After all, he was the one who decided to get married in Las Vegas, Nevada instead of Illinois.
To be honest, I was on board with the idea almost instantly. It had been a long, long time since I had been anywhere, but Wisconsin and Illinois. The two are essentially the same except one has way more hills than the other. It wasn't until a few days later that I realized we would be flying. I could go into how I handled the whole flying experience, but I've decided that deserves a post all of itself.
Instead, I would like to share the trip itself with you. Which means giving you a ring side seat to all the blunders, triumphs, humorous and joyful moments.
But before I get to that, I would like to take a moment and explain why I referenced National Lampoon's Vegas Vacation instead of The Hangover, a much more current and popular example off letting lose in Las Vegas.
The main reason I chose the National Lampoon movie is because that is the more apt comparison. Sure some crazy things happened, but no one got a Mike Tyson style face tattoo nor did a naked Ken Jeong jump out of trunk naked.
FYI - we didn't have our own car. We used shuttles and limos to get around the entire time.
You know, the funny thing about limos is that in the movies there never appears to be a limit to how many people or how much stuff they can carry. In reality, however, there is definitely a limit and my family quickly found out what it was.
There was nine of us going on this trip. Three men, five women and one five year old little girl. When I looked at our combined luggage piled up in the middle of the driveway, I started to seriously question if it would all fit.
Total, we had 14 suitcases of various sizes, two backpacks and a few random plastic bags. I wish I had had my camera out so I could have captured the limo driver's expression when he saw all the luggage.
The first words out of his mouth weren't "hi" or "how are you". Nope, the first thing he said was, "Are you bringing all that?"
We all kind of just sheepishly nodded, afraid he would tell us something would have to be left. Luckily, he didn't. Instead, he just let out this long exasperated sigh as he told us to get into the limo. He must have read the nervous looks on our faces because he assured us he would find a spot for everything. And to his credit he did.Half the suitcases went into the limo trunk, a few more he stored in the front passenger seat and the last two suitcases went into the back with us.
Once everything was all secured, we were on our way. Champagne was opened and we toasted the happy couple. I actually toasted them with a Diet Pepsi since I don't drink, but by the time we got to the airport there were two empty bottles of champagne laying on the limo floor.
Fun fact about champagne. Drink enough of it and apparently every 10 feet you'll have
to stop and use the bathroom.
I think I actually spent more time waiting for people to get out of the bathrooms then I did in the security line. And that's including the time it took security to verify it was really just contact solution in a bottle and not liquid meth.
The flight itself definitely played havoc with my fear of flying, but as I previously stated, I'll address that situation in an upcoming post. Needless to say I got a lot of 'calm-the-hell' down looks from my five year old niece.
I would say the next big part of the trip really didn't start till we hit the Rio Hotel and Casino.
Although, my brother's soon to be father-in-law did forget his camera on the shuttle bus.
Once at the hotel, we soon discovered that check in, wasn't until 4 pm. We got there at 10:30 am. So needless to say we were going to have to kill a little time while hauling all that luggage around with us.
I'll admit that for a moment I was mentally trying to solve a story problem. I was trying to figure out how many suitcases and bags would be left if we got rid of all the ones filled with just shoes.
Luckily, we found a member of the hotel staff who for a $40 tip, would put our bags some place secure until it was time to check in.
My brother and his fiance, Amanda, used this extra time to hop in a cab and head to city hall to get their marriage license and all the other paperwork they would need. Amanda's sister, Julie, went with them to capture the moment on film.
Bucky and his wife, Debbie, made a bee line for the blackjack tables. While my mom, my niece, Amanda's mom Ann and I decided to explore the hotel till they got back.The entire hotel was very clean and very well kept. The walls all seemed to be freshly painted and the floor recently shampooed. We passed a number of slot machines and little gift stores before we stumbled upon the Burger King Bar.
As soon as I saw the store sign I became excited. I had heard about this place from so many people. It seems they give you a plain Whopper, but then you have 50 different toppings you can pick from.
