PurpAnd

If you live in Vegas, you are probably sick of hearing that phrase and if someone utters it in your vicinity you probably want to punch them in the throat. I don’t blame you. The story of my most recent Vegas trip, thankfully, is not an obnoxious one and it can be shared.

A couple weeks ago I went down to Vegas with four friends for what we called a ‘Wallets Only’ trip. No luggage, no hotel room, just the clothes on our backs and the money in our pockets. We flew down on Friday in time for a late dinner, gambled the night away, and then hopped (or in our case, slithered) ourselves back onto an airplane the following morning.

A nice surprise came at the Las Vegas airport as we were leaving the terminal to catch a cab. One of my buddies said, ‘hold on guys, I’ve arranged a ride.’ We strode through the baggage claim area and spotted our driver holding a sign for ‘The Fiends’ (the long-time name of our group of guy friends). We giddily took the escalator downstairs to the VIP parking area where our driver showed us to our silver limousine. Pimp. (Aside: anyone see the episode of The Office last week where Michael, Dwight, Andy, and Oscar rode in the limo? Cracked me up.) Knowing that we had only a short while until our dinner reservation, my limo-ordering friend casually said, ‘the Palazzo please.’

The Palazzo is the new addition to the Venetian and our reservation was at Cut, Wolfgang Puck’s steakhouse restaurant off the casino. Arriving a tad early, we waited in the cocktail lounge for our 9pm seating and for our fifth to show up. He had been taking in the sights all afternoon since he flew in at 3:30pm. After ordering our fancy drinks, our friend walked in carrying a 48 ounce plastic jug filled with alcoholic slurpee. Mmmm.

We were seated and then treated to the best service I have ever experienced at a restaurant. We had an army of waiters/servers. There must have been 10 of them in total. The head waitress came over and explained the specials, and the types of meat they were serving, and tried to sell us on every conceivable extra.

The menu was impressive with a variety of Kobe beef cuts and Wagyu beef, which I had never heard of before. Apparently, Wagyu is a hybrid between traditional Angus beef in the U.S. and Kobe beef from Japan. Most of us ordered the Wagyu and we were happy we did.

The meal was incredible. We split a lobster for the table, shared some sweet potato medley side dish, as well as two macaroni and cheese dishes and a bottle of Cabernet. One of the meat dishes (pictured), not mine, was $145! The damage I did was a little more reasonable, but this meal still ranks up there in the top 3 most expensive in my life.

Following our gluttonous performance at Cut, we headed out to the casinos. The first stop was Casino Royale, a staple in all of our Vegas visits. We managed to survive the blackjack tables, but the craps tables weren’t so nice and a few of my friends left with disdain for the place. The next stop was Bellagio where the craps table kept us entertained for a couple hours. I’m not much of a dice man, so I stayed out of it and wandered a bit, bought a severely overpriced Jack n Coke, and watched people walk by. Following the Bellagio, we made stops at Planet Hollywood and Paris which is where the luck began to run out for me. Since my buddies shared similar bad luck, we looked at our watches and realized it was almost 6am - time for breakfast.

Breakfast was entertaining, I’m sure, to any outsider. We were dead tired, looked ragged, and none of us had made any money at the tables. The orders ranged from soup to burritos to a milkshake (me) and we sure took our time getting that food down. I could barely finish the milkshake, but felt like I had enough so we sat for a few more minutes, watched America’s Funniest Home Videos on the restaurant TVs (is that show always on?) and then went back out to the floor.

Finally my luck changed. I was sitting at a $10 blackjack table and I started to get hot cards. I won a few hands in a row and was pressing my bet with the progressive betting style (increasing the bet one chip every time I won). My initial $10 bet grew to a $45 hand. I had won seven hands in a row and then finally lost when the dealer hit to 21 and beat my 20. Ugh. I played one more hand at $10, lost it, then colored up and left the table. In under an hour I had taken the casino for $175.

We left Paris a little bit after 8am and slowly made our way back to the Palazzo so our friend could get his sportsbook tickets. (The Palazzo has a heckofa sportsbook by the way, I’ll be going back there). Following the brief stop at the sportsbook, we found some chairs near the lobby payphones and rested for a while until we finally decided to catch a cab and go back to the airport (but not until after we went looking for a frozen yogurt or ice cream shop that could not be found).

