Volume 5: Pete in the USA Part 2. A young balding mans journey through 20 something states and back
Day 3 – Anaheim to Las Vegas
Today was the first day of the Contiki tour, a short stroll from Anaheim to New York that would take 24 days. I met the bus driver, Bob Smith a 30 something black man, and tour manager, JP Smith a 20 something (at least that’s what he said, I reckon he looked more like someone’s 40 something sleazy uncle) white man, who introduced themselves as the Smith brothers. I’m sure that would have seemed a lot more amusing if the TV show “Different Strokes” hadn’t exhausted the black and white sibling jokes some 20 years earlier. They were laid back, some would say half assed when compared to my European bus driver and tour manager, which was one of many comparisons that would affect the start of the tour for me.
After a pleasant drive we reached the Nevada border and the gateway to hell for non-Mormons. Nevada’s rich gambling history was founded by some cash strapped Mormons who, like most followers of religion, found some loop holes in their religious text that said gambling was okay, provided it wasn’t done by Mormons. There is absolutely no doubt that you have crossed the state line as inside the first inch is the first of many casinos.
The great state of Nevada is pretty much desert, littered by Joshua tree’s. The Mormons described the trees as having their hands up reaching for God, or a black jack table in the case of non-Mormons. We reached Las Vegas at the hottest part of the day, with it being 109° in the old scale, over 40° in the new scale. Which leaves you with only one thought: Who the f!#k builds a city in the desert?!? To make things worse the city of Las Vegas have built their roads with possibly the most effective material to reflect heat. It was amazing, you just couldn’t escape the heat, it was coming from all angles. To combat the heat Gav and I went straight to the local service station to buy some beer. I found it marvellous that they had slot machines inside the service station, making it conceptually possible to pay for your fuel with just 25 cents and a bit of luck.
After checking into the hotel it was off for a group dinner. There was something missing at the dinner, namely a lack of people drinking alcohol. This was a bad sign. Drinking = loss of inhibition = crazy night. Dinner was had at some buffet place where soft drinks were free with your meal, and it appeared I was either surrounded by budget conscious travellers or Mormons making a homecoming. The great thing about the European tour was that wine was served with every meal. This helped loosen everyone up and made bonding a lot quicker. The NSW rugby league state of origin team also knows the importance of getting drunk together and consider it an integral part of team bonding. That no one was drinking except Gav and I troubled me greatly.
After dinner we rode the bus down the strip where I saw the Contiki regulation half naked dancing girls cabaret show. The show was called “Splash” and from what I can tell has not been updated since the 1980’s. In between dancing naked chicks, there were Janet and Michael Jackson impersonators and a Madonna impersonator all performing their latest hits (provided we were in the year 1989). At the conclusion of the show there was a highlights package of all the people they had impersonators for appearing on a big screen. For some reason there was a highlights package of Cher, which was weird because I didn’t see her take part in the show. I figured her impersonator must have called in sick that night.
After the show we watched the spectacular Fremont Street Experience. It totally blew me away. Essentially there is a 90 foot high 4 block long electric canopy covering the street which displays brilliant light shows in sync with 550,000 watts of rock music. It is the largest electric sign on this planet which no doubt has the largest electricity bill of any sign on the planet. Truly awesome. I watched the show in amazement as I drunk from my strawberry margarita (which may sound gay, but to convince you of my manhood I was drinking it from a large plastic football).
From there we got back on the bus and JP told us we were going to swing by a location near by and pick up his cousin. As it turned there was no cousin and it was just JPs sly why of getting us to the Graceland Wedding Chapel. Earlier on in the day a game had been played on the bus in which tour members Danielle and Anthony were winners. Danielle was from New Jersey and had the greatest eyes I had every seen, so great that she’d been complimented on them so many times that when JP informed her she had great eyes she replied with “I know”. Anthony (I didn’t pay much attention to his eyes but I’m sure they were lovely) was known for the duration of the tour as “Espresso boy” due to him constantly complaining about his inability to find a quality espresso in any city in America. Tosser. Anyway, a bloke looking a lot like Elvis wedded the two and for the next six weeks they were legally married.
After the delightful wedding ceremony we headed to a nightclub called “The Beach”. It was at The Beach I was delighted to watch a booty-shaking contest between six of Las Vegas’ nicest females. In a controversial decision the skinny chick in the red g-string defeated the big ass chick in a hotly debated result. Not surprisingly, there were also slot machines inside this club which convinced me that it was not only legal to gamble in Nevada, but every proprietor in the state was legally obligated to have at least one slot machine on their premises. A number of chicks from the tour spent the night playing pool with what would be called flannelette wearing bogans back home, but because they were Americans they were “exotic foreigners”. Only helping to convince me my theory that someone becomes automatically 20% more interesting the moment they are identified as being from a foreign country.