This one of those times I wish I had did a little extra research. I discovered they don't call it the Burger King Bar because of all the toppings like in a salad bar. The 'bar' refers to the fact that they serve beer. In my book, kind of a let down. For my mom and Ann, not so much.I never saw anyone get tipsy at a Burger King before. But two good things occurred while we were sitting there.
One, I got to see my mom look at an order of onion rings like they had been seasoned with the plague.
The other was I overheard someone say that you could check into your room early if housekeeping is done with your room and you pay an extra $40. I told my mom and Ann this, but neither was evening to consider this an option since it wasn't anything more than a theory. Personally, I just think they didn't want to walk all the way across the casino again just to find out it wasn't true.
So, since I didn't want to wait, I began scanning the area for one of the most reliable purveyors of truth, the bartender. However, the closest thing I could find was the guy at the counter who took our order. But you know what... he works behind a high counter, asked me how my day was, took my order and serves beer. That's freakin close enough in my book.
Within three minutes I had verified the information and convinced everyone else it would be a good idea.
I figured we would get the room first then just call everyone and tell them to come up rather than spend forever tracking people down.
As we walked through the casino to the check in desk, I couldn't help but feel a little full of myself. After all, I had only been in this strange city for a few hours and already I was making all the right decisions.
My confidence in my decision was boosted even more by the fact that on our way, we not only met up with John, Amanda and Julie, but also stumbled upon Bucky and Debbie as well.
It was as if the universe was saying to me, "Oh hell yeah, you got this." And I did. At that moment I wasn't just Jim leading his family to the check in counter. I was freakin Batman leading a group of lost and scared people to salvation.
When we finally got to the counter I marched right up to it and asked the woman for my room. It is also possible I slipped into my Christian Bale voice. However, when she realized the reservation had been made under my brother's name, I was asked to step aside. No matter I could tell she was impressed.
My work being done I found a chair near the counter and plopped down. Things seemed to be going pretty well at the counter so I pulled out my phone and started playing some Angry Birds. Then about three minutes later, I heard the counter lady say, "Sir, I'm doing the best I can."
Apparently, Bucky wanted all the rooms to be right next to each other and he flipped when he found out the three rooms were scattered through out the building. Because of this perceived inconvenience, he started to demand that my brother and Amanda get a free bottle of wine and dinners for the next couple days. He apparently thought the woman waiving the early check in fees to all the rooms and giving them one free night wasn't compensation enough. This went on for about ten minutes until John was finally able to edge him out and Amanda distracted him by expressing false concerns about her wedding dress not fitting right.
Fast forward about thirty minutes and I was finally dropping my bags in my room. We all agreed to rest for a couple hours before we met for dinner. In a Vegas twist, it was the ladies who were heading out to a burlesque show, while my brother and I were going to just wonder around and see if we could get to the famous Las Vegas strip by walking.
I laid down on my bed, but I couldn't sleep. All these images of what lay ahead flashed through my head. I figured maybe if I could check out some of the places we were going to go to, I could get my brain to finally shut down. This lead me to a few harsh discoveries about the Rio Hotel. First thing, wifi
is not free. It costs $8 a day to be able to use it. Needless to say, I went without wifi for the next couples days. My phone would run out of charge every 20 minutes or so.The second thing I learned is that the rooms do not have dvd players in them. Which sucked, because I had brought some dvds with me just in case I had trouble sleeping.
Eventually, I finally drifted off and slept for about an hour. I was awoken by my niece apparently decided my stomach was a trampoline.
We all met in front of the seafood place, but found we had to make other plans because it was closed on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Amanda and my niece were a little sad, because they were looking forward to crab legs. Their sadness didn't last too long though because I remembered there were two other seafood places in the hotel. Seriously, three seafood places and not a Red Robin anywhere. It just didn't seem fair.
After that, the rest of the night went off without any more problems. The girls and Bucky went off to see the burlesque show while my brother went off and did some exploring. We found this one spot on the Rio's parking garage that had this awesome view of all the lights on the strip. It also had a pretty good view of our hotel, so I was taking pictures like crazy. By the end of the day, the picture count on my camera was at 286.
