio Experience" (shortly my pretties, shortly...).] Amanda picks the bar, claiming that the Griffin has our name all over it. I think she just wanted to sit down and have a drink after our somewhat lengthy, fat midwesterner-laden bus ride. But it was next to a tattoo shop which she decided was rather auspicious and given my previous statements regarding fat midwesterners I was just about ready for libations as well so we went inside.
It was an EXCELLENT bar. We arrived rather early, I suppose, for a Friday night so we managed to cadge some seats at the bar which became prime real estate later on into the evening.
This is us, having fun at the Griffin.
We also met Our New Best Friends:
Cori and Sara (aka Gypsy)
and Bridget (ignore the dudes on each side. Bridget often has boys hanging on either side of her. But we forgive her because, well, she's Bridget).
Sara, Cori, and Bridget were in town from Los Angeles for the annual Punk Rock Bowling Tournament hosted by BYO Records and held at Sam's Town Casino.
And yes, I did say "Punk Rock Bowling Tournament." You were not mistaken: p-u-n-k-r-o-c-k-b-o-w-l-i-n-g-t-o-u-r-n-a-m-e-n-t.
Anyhoo, ONBF are AWESOME. By the time we left, we made plans to meet up the next day to watch them bowl. And be punk rock.
But first, MORE PICTURES!!!
This is the Griffin bouncer. I think.
We took the Deuce back to our hotel, where Amanda decided she was in immediate need of some pizza. According to the hotel bellman, the closest pizza was located at O'Shea's, which was right next door to the Flamingo which was right next to our hotel. Fortuitous, no? Fortunately, I still had some of my turkey club sandwich from dinner, since it was one of those quadruple-decker, four toothpick deals. Good thing too, because that pizza was narsty.
'Nuff said.
Amanda waits for bad pizza while Shana takes actions photos.
Lots more ONBF and pictures to come.
xoxo,
Millie
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