About Vegas Part 1

Right here...in this picture...is in the Marriage Burreau of downtown Las Vegas where the State of Nevada issues marriage licences. So I am going to go through a bit of our trip to Vegas...I know I am so slow at this...okay. So we got to Vegas at 11:30 Friday night after Stagg got off work. My sis, daughter and J and S waited up for us. They had got in hours earlier. I had never seen any of them ever EVER that tired and loaded...ever. It was hilarious and Stagg and I leaped into action with them at the hotel bar. We dropped off our bags and went back downstairs to catch up. We landed up staying up after they all went to bed...we were all in the same hotel so it made for finding each other super easy. Stagg I ended up staying away till about 4:40. Vegas time! About 6:30 eastern time. We planned on hitting the licence office five minutes before it opened. As I set my cell phone to wake us we decided to instead sleep till 8:30. The court house is open for marriage licences 8a.m. till midnight every day. (except xmas I think). I woke up quite early and went down to the casino for a coffee. Then went back up to wake Stagg. And off we go...with the promise that he could go back to sleep in an hour after we get our licence. Hmmm....Stagg and I are both people who never seem to be able to do things the easy way. Seriously, we both are people who everything sems to be more difficult for us than for others...it's really quite funny. We're not the most "organized" folks...or "logical"...A week earlier with our crazy plan I checked out a bunch of details Vegas promised to be the easiest place in the world to get married. Okay. So we grab a taxi. Half way to down town we ask...you take credit cards right? Nope. So we only have 7 bucks. Who needs cash? Right? So the fare is 7 bucks. We give him our money and get out of the taxi. In nowhere. We can see the strip in the distance. We are near some abandoned stores. And a carpet stores. So we track down a taxi that takes credit cards. We didn't go to the bank on the way to the airport. My sister was picking up U.S. cash for me (she bought my wedding dress) so we were fine. Stagg doesn't like debit cards. We'll be fine. We get to the licence place...yeah! No line up!!!! Right straght we fill out the paperwork, very straightforward and simple. We go to the booth and after a few minutes the woman says "okay you're done."

I realized that I should and could take a photo of this moment with my cell phone. The above picture of my wonderful guy is at the precise second the woman adds "we don't take credit cards." as Stagg passes her his credit card and he is about to turn to me and go "Uh oh!". So..at this point we had the tai waiting for us because he takes credit cards and he said "oh yeah, they take credit cards and I'll wait for you. You'll only be a few minutes". So back in the taxi and back to the hotel. I realize hey, I'll call my sister and she can meet us in the lobby with cash. I phone her and she says "Hi. What time is it?" OH shit. I forgot we had woken up so early! So I get Stagg to wait in the taxi whie I run up to my sisters room where she and my daughter are reasonable people...therefore still asleep. We grab some cash and I say "Hey come with us, it'll be fun!". I'm getting giddy because technically...Stagg and I are now married. The peperwork is all done...so all the nervousnessI had been feelig for a few days is SLOWLY melting away. Tiff and the Underground Baker are throwing on clothes and we run down to the taxi to go to the marriage licence place. By the time we picked up the licences...and my sis took pictures of us the taxi bill was getting past 50 bukcs! We keppt him waiting for us...none of us had had coffee yet so we got him to take us to a Starbucks and a grocery store and drop us off. We landed up sitting in Starbucks for over an hour just laughing and talking...and we all realized we had never ever sat and hung out in a Starbucks before. By this time, Stagg had only had about 3 hours of sleep (I had about 2...but was too excited to sleep) so I had woken him thinking it would take about an hour to get to licence burreau...ha! He went back to sleep around 1 till 8. The rest of us went to the pool and hot tub.


View from hotel room deck. Stagg had two fears. His first fear was that I would be bombed. You see Stagg knows I get excited with my family..and Stagg and I are like tea grannies these days. We've been known to have a case of beer, or some wine sit around and never touched, like for weeks. But here we're going to Vegas and the guy was worried. I said, "Don't worry. I won't be bombed because I'll be drinking all day. Once you drink in the morning you kind of reach a platteau. And I can nap." I never did nap...but I never did get bombed either heh heh. Stagg's other big fear is that I would gamble away all the money I could find. I am so not a gamlber. But I have a new found enjoyment of playing slots...I treat them like a video game or cartoon. I pick out the ones I like with the cool pictures. I liked "Wizard of Oz" (won $150), I liked "Alien" (won $185), I liked "Wheel of Fortune" (Stagg and I won $140...he was in shock that you could actually win) and I liked "King Kong" (I won $72)...all in all...to win I only put in $20 bucks and wouldn't go lower than $10. I had a bit of luck.

I haven't posted a lot of pictures of our trip basically because I simply didn't have any-and they had to pass everuon'e's approval...but my sister and J e-mailed some. Not everyone we know blogs so we had to mass respect editing processes heh heh. I took a few on my cell phone...the ones I posted earlier by the pool...and there are a couple here too. We haven't a still camera as ours went on the fritz and we have looked at cameras...but not made any decisions. I brought my handy cam...but at some point gave up the idea of taking video. You see...there is some diplomacy involved in travelling with a bunch of folks. Not every one blogs. And not everyone wants or feels comfortable with their pics on the internet. So my sister e-mailed me some pics and we went through them and edited them out. J spent a couple of hours deleting many of her pictures and was able to send them last night. Think about that next time Vanity Fair has one of those group shots by Annie Liebowitz. The above photo was taken by our bartender...who seems quite gifted, or lucky. Or likely he has taken hundreds of tourist shots just like the above. We are all ready to go out for dinner at the Peppermill. I am wearing one of my favourite tops...right out of "dancing with the stars" with all the fringe...

Above is the Peppermill. I was really looking forward to visiting this joint again...it's featured in the movie Casino (maybe in Swingers too) and has an amazing atmosphere. You can't see it so well in this pic but there are silk cherry trees all in around the lounges, yes, that's a fire pit and pool under the tv screens. Last time I was here there weren't any tv screens. But, it is still deadly cool. In 1971, two life-long friends, Bill Paganetti and Nat Carasali purchased a small coffee shop and lounge on what was then the southern outskirts of Reno. (Las Vegas in film)

Tiff and Stagg among the slot machines.

As we went outside to get a taxi for the Peppermill we landed up pulling a Bob Dylan and we rented a Cadillac Escalade to take us...down the block..it was fun. Mister Anchovy and Tuffy P had a monorail pass, and A and B hadn't landed yet and they all were meeting us at the restaurant. These two are in one of the back seats...









J and S.
After supper at the Peppermill, around midnight, we went to a bar called The Red Room Saloon and danced till about 4 a.m.


I really liked the art work at this club. They were all building landscapes and kind of cool.






About Vegas, Part 2