The next day was when things got a little weird. It was a long day, so Ill try to just hit the main points of weirdness. Otherwise, this post might end up giving War and Peace a run for its money.
The day started with everyone meeting at a breakfast buffet. This is where we learned alot of the hotels had a deal. You could spend $50 and eat at any hotels buffet for a 24 hour period. It seemed like a good idea since we would be running around all over the place, so if we could eat anywhere we wouldn't have to go back to our hotel for lunch or dinner. We could just stay out and explore.
The problem I have with buffets, especially $50 ones is that I have to feel like I am getting my moneys worth. This ends up leading me to eating way more food than I should. For example, at breakfast alone I had pancakes, waffles, bacon, sausage, french fries, ham, pot roast, tacos, nachos and some fruit. It was a pretty good deal. I couldn't move and I felt like a grizzly bear that was ready to hibernate for the winter, but that was fine. We would be walking around all day so of course, I would burn all this off just in time for lunch.
Our hotel did not get us direct access to the strip. Instead, we had to take a shuttle bus to another hotel that was right on the strip. For the life of me, I can not remember the name of it. We all kind of just followed Bucky around. He had been there before so he kind of knew where he was going and what he was doing. I point out 'kind of'.
As soon as the step on to the strip, it is immediately overwhelming and amazing at the same time. There are tons of people moving to and fro on the sidewalks but no seems to be in any hurry to get anywhere fast. The buildings themselves are remarkable. Such a mixture of architectural styles and size. We would go past a Walgreens suddenly be surrounded by and some french architecture and then cross the street and enter ancient Rome.
There were three times I got separated from everyone. Only one of those times turned out to be an issue since my phone's charge was already gone. Eventually I found everyone though that third time. Turns out they didn't even know I was lost and hadn't been with them for like 15 minutes. Once I heard that, I made sure I always kept someone in sight or at least had a pretty good idea the direction they were headed in.
Apart from the buildings the next thing you notice are "The Givers". At least, that's what we ended up calling them. It sounds better saying The Givers rather than the guys who had out hooker cards. Some of you know what I mean, others might be a little confused. Basically, there are these guys all over the place and they get paid to hand out something very similar to baseball cards, except instead of a picture of a guy in a baseball uniform there is a naked woman with a number of how to get a hold of her.
I did a pretty good job of dodging these guys and I thought for the most part everyone else in the group did too. That night when we got back to the hotel, my mom pulled like 40 of these cards out of her purse. As did Amanda and her very church going father. After thumbing through them, Bucky said he still needed three more cards.
Apart from The Givers there were also a lot of performers. A few people were even trying to hand out copies of their cds. There was one I really thought would be cool, but I had no cash on me to tip him with.
Other people played instruments, juggled, danced and a few people were even dressed up in costumes such as Homer Simpson or Showgirls. The idea being, you give them a few dollars and then you get to take a picture with them. My niece took one with some showgirls. I wanted to take a picture with Chucky, the killer doll from the movies, but I felt like he was eyeing me up all weird like. After all, how do I know it wasn't really Chucky hiding inside that Chucky costume.
The first hotel/casino we stopped at that day was The Mirage. It is also the first place where we asked to control a member of our group a little better. Sadly, it wasn't the last.
The Mirage is home to the Secret Garden and Dolphin Habitat. This is the place to go with you want to see white tigers, lions and dolphins. It is also the place to go to if you want to have a little five year old girl photo-bomb all your pictures. Every time she saw a dolphin come up to someone, my niece was right there trying to touch that dolphin, oblivious to the fact someone was taking a picture.
Eventually, one of the staff came over and told my brother that Alanna was really cute, but she had to stop jumping into other peoples pictures. Since we had already taken a hundred pictures of the dolphins we decided to move on to the white tigers.
I would like to just say that tv does not do tigers justice. These animals are huge. In the first exhibit we passed, the tiger was just sitting on the ground and scratching at a log. He had to be at least six feet long and was just solid muscle. This was one of nature's perfect machines. Strong, smart, crafty. And suddenly from behind me I hear, "Here kitty kitty. Kitty Kitty". It was Amanda trying to call this giant beast over to us. I'm pretty sure the tiger flashed her a 'are you freaking kidding me' look. Not a 100% sure though.
