Girl's Vegas Trip - The Highlights

So much happened it’s tough to know where to start.

We stayed at the Flamingo. First time I’ve spent any length of time on that section of the strip. It’s quite a bit seedier, which for Vegas is saying a lot. Lots of card flickers line that section of the strip. Card flickers are the guys (and a few girls) who try to give you business card sized ads for the local “dating services”. We called them card flickers because that is what they do to get your attention, flick the cards.

On Friday and Saturday night they close off some streets on that section of the strip and bring an army of police cars. You could be led to believe that all they do is pose for pictures with drunken tourists. Pretty girls up against the car spread-eagled while the cop pretends to cuff them. There was a lot of that going on but make no mistake, the cops there mean business. They brought a prison bus with them. It must be more cost efficient to collect the miscreants by busload than individually.

We did a day trip to the Grand Canyon, which was awesome. Traveling there took longer than traveling back because there were a lot more stops. Two of these stops were to let the Florida people play in the snow along the side of the road. The first stop was just a tiny patch of snow that they stepped in and touched. As we drove higher into the mountains the snow became more abundant. The second stop saw them walking through the snow barefoot (something the Michigan people knew was not a good idea) and sledding on a piece of cardboard we found on the side of the road. Other activites included the building of a 10 inch snowman on the Grand Canyon trail and numerous animal sightings in the park.

Other highlights include:
** Cousin Bonnie searched for and finally found an Elvis to take a picture with.
** Several of us (not me – too chicken) snuck onto Flamingo Island at the hotel. FYI - flamingos are light sleepers and don’t like to be woken up. They can make quite a ruckus when they are unhappy.
** I got groped by a passerby who was not successful at melting into the crowd. I followed him into a casino, poked him on the shoulder and told him to keep his bleeping hands to himself.
** Got comped a very nice lunch complete with a couple of margaritas for playing video poker at this nice little Mexican bar in Treasure Island.
** Several trips to Bill’s Casino for 99 cent margaritas . A little light on the tequila but we brought our own cups with a few shots already in them to fix that right up.
** Dancing on the bar at a biker joint downtown (not me – cuz nobody wants to see that).
** Several conversations with locals about their depressed economy. Made us Detroiters feel a little bit better to know that there was somebody worse off than we are.

Next girl’s trip, New York City summer of 2010.