LAS VEGAS: FRI MAR 4 2005
I've been waiting to fill out my Las Vegas summary until I had all the pics downloaded and sized and such. I still haven't organized my pics entirely, so I'll add a few in here and link to the page with ALL the pics in the future. All of the pics in this entry are a link to a larger version of the pic, just click on it. And so, the novel begins...
If you haven't picked up on it yet, a bunch of us went to Las Vegas March 4-9. Perry, Young, and I left Friday morning. We were lucky enough to get a nonstop flight from Norfolk to Vegas on Southwest. It was supposed to be a 5 hr flight, but we made it in 4.5 hrs. It went very smoothly. We napped a little and entertained ourselves the rest of the time with silliness and music. They gave us a little snack pack of Golden Oreos, cheese & crackers, and some yummy Jello fruit snacks.
I'd never flown all the way across the country before (sort of, but that's another story). One of the most striking things was all the geometric shapes and patterns in the Midwest.
I'd seen the "patchwork" look where you have multi-colored squares and rectangles, but that day I saw circles and various pie shapes. Flying over the Rocky Mountains was interesting, as all the mountaintops were still snowcovered. There's are also some large bodies of water near Las Vegas (Lake Meade?), which hadn't really occurred to me, and it was beautiful to see from overhead.
We landed around 2:30pm Pacific time. Making our way through the airport, we saw a bunch of slot machines... we were definitely in Vegas. =) McCarran International Airport has a nice system set up for catching a cab. It's almost like going through the line for an amusement park ride, but it keeps things flowing nicely. The cab ride was relatively short, I think it was about $12 pre-tip, and interestingly enough the driver took us through the gay district on the way. I don't know if that's a regular part of the route, or if he just wanted to tease us with the rainbow flags and such. :)
We checked into our hotel, the Imperial Palace, with no problems. The first thing we noticed though was the smokiness in the casino. Wow! Our room was on the 15th floor. We had a balcony that was on the side of the hotel with a decent view of Caesar's, the Mirage, Harrah's, Treasure Island, and the Venetian sign. We also had a nice view of the mountains. The Imperial Palace is nothing fancy, but it's a great value in a GREAT centralized location in the middle of the Strip, and it was clean & comfortable. We unpacked a little and explored the hotel (multiple restaurants & shops, etc.).
It was a little rainy, but we walked over to the Forum Shops, part of Caesar's Palace. They have a lot of nice gay-friendly stores (A&F, A|X, etc.). haha There's an escalator that curves around and upwards. Most of the shopping area is also made out like a street, with the ceiling painted up like a sky with clouds.
It was a neat concept I guess. By the time we finished exploring Caesar's, Angela and Mike had arrived at the hotel and found their way to a room. We went up to meet them and decided we'd go to Studio54 that night.
Everyone got dressed up for our Studio54 appearance.
Unfortunately we forgot to take pictures of everyone looking all spiffy. We took the monorail ($3) down to the MGM Grand. We found the club eventually, and we had to stand in line a little while (we arrived around 9:45, the club was set to open at 10, there were probably 60-80 people ahead of us). On that particular night, I believe ladies got in free, so Angela was all set. The guy admission was $20. I had picked up 2 passes off eBay for $5 each. I used one, and I believe Young used the other one. If you ever go to Vegas and you know some of the clubs you are going to hit, get the passes off eBay!!!
Once we got inside, the club was a little smaller than I expected. The place was just warming up. They were playing some 70s music, very Studio54-ish. hehe We explored and found a cute little mini-dancefloor upstairs that was hardwood with little blinking lights scattered around, with couches surrounding it. After getting some drinks ($10 LIT, I can't remember how much other mixed drinks were?), we went and sat on some of those couches/chairs. Eventually Young and Perry started dancing, then everyone else was. There was some old man there that had to be 60 at least, and he was tearing it up. It was great. He was dropping down and spinning around and everything. Very cute.
The music started progressing up to more modern times. We eventually made it down to the main dancefloor. I can't remember what song it was that drove us there. We ended up on the stage, where Perry ended up front & center flirting with some straight guy that was pretty hot I think. ;-) At some point later we ended up back down on the floor... it's all a blur. One really cool thing though is that periodically throughout the night, they have various acrobatic acts come down from the ceiling and give a little performance. Some were as simple as girls on swings, and others were really complicated. I think Perry has a video from his phone that maybe I can provide a link to. :) :) Vegas price alert: At the end of the night I went for a bottle of water... $4! That tops NYC and anywhere else I've been.
