Day 2 is here.
As I write this, I’ve just finished my second beer. I may have a third. Forgive me if things get incoherent.
Let’s get back to where we started from:
Today
Showers
High: 47°
Low: 42°
Eh? Showers? In the desert? Strange, but true, it sometimes rains in Vegas. What I didn’t realize was that the low temperatures combined with the precipitation down in Vegas would translate into Rain/Snow Showers up in the mountains.
Oh God.
By the time we hit Primm on the California-Nevada border, traffic was starting to get bad. I chalked it up to LA drivers who weren’t able to handle a little rain. It turned out to be icy/snowy conditions through the pass, bringing traffic to a near standstill. It took us four hours to travel from Primm to Baker. This normally takes one hour. For a good 10-15 miles, we were crawling along at 5 mph. Wow.
In fact, things got so bad that they closed the pass to traffic after we got through. CR, ER, EM, and D went down 95 to I-40 to try to get around the trouble, but there was snow all through the mountains, making travel very difficult. Highway patrol escorts were all around trying to help people down the icy slopes. It was that bad. Just think about what happens when North Carolina gets hit with their annual snowstorm. All hell breaks loose and the state virtually shuts down. Even now, I have no idea if these guys have made it back home or not. I guess I’ll find out in the morning.
JN and K played it smart and got a room in Primm. I once crashed at Whiskey Pete’s after staying up all night at the New York New York gambling and trying to drive home the next morning. Wasn’t going to happen. We got a room for $20 and crashed for a glorious four hours before heading home. I hope K’s running roughshod over Pete’s blackjack tables. Pete’s is the site for the last desperate attempt of the degenerate gambler to win it all back. Today we stopped by to use the facilities, and I had a look at the roulette tables, but the smell of desperation drove me away.
Anyway, getting back to me, I finally got home 9 hours after leaving Vegas. Unbelievable. I did, however, enjoy the Texas Beef Dip at Bun Boy, site of the largest outdoor thermometer on the way to Vegas (okay, in the world). It occurred to me that this might have been called a French Dip before the Bush administration. No French Fries on the menu either. 😉 Oh, but anyway, the Texas Beef Dip was pretty damn good. Slices of beef on a Texas roll (no way in hell is this a French roll) with melted cheese and beef juice (no way in hell is this au jus) on the side. Good freedom fries, too. If you ever need to do the LA-Vegas beef sandwich dip tour, just drop me a line and I’ll set you on your way.
So that was pretty much it. Saturday spilled over into Sunday, and Sunday was mostly a clusterfuck of traffic and aggravation.
Mostly. Being the degenerate gambler that I am, I played another few spins of roulette before and after lunch at the Tuscany and netted another $30 or so.
All in all, I had a great time in Vegas. I played decent poker, netting 3BB/hour; thrust most of the weekly regulars into live poker with pretty good results, thus adding several recruits for the local casino outings; had lots of booze and cigarettes; and paid for the trip with some unlikely success at roulette, allowing me to keep my poker earnings in the roll. Oh, and I’m never driving to Vegas ever again.
Thanks for plowing through this stuff. Not the most exciting of trip write-ups, I know, but I’m hoping to make more trips, and with practice, I’ll surely improve. I’m still not sure if my schedule will allow me to get out there for the Holiday Classic on the 11th, but if there’s any way to finagle it, I’m there.
Totals:
Poker: +$130
Roulette: +$220
On a geeky poker side note, should tips for drinks be paid out of your stack/roll or out of your wallet? JB thinks the line is drawn depending on whether whiskey is part of your game. He may have a point. Several people wondered at the number of whiskey neats I consumed. What that did for my table image exactly is yet to be determined.