At about 3:30am I decided to head back to the hotel after failing to get drunk enough to think it would be a good idea to marry a stranger.
Day 4 – Las Vegas
We woke up around 11am that day, and we would first eat at 5pm after a long walk down the strip.
Our hotel was at the foot of the MGM Grand so that was the first place we visited. Gav and I had decided in our pre tour hype to call our room Studio 54 as we intended to have many parties in our room over the course of the tour, so we were happy to discover the MGM Grand had a nightclub in it called Studio 54. We took some pictures of the entrance, which had a large Studio 54 sign, and I pretty much considered I’d found the ideal picture for the front of my tour scrapbook.
After getting bored at staring at a Lions ball sack, and making many comments about the size of said ball sack, we left the MGM Grand and crossed the street to New York! New York! The New York! New York! Casino has a roller coaster in it so we went straight to that. Before we got on the ride we put any loose objects in a locker. It was only as I got to the front of the line that I realised I forgot to put my hat and shades into the locker. When you’re a bald man in summer, a hat becomes a natural extension of your head so it’s easy to forget you’ve got it on. I jammed the hat in my left front pocket, my shades in my right front pocket, and hoped like hell the arms on my shades didn’t puncture my scrotum as we went through one of the loops.
From there, the most memorial casino we visited was Caesars Palace. Once inside, what struck me most about Caesars Palace was the massive size of it. I’m sure the prime design directive given the architect was to make it impossible to find any exits. I know we spent at least half an hour looking for an exit in the vast building. The place was so huge, and so devoid of clearly marked exits, you’re just sure people have been stuck in there for months. Eventually spending all their savings on a black jack table, then committing a crime, like stealing food to survive, and eventually being shown the exit by security.
As the day was so hot, we decided the intelligent thing to do was stop into every 3rd or 4th Casino and replenish our fluids. Most doctors would say that’s wise, but I’m sure they’re thinking of replenishing your fluids with water, not beer. As beer technically contained water, I was happy to stick with that strategy. We passed all the big name Casinos that day, The Venetian, Paris, The Flamingo before eventually finding our way to Down-town Las Vegas.
I suppose it would be correct to describe Down-town Vegas as “old school Vegas”. It had the less ostentatious older casinos, like Circus Circus, built before the “I have a small penis so I’ll compensate for it by building a bigger casino than yours” of Uptown Vegas. It would also be correct to say Down-town Vegas is where you come when you’ve discovered you’re down to your last $5 (I’m sure they’ve considered renaming the street sign from “Down-town” to “Down to your last $5 town”). It was in Down-town Vegas we discovered you could buy beer for 75 cents. In one Casino you can imagine my fury when I had to pay 99 cents for my beer. That fury was calmed as I drunk my beer and was amused to watch an Elvis impersonator who would have been considered bad even for a karaoke singer.
Our final destination in Down-town was the Stratosphere. Upon the top of the tall needle that is the Stratosphere is the world’s highest, and world’s lamest, roller coaster the “High Roller”. The reason it seems so lame is because they have an awesome spill your lunch ride at the top called the “Big Shot”. It shoots you up and down about 50 feet, and thankfully there is a great view of Vegas at night to help take your mind off revisiting your lunch. It was there we met two American blokes, Mike and Mark, who apparently didn’t understand Australian English as I had to repeat everything I said. It turned out they were staying in a hotel near us, so we shared a cab back to our respective hotels. It was about that time I released I hadn’t put any sunscreen on my feet and they now resembled what they would probably look like if I put them in an open-air fire for about 30 seconds.
It burns! There goes my professional foot model career
We decided to hook up later that night and go to Coyote Ugly in New York! New York! After about an hour they hooked up with two women and that was the last we ever saw of them. It was at Coyote Ugly that I had the joy of watching shy local women shake their ass through the night on the stage. It was a privilege I didn’t half pay for; $5 for a beer in a plastic cup. As it turned out other people from the tour also decided to hit Coyote Ugly that night, and I was delighted to hear that Coyote Ugly had embraced the concept of equal opportunity by letting chicks in for free.
As Coyote Ugly wasn’t really pumping by 12:30, everyone headed back to the hotel. After some discussion, Deb said she wanted the chance to donate more money to the hapless down on their luck casino owners, so Mason and I accompanied her back to the MGM Grand to play roulette. Mason succeeded in turning his $5 into $25. Not quite as impressive as turning $5 million into $25 million, but the same ratio. Deb was eventually happy with her charity work and we headed back to hotel and our respective rooms for some sleep.
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