Vegas Recap... Part Two

Last Saturday started off well...

Anna and I woke up at 9:30am and a half hour and several Ibuprofens later, we found ourselves getting a craps lesson in the Golden Nugget casino. If you've ever played craps before, you know how confusing it is when you don't know what you're doing.

I still don't profess to know what I'm doing, but I always play the pass line, I typically bet on "6" or "8" above the pass line, and I pray that someone is a good roller.

Luckily for me that morning, I happened to be the star roller at the table, even prompting the guy next to me (who described himself as an "addicted gambler") to place some bets for me with his own money. It's great to be female in Vegas. That's all I have to say about that.

Anyway, here I am after my first round of winning...

... wearing a bleach shirt hand-crafted for me by Ingrid, who had a matching top. And honestly, who cares if our birthdays were really last month?

To celebrate our good luck (Anna won some cash too!) we headed out to the hotel pool, which features a brand new $30 million SHARK TANK and WATER SLIDE that goes through the shark tank...


This is the end of the water slide, where it turns into a clear tube so you can see the sharks just before you get launched into the swimming pool. There were some big sharks in that tank too. I was impressed. (I also must mention that the man with his back to me on the lower right side of the photo was one of the cheesiest, skeeviest guys I have seen in a long time... he seriously hit on every single woman at the hotel -- clearly, we all rejected him carte blanche -- plus he reminded me of Stuttering John from the Howard Stern Show.)

Here we are sunbathing (or shade bathing so the case may be) in between water slide rides...

One older man at the pool insisted on saluting Ingrid every time he walked by.

Afterwards, we all hung out for a bit out on Fremont Street...

... which is where I won the rest of my craps money.

And then we returned to the Golden Nugget...

I was feeling pretty lucky by this point.

Before dinner, Ingrid, Anna, and I decided to head down to the real strip...

... where we got wine and cocktails at the Parasol Down Lounge at the Wynn Hotel, which was gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous. We were looking out over a waterfall and a splashing lake here.

Dinner was not quite as classy...

... but far more Old Vegas awesome. Please check out the Peppermill. God, I love this place.

Ben & Krista fit right in...

... thank god for his model hot looks.

Ingrid, Anna, and Stirling had mega-drinks...

... or rather, the very SERIOUS signature drink of the Peppermill called "The Scorpion."

There are other Scorpion drinks out there on the market, but I can assure you that you've never had a real Scorpion till you've had the Peppermill's Scorpion. It consists of massive amounts of liquor, a ginormous straw, comes in a goblet the size of a basketball, and it only costs $18 (for what we figured is the equivalent of six drinks)... in other words, the best deal in Vegas.

Here I am sucking down the liquor with Pete...


Here's a better view of my new favorite alcoholic beverage...

... which we were all still drinking even after we moved to the Fireside Lounge, which you can see has a centerpiece of bubbling water and fire. Could there be any other reason why this lounge has been voted the U.S.'s #1 Make-Out Lounge by Nerve magazine?

Here's a view across the flames...

Ingrid looks like she's being singed. I thought that was kind of a cool special effect.

Here's a better shot sans the fire...


And on the other side of fire, Pete insisted on taking this photo...

... which he dubbed "total decadence."

And here's Pete with his ladies...

Krista and the Moos.

After determining that no one but Pete and I were able to finish our Scorpions, we hopped on the double decker Deuce shuttle bus to the Stratosphere, where Ingrid wanted to go to Polly Esther's for 80s dancing...

I must admit I was pretty sloshed after that unbelievably gigantic drink and decided to photograph the upper level of the bus and some of its passengers...

Here's Pete & Stirling (and a little of Krista) behind me...


And the best part of the ride... Ingrid totally lost her shit...

... she was literally crying from laughing so hard. Seems that in my drunkenness, despite a half empty bus, I parked myself in a seat way up front next to some random guy and his bachelor party friends. I think the Moos did the same thing. Ingrid loved it.

Once we got to Polly Esther's (free of charge, thanks to Ben's canoodling with a shady character on the strip that afternoon), the Moos and I posed for our requisite Brady family photo...

Wasn't that Alice's spot? I always kind of liked Peter until he got all trashy and lame on VH1's "Surreal Life" and married that faux model.

Anyway, I was three sheets to the wind for a good part of the night, especially after the Tom Cruise "Kokomo/Cocktail" bartender (who actually looked a lot like Max Headroom) flipped about 10 bottles of vodka into a drink he called the "Top Gun" for me.

Although I forgot to take pictures of any of us at the club actually dancing, I did get a shot of Ingrid & the Moos washing their hands at the full-service bathroom station, complete with attendants...

Clearly, I live a low-class lifestyle... getting excited enough about a full-service bathroom that I felt the need to take a picture.

I also took one last picture of the "free shots" moment at the bar...

... when half the 80s dance room ran up to the bartenders, who then poured tequila into their waiting mouths (Krista confessed later to being one of those people).

I, on the other hand, was feeling slightly nauseous from my "Scorpion" and "Top Gun" drinks and wanted nothing but water by that point. Not to mention, I questioned the sanitary conditions of drinking out of a random liquor bottle shared by what seemed to be hundreds of scabby Vegas goers.

And really, let's just be honest here, as you can see from the clientèle in the above photo, Polly Esther's is not exactly Tryst or Jet or Pure. It's pretty easy to make it past the velvet rope.

I pooped out around 2am. This old body just can't party like it used to... and as much as I love the 80s, the DJ was spinning way too much Beastie Boys and Bon Jovi for my taste (if it's not New Wave, I can't dance!!!).

On that sad note, I must be going... tomorrow is the last Vegas update (and will include details from perhaps the funniest airline flight I've ever taken).