At the next three exhibits the same thing would happen. "Here kitty kitty." However, at that third exhibit we were once again confronted by a member of the Mirage's staff. This time they told Amanda she couldn't keep yelling at the animals. Amanda responded by telling them she was getting married and that this was her special trip and if she wanted to say "kitty kitty" she was going to do it. Eyes met and eventually it was the staff person who backed down. And while Amanda did not stop yelling "kitty kitty", she did cut back on the amount of times she did it.
Next up on our stop of special moments, was the magic show we were supposed to go to. My niece really wanted to see a magic show, so we all bought tickets months in advance. We raced to the theater with just minutes to spare only to find out the show had been cancelled because the magician was on vacation.
My niece started to cry because she really wanted to see the show. The woman behind the counter told Alanna that the magician had gotten sick and that was why he couldn't do the show. The tears might have stopped, but the questions began. She instantly began a line of interrogation that would make any cop proud. Alanna wanted to know what made him sick. Did he go to the hospital? Did he get any shots? Meanwhile, my brother was confronting another person at the counter because he was told they would only be refunded half their money. The whole time these two interactions are going on, Bucky is holding out his phone declaring that he was about to call the police. I may not have been able to see a magic show, but I did see what Law and Order would be like if it was improvised.
This little incident ended with my brother getting a full refund for all the tickets and several half priced ticket vouchers and my niece getting the woman to admit that maybe the magician was just on vacation and not sick.
with that incident behind us, we decided to go back to the hotel for a little bit. I really wasn't listening to the reasons why, but I knew I had to recharge my phone and camera.
The ride back to the Rio gave us a chance to meet an interesting man named, Donevan. We may not have seen a magic show, but we got to see a coked up bus riding comedian instead. Donevan started off by telling Amanda she was great in a strip show he had seen a few nights prior and wanted her autograph. Which she gave him. She signed it Destiny something or other. Donevan then moved on to my mom and asked her what kind of shots she liked to do and got her to fist pump Jersey Shore style.
When it started to get dark out, we went back to the strip. This time with a reduced version of our group. My mom wanted to stay back in the room because her feet hurt and Debbie was just exhausted.
The initial idea was for us to just go out and take in more of the sights. I was really excited because I knew I would get some awesome photos. Which I did at first. Then I noticed that Bucky was leading us more through casinos than walking on the street. At one point, we did finally come back out on to the street, only to go right into a souvenir store. And amazingly enough, when I walked to the very back of the souvenir store I discovered it opened up to another casino.
It was at that point I realized that, Bucky was more interested in gambling than he was in walking around and checking things out. My brother told me he would split of with me for a bit but he couldn't just leave Amanda and her dad so he followed them. I was, however, able to convince Julie to cross the street and take a few pictures of things with me. Eventually, she got the urge to play some blackjack so we met back up with everyone then after I was sure they were going to stay at Caesar's
Palace for the rest of the night, I went rogue and hit the streets on my own. I wandered around for about a half hour taking pictures of lighted fountains, buildings and people. Heck, I even met a nice gentleman who asked me to go back to his room for $100. I said no, but hey it was the biggest compliment I got that night.
After I got my own indecent proposal I decided to head back to Caesar's to see how everyone was doing. By the time I got back, I figured they would all be sitting on benches near the door waiting for me. Instead, I found them still sitting at the same tables they were at when I left. I wasn't sure if everyone was winning or they all had just brought alot more money than me to gamble away. Either way, I was impressed.
I went to my brother's table and asked him how he was doing. He said he was up $200, but now he was in the hole for $50. Bucky was sitting next to him, but his luck wasn't as good, as he lost over $300.
In fact, it had seemed like they all had lost decent amounts of money. My brain started screaming, "This is the opportunity. They've all lost a lot of money and will be really open to suggestion."