Our bodies had not adjusted to the time change, and we were pretty wore out, so we caught a cab and went back to the hotel around 3-4am PST (I think). I was EXHAUSTED so I went straight to bed, I think everyone else went for breakfast somehow. :)
If you haven't picked up on it yet, a bunch of us went to Las Vegas March 4-9. Perry, Young, and I left Friday morning. We were lucky enough to get a nonstop flight from Norfolk to Vegas on Southwest. It was supposed to be a 5 hr flight, but we made it in 4.5 hrs. It went very smoothly. We napped a little and entertained ourselves the rest of the time with silliness and music. They gave us a little snack pack of Golden Oreos, cheese & crackers, and some yummy Jello fruit snacks.
I'd never flown all the way across the country before (sort of, but that's another story). One of the most striking things was all the geometric shapes and patterns in the Midwest.
I'd seen the "patchwork" look where you have multi-colored squares and rectangles, but that day I saw circles and various pie shapes. Flying over the Rocky Mountains was interesting, as all the mountaintops were still snowcovered. There's are also some large bodies of water near Las Vegas (Lake Meade?), which hadn't really occurred to me, and it was beautiful to see from overhead.
We landed around 2:30pm Pacific time. Making our way through the airport, we saw a bunch of slot machines... we were definitely in Vegas. =) McCarran International Airport has a nice system set up for catching a cab. It's almost like going through the line for an amusement park ride, but it keeps things flowing nicely. The cab ride was relatively short, I think it was about $12 pre-tip, and interestingly enough the driver took us through the gay district on the way. I don't know if that's a regular part of the route, or if he just wanted to tease us with the rainbow flags and such. :)
We checked into our hotel, the Imperial Palace, with no problems. The first thing we noticed though was the smokiness in the casino. Wow! Our room was on the 15th floor. We had a balcony that was on the side of the hotel with a decent view of Caesar's, the Mirage, Harrah's, Treasure Island, and the Venetian sign. We also had a nice view of the mountains. The Imperial Palace is nothing fancy, but it's a great value in a GREAT centralized location in the middle of the Strip, and it was clean & comfortable. We unpacked a little and explored the hotel (multiple restaurants & shops, etc.).
It was a little rainy, but we walked over to the Forum Shops, part of Caesar's Palace. They have a lot of nice gay-friendly stores (A&F, A|X, etc.). haha There's an escalator that curves around and upwards. Most of the shopping area is also made out like a street, with the ceiling painted up like a sky with clouds.
It was a neat concept I guess. By the time we finished exploring Caesar's, Angela and Mike had arrived at the hotel and found their way to a room. We went up to meet them and decided we'd go to Studio54 that night.
Everyone got dressed up for our Studio54 appearance.
Unfortunately we forgot to take pictures of everyone looking all spiffy. We took the monorail ($3) down to the MGM Grand. We found the club eventually, and we had to stand in line a little while (we arrived around 9:45, the club was set to open at 10, there were probably 60-80 people ahead of us). On that particular night, I believe ladies got in free, so Angela was all set. The guy admission was $20. I had picked up 2 passes off eBay for $5 each. I used one, and I believe Young used the other one. If you ever go to Vegas and you know some of the clubs you are going to hit, get the passes off eBay!!!
Once we got inside, the club was a little smaller than I expected. The place was just warming up. They were playing some 70s music, very Studio54-ish. hehe We explored and found a cute little mini-dancefloor upstairs that was hardwood with little blinking lights scattered around, with couches surrounding it. After getting some drinks ($10 LIT, I can't remember how much other mixed drinks were?), we went and sat on some of those couches/chairs. Eventually Young and Perry started dancing, then everyone else was. There was some old man there that had to be 60 at least, and he was tearing it up. It was great. He was dropping down and spinning around and everything. Very cute.
The music started progressing up to more modern times. We eventually made it down to the main dancefloor. I can't remember what song it was that drove us there. We ended up on the stage, where Perry ended up front & center flirting with some straight guy that was pretty hot I think. ;-) At some point later we ended up back down on the floor... it's all a blur. One really cool thing though is that periodically throughout the night, they have various acrobatic acts come down from the ceiling and give a little performance. Some were as simple as girls on swings, and others were really complicated. I think Perry has a video from his phone that maybe I can provide a link to. :) :) Vegas price alert: At the end of the night I went for a bottle of water... $4! That tops NYC and anywhere else I've been.
Our bodies had not adjusted to the time change, and we were pretty wore out, so we caught a cab and went back to the hotel around 3-4am PST (I think). I was EXHAUSTED so I went straight to bed, I think everyone else went for breakfast somehow. :)