Vegas for Dave and Karin's Anniversary October 16-18, 2009

Our friends Dave and Karin were married in Las Vegas and celebrate their anniversary there every year. Generally, we try to join them as their old friends from Pennsylvania and new friends from So Cal go and it's fun to make the trip.

This year, we stayed downtown at the Golden Nugget. We drove up on Friday afternoon/evening, arrive about 9 PM, just in time for the evening Happy Hour. Dave and Karin always get an extra room to have a 3 times a day Happy Hour. We then headed out to find some gambling. We ended up at the Main Street Casino, where we were playing the Deuces Wild Poker machines. Rodney had proceeded to lose $20 pretty quickly, so he gave up his machine to Karin. She appeared to be losing money faster than Rodney, so he made the comment, "Looks like you're making my loss rate look good!" Of course, this resulted in Karin hitting the jackpot (all 4 deuces) on the next play, winning over $600!

The next day Rodney got up to make his football bets (thank you Arkansas, for covering against Florida and making the football bets even), and the day was spent watching football, eating, and drinking in the party room. That night we had dinner in the Italian restaurant, the Grotto. With 14 of us, it was quite a dinner. We gambled lightly until 1:00 AM, after catching a couple classic rock shows on the Fremont Street Experience, namely Queen, Don Maclean, and Kiss. It is virtually impossible to find a less than $10 blackjack table, even with the "Fetish Pit" dancers at the Las Vegas Club distracting you.

On Sunday, we decided to take the desert route home to avoid the I-15 parking lot. This takes you through the Mojave National Preserve, on Route 66, through 29 Palms, and onto the 10 just outside Palm Springs. It was a great drive and we want to go camping there in the spring!