So, as we were talking I kind of casually tossed my request to go to the replica of the Eiffel Tower and ride the elevator to the top.
They were like, "Sure, let's go now." Then Bucky had to go and ask what time it was. When I told him it was 2:05 a.m., his face became serious and he focused his gaze directly on me.
"Are you sure," he asked. I gave him a little half nod. "We have to go now."
Turns out he forgot to mention that the last shuttle bus to our hotel leaves at 2:30 am. If we missed the bus, we would have to take a cab. Which is what my brother and I suggested that we do, but no one else wanted to chip in for one.
All at once my night went from being pretty calm and relaxed to a fast walking version of the Fast and the Furious. Oh, and because we kept popping in and out of so many buildings, Bucky became confused on how to get back. So, we had to stop and get directions from a drunk guy wearing a cowboy hat and a Stewie t-shirt.
You ever try try to get information from a drunk person before when seconds count. Not the easiest thing to, but it can be done. It also helps that in college my roommate for a semester was drunk like 70% of the time/ So, drunk is like a second language to me.
Now, here's the thing about drunk people. You never really can predict what they will do next. For instance, we did not realize that once we asked for directions drunk guy was going to begin chasing us yelling, "Hey wait for me. You owe me a beer." He kept up with us for a few blocks until we started ducking in and out of buildings again. I felt like we were in one of those Scooby Doo style chase scenes.
We finally made it to the pick up point at 2:28 am. The bus, however, did not feel like showing up on time. It arrived at 2:46 am. And that my friends was the end of the misadventures for that day,
Finally, the day of the wedding. Things can wrong any other day, but you want everything to run smooth on your wedding day... Too bad that rarely ever happens, and to make matters worse, everything that went wrong happened two hours before the wedding.
The first thing that happened was my brother and I learned that neither of us knew how to tie a tie. I was going to have someone show me before I left, but I figured my brother had been to enough weddings so he should know how. My brother, on the other hand, thought all nerds knew how to tie ties. Which by the way is a stereotype. We really only excel when it is a tie of the 'clip on' variety.
In a situation like this we did what anyone would do. We Googled it. There were a lot of online guides, but none of them were very helpful. So, we did what any two grown men would do it our situation. We rode up and down in the elevator until a guy got on in a tie. Then we paid him five bucks to do our ties for us. 15 minutes later and we were all set in our suits and ties. It took another 10 minutes to convince my brother not to wear his baseball cap at the ceremony and to stick with the Fedora Amanda picked out for him.A few minutes after we got our ties taken care of, the limo driver called up to let us know he was there. My brother, Mom and me were taking the first limo then everyone else was going to follow in the next one 15 minutes later. The original idea was for all the guys and my niece to ride one limo and all the girls take the other, but Bucky switched things up at the last minute.
As we were walking out the hotel doors, I noticed my brother's hands were empty. I wasn't sure why but that didn't seem right. So, I mentioned it. And it is a good thing I did. He had forgotten the wedding license and some other forms he had to have. That was one crisis adverted. Now on to the wedding.
The driver let us know right away that it was about a twenty minute drive to the location the wedding was being held. The good news is our driver got us there in plenty of time. The bad news is there was already a wedding going on when we got there and the woman quickly let us know they had no other weddings scheduled for the day.
There are only a few times I've seen my brother get angry. Like really really angry and right now, all those past times paled in comparison to right now. I'm not sure how he managed to do it, but he expressed his concern without swearing. Without yelling... well that was a little to much to ask for considering the circumstances.
"I am supposed to get married here today, so I really suggest someone figure out what is going on because in two minutes, I am walking in there and kicking that other wedding out." His glare was enough to get the woman from the building rushing inside and the driver calling his dispatcher to verify the address.
The woman was the first to get back, and luckily she did because my brother was already drifting toward the other wedding party. "Well, I am happy to say I was wrong. You are getting married with us.... just not at this location. Your driver took you to the wrong location."
The driver hearing this instantly countered the woman. "Saying he just followed the directions he was given by them." This 'it was your fault no yours' exchange went on for a little bit until my mom chimed in that it didn't matter who's fault it was, we needed to get going to the other location.
