Vegas in December

I've been wanting to post about this for a while but just haven't gotten to it... Ms. Goat and I went off to Vegas for a weekend in December for our first visit there in about a year (our brief stops there to fly out of the airport don't count). The highlights:

- Cowboy hats and big belt buckles. The National Finals Rodeo were going on so the place was overrun w/ cowboys, cowgirls and other such types. It seemed like every evening at the Hilton (where we stayed) there was some sort of Cowboy Ball type of affair, with these cowfolk in what passes for formal wear (shiny boots, new denim). We also passed some rooms where there were "country dance" classes, taught by what is obviously that culture's most gay members.

- we got a good deal at the Las Vegas Hilton, but in addition to the cowfolk filling the joint they were remodelling, which made the place a bit of a mess. It was tough getting a drink in the casino...

- speaking of free booze, we got lots of it all over town. Started down at the Fremont Street Experience, where the Midori-and-orange drinks Goat got turned out to not use orange juice, but orange drink (tasted like Sunny-D). Her standards couldn't tolerate finishing them so I was given that burden. We got better drinks at the Bellagio.

- we went out to Red Rock Canyon during the day and enjoyed some nice scenery. Pretty scary to see all the housing developments on the way out of town, however. Acres and acres of homes w/ not a grocery store in sight.

- The Riveria needs to be demolished and replaced with a better hotel/casino. The place seems to be stuck in the past, when I suppose it was happening, and now seems to belong more in Atlantic City than Vegas. And most of the waitresses there are way too old for their fake breasts.

- got in some good gambling at the Hilton on our first night. I was never interested in slot machines but the video slots they've come out with in the past few years are more entertaining. I got to playing one of the Twilight Zone machines and actually won $80 at the penny level, which paid for our room. The next day I got to thinking how much that I would have won if I'd played at the quarter level (this is probably how a gambling addiction starts) and tried my luck on a Match Game machine at the Monte Carlo. That didn't work for me, but at least I got to hear that great theme music a lot. We moved on to the Mirage, where I tried to get 5 David Hasselhoffs in a row on the Hollywood Squares game but with no luck (probably a good thing). We were annoyed that Treasure Island didn't have the pirate games we'd seen elsewhere but at least they had a lot of the cool Star Wars games, which let you watch the movie (A New Hope) and you lose money at the same time!

- on the way out of town we had lunch at Gandhi, which was some of the best Indian buffet we've ever had, right up there w/ a great place in Baton Rouge. We will definitely return to Gandhi, hopefully not to the Riviera.