Upon returning home, I showered and then turned the TV on to watch some college football. I passed out and slept from 2:30 until 9:30! I woke up, ate some mac and cheese, then went back to sleep from 11 until 6:30 the next morning. Perfect!

Overall, it was a pretty fun trip. I won some cash, had some great food, and a lot of laughs. And, it was pretty awesome to walk through the airports with no bags. If the guys are up for it, I’ll do it again.

Last weekend I traveled to West Virginia and Pennsylvania. It was a short trip, but one that I had wanted to take for a long time. Within 42 hours I saw: one of my dad’s childhood homes, drank beer from a fishbowl, dominated in some BuzzTime trivia, played Beatles RockBand, went to a WVU football game, ate a sandwich at Primanti Bros., went out in downtown Pittsburgh, and had a riverfront brunch with my cousins and aunt and uncle.

One of the highlights of the trip was the WVU (West Virginia University) football game. I had been to college games before at my alma mater UC Davis, but they are nothing like what I experienced last Saturday. First of all, the game was at noon. So my cousin says, ‘we gotta get up early to tailgate.’ I asked, ‘what’s early?’ and she smiled, “9 am.” And compared to her friends’ plans that was a late start! By the time we arrived near the stadium all the best tailgate spots were taken so we settled for a small parking lot up the hill. It ended up being perfect, we had our own little powwow with a few brews, a pepperoni roll, and chips and dip. We then walked to the stadium through the sea of blue and gold and into Lot B - tailgate Mecca. We bumped into a few friends, then rushed through the gates to go get some WVU merchandise. I was given a WVU sweatshirt and t-shirt, but I needed a hat to complete the look. A few minutes later I was decked out and we made it to our seats near the end zone. Here is my cousin and I at the field.

The crowd was nuts. Hyped and energized for the game, the patrons sang along to Simple Gifts and Country Roads. And then something happened that simply touched me. See, WVU was playing U Conn, who a week earlier had lost one of their teammates in a horrible stabbing incident after a school party. When the U Conn players took the field, they carried out their fallen teammates jersey. The entire stadium stood and applauded. Players from each team walked to the middle of the field, shook hands, and then everyone paused for a moment of silence. Here are the teams shaking hands.

This was one of the single greatest exhibitions of sportsmanship I have ever seen.

After the game, the WVU coach took his team over to the student section of the stands to show his appreciation. Leaving the stadium I felt incredibly proud to have been there that day. I was treated like I belonged and I was impressed by the humanity of a fan base that can sometimes get a tad crass (”Eat shit Pitt!). side note: the University of Pittsburgh is WVU’s main rival. More on that in a second.

Hanging around Morgantown the night before the game, I witnessed what it’s like on game weekends. We stopped by a local bar to grab a drink - beer out of a fishbowl (the place is called Mario’s Fishbowl). While in the bar people would randomly chant “Eat shit Pitt! Eat shit Pitt!” So funny because WVU wasn’t even playing Pittsburgh. It’s just what they yell… a lot. My cousin says that sometimes you can hear the fans chant that over the television. The other funny thing about the Fishbowl was that everyone who came through the door was greeted to applause and a lot of hootin’ and hollerin’. It cracked me up to see these people realize they were the ones getting welcomed so warmly. Most were embarrassed, but some played into it and started cheering right back, which invariably evolved into more eat shit Pitt chants.

Anyway, after the football game on Saturday we headed up to Pittsburgh. We stayed downtown and went out to a few local spots that my cousins were fond of, but we really spent most of the night watching football highlights while drinking whiskey at the hotel lobby bar. Sunday morning was gorgeous and we had brunch at a restaurant in a former train station along the river. And that was it.

Here are some more photos from the trip.

Some early fall colors.

Point Park - Pittsburgh - view from the hotel room

Pittsburgh - view from up above the river, or should I say rivers

For another run-down of the weekend, check out my cousin’s blog at The Little Cat.