The wedding was scheduled to start in 40 minutes and we were at least 25 minutes away. Amanda called asking where we were, so my brother had to explain to her what happened. I'm not totally sure what she was saying but I could hear her yelling through the phone.
When we finally got to the right place, the driver let us out and pretty much stuck his hand out for a tip. My brother just ignored him and headed straight to the offices as did we.
The coordinator, I don't really remember his name so I shall call him, Skip. He had already ran through how the ceremony was going to go down with Amanda and her family. Now it was our turn. Skip was a vary fast talker and used his hands alot. In fact, we mostly got just a few basics. The rest he claimed was easy and all we had to do was watch his hands. His hands moved faster than a sign language interpreter on crack.
So, the wedding begins. We all line up. Walk down the aisle toward a lake with a arch way covered in roses in front of it. My brother is standing there looking happier than I have ever seen him. The love and awe was all over his face when he saw Amanda begin walking down the aisle. Seeing my baby brother so happy and Amanda, who I completely regard as my sister (none of that in-law stuff) smiling, made me shed a few tears.
Skip started moving his hands around like he had some kind of touch screen computer in front of him and he was in the middle of rearranging data on it. Julie moved where she was supposed to and I did the same. They began the vows. And just as they were about to say 'I do' we instead heard a guy yell out, "Hey Nick, I like the new shoes. Are they for running?"
We all looked up to the road and saw a guy yelling to another one. This guy must have had one hell of a pair of shoes because the other guy could not shut up about them. The priest is going on with the ceremony talking as loud as she can into the microphone, and still the guy on the street was louder. Luckily, neither Amanda or my brother freaked out. Instead they just laughed. Knowing them both as well as I did, I knew they were smiling because they knew they now had one of those good wedding stories people love to tell.
The priest, on the other hand, was not so happy about being interrupted and just as she was about to say something the two shoe obsessed guys went on their way. The priest finished the ceremony and the camera man took a bunch of pictures of everyone. I tried to take some, but was told by the camera man only he was allowed to take pictures. When I responded with really, Amanda and John nodded saying it was in the contract they signed. Nuts.
The entire ceremony took 45 minutes. Now John and Amanda would hop into their limo and go back to their hotel room, change then meet everyone for dinner then retire to their room again. Presumably to play Monopoly or whatever else newly weds do together.
When the rest of us went to find our limo we learned the driver was very upset my brother didn't tip him, so he had a different limo driver come get us and he left. The only problem with that was that this replacement limo was much smaller than the first. Basically, we were almost literally sitting on top of each other.
And amazingly enough, that was it for the drama. When night finally came, most people were so tired they went to bed pretty early. I on the other hand, had an urge for onion rings so I went to Burger King. When I got there I saw Julie was sitting at one of the tables reading a book. When she saw me she invited me to sit after I got my onion rings and we talked about the wedding and how it could have gone way worse if they hadn't figured everything out.
Neither of us were tired and wanted to take more pictures so we left the hotel and walked around taking random pictures. We spent about a half hour doing this then decided to go to bed since we would have to get up early.
Believe it or not the next day the rest of our time in Las Vegas was uneventful. Back in Illinois, however, was another story.
Once again, I could point out a million things about the airplane ride back to Chicago that wasn't good but as I said before I'll address that in a different post. I would like to point out something about picking up the luggage. You know how airlines are always being accused of losing someones luggage. Well, that day I learned it might not always be the airlines fault. Sometimes I think the passengers might be the ones to blame.
As the luggage came around I realized that alot of peoples luggage looks really similar. So similar in fact, one couldn't be blamed for picking up someone else's bag by accident. Just to make sure we didn't leave any bags behind. The count revealed we now had three extra suitcases. Upon closer inspection I figured out we had picked up three suitcases that did not belong to us. Instead of putting them back on the carousal we just left them and quickly got left.
And that everyone was how my Las Vegas trip ended. Not with hangover but with barely avoiding felony charges. I am not trying to convince my family to go back next year. After all, who doesn't like a good sequel.
