Vegas Baby, Vegas!

This is being written at 2:17 am Pacific time in Las Vegas, NV. Some of you are wondering why I am not asleep right now. Those of you who really know me are wondering why I am not: a) at the gambling tables b) at the strip club c) wondering the streets looking for kicks. Well the response to those quandaries is that a night like tonight needs to documented ASAP before details are lost and while the rush is still going strong.
Our original expectations of Vegas were pretty much unattainable. We EXPECTED to all hit it big and fly out to Hawaii for three or four days on our winnings. We have had a lot of anticipation for certain sites along our already epic journey, but none could match the butterflies in our stomachs as we made the trip from the Grand Canyon to the City of Bright Lights. The four hours in the car seemed like an eternity.
The plan was to stay with a friend way off the strip and then maybe maybe get one good shot to make things happen in the Casinos. BUT thanks to the generosity of the Shircliffs, we instead have a room in the Bellagio for two nights in the middle of everything (J am writing this as I stare at an endless array of lights outside our window on the 26th floor).
There would be no getting our feet wet before jumping in the pool; instead we opted to spring off the high dive doing a double front tuck into the unknown depths of the deep end. BIG MISTAKE. Before we knew what hit us, we were all down anywhere from 75 to 100 dollars and wondering if we could catch Conan before hitting the sack. Plus once again the CATS disappointed us. This is where the generosity of Mr. and Mrs. McCrea would lead us down a path that none of us will ever forget. It was like we were the scared little kids hesitating to go down the big slide and they gave us the necessary push that would lead us to ride of our lives.
With morale at an all time low, we met with Mrs. McCrea who had a Vegas cherry popping gift for us. The gift was $100 cash. Of course that pumped everyone up, knowing we could at least recover some of our losses. BUT it came with a one stipulation. We had to let it all ride on red in the fickle game of Roulette.
We through the money down on the table and watched with unequivocal intent as that damn white ball spun forever around that wheel. Eyes shut, heart beating out of chest, “RED 23!” We were back in the game and riding higher than Bob Marley before a sold out concert.
With the adrenaline flowing we had a quick team meeting. What do we do now? Split the winnings and go our separate ways? What would the McCrea’s want us to do? We all knew the answer before anyone spoke. “LET IT RIDE!” We took our winnings to the black jack table for one hand. Nervousness was an understatement. We were high school seniors before the senior prom before our gorgeous 23 year old date arrived. First card 10 of hearts. Damn that s a good start. “Give us the ace!” After an eternity we saw the dealer reach into holder and pull out our second card. Ace of spades. Blackjack! “Damn, I need a drink,” that’s all I could think to say. We had turned that $100 into $500 in matter of minutes.
We split up $400 and took our $100 profit to gamble with as a group to several other casinos. We managed grind out another $100 profit on top of that over the next several hours. More importantly those two big bets was all the confidence we needed to ride out a great night on the strip. We gave high fives to strangers, Beau turkey trotted down the strip, Matt took a bath mid session to mellow out, and Adam worked up an initial big loss into a personal $70 gain. The night rounded out on one final blackjack table where Leng our dealer was thrown serious knucks after she busted time and time again. And our neighbor on the table kept trying to split a 7 and a 5, while looking to his beer bottle for advice on whether to hit or stay.
Matt capped off the night by throwing $100 down on red. “We didn’t come to Vegas to lay up!” No my friend, we did not. At this point we were a perfect 8 for 8 on red on Roulette. Sure enough red 29, and Matt throughout his crazy eyes and cheesy smile. Why? Because that’s what Matt does. He gets excited and throws out his crazy eyes and cheesy smile.
Quick recap of events. We were down and out and rallied from the depths of the Vegas pit, where so many fortunes have been los, to come out of top of the world.
Special thanks Jenny, an Asian dealer, who taught me how to do the parachute and the squid. They are both a play off the traditional knuckle bump.