Even at my age I don't need glasses......

Even at my age I don't need glasses, right out of the bottle is fine. Which is a very good thing, because on Fremont Street in Las Vegas they sell Heineken for $2 a bottle, but they don't have glasses. At $2 for a beer from a sidewalk stand, who cares? It turned out that was the cheapest beverage of any type, including water, that we bought for the next day and a half.

We started out on Fremont Street, and Beth, who has never been to Las Vegas, was impressed by "the carnival atmosphere". I was smiling as I thought to myself that she ain't seen nuthin' yet! We left Fremont for our hotel, the Flamingo, right in the middle of the Las Vegas Strip, arriving around midnight. We dumped our luggage in the room, took a bunch of pictures of the spectacular view of the strip, and after loading up with a couple travellers of Gatorade and Grey Goose, headed out to join the partyers that were still teeming up and down the sidewalk.

After that  things got very fuzzy, very quickly.

But aided by going through the pictures from both our cameras, I was able to recall some highlights.

Beth pretending her 15 inch tall plastic effigy of the Eiffel Tower that was almost straight alcohol was a set of bagpipes as she blew into it making a horrible "Rheeee! Rheeee! Rhreee!" sound as she marched through a casino. The two of us playing blackjack, so completely  trashed by that point it defies all logic that we were able to both walk away after 10 minutes having more than tripled our money. I distinctly remember the look of relief on the dealers face when we cashed out, by that point we were pretty difficult to deal with, but we both tipped him well. Lots of beggars and panhandlers, including one guy waving a sign that said "Kick me in the nuts! $10!" There was one particularly well built young lady dancing on the sidewalk waving a sign asking for donations for some kind of operation, and when I slowed down to get a better look Beth pointed out that "she" had an Adams apple, and when he turned around I saw that wasn't the only bulge "she" had, and suddenly understood just what kind of operation the money was for. Ordering a gourmet burger at a Gordon Ramsey restaurant that took so long we ran out of booze as we sat there and ordered several bizarre concoctions to tide us over that almost made it worth the wait, if it wasn't for the sweet potato fries being completely ruined by having powdered icing sugar sprinkled on them. What, the chef thought he had picked up the salt shaker and sprinkled on icing sugar instead? Chef Ramsey! I'm so disappointed with you!

Beth, intent on photographing her travelling companion Bee, posing beside  a horrid concoction of  Guinness based liqueur and Baileys - that we drank anyway because it cost a small fortune, and had alcohol in it.

We finally got back to the room at 4 in the morning. This is what the view out our  window looked like when we first arrived.

Here's what it looked like at 4 in the morning: Vegas, through the bottom of the last glass.

We surfaced at the crack of noon that morning, and carried on pretty much as we had the night before. We returned to the room for a nap before heading out to dinner and catching back to back shows of Cirque Du Soleil: Mystere, at Treasure Island, followed by "O" at the Bellagio. The plan was to go out dancing, but we were done, and headed back to the room, to discover that one of Beth's co-workers had come good on his promise to arrange "an amenity" for us. He had called a contact he had at our hotel and we returned to find that the Beer Fairy had made a delivery in our absence. As tempting as it was, we called it a night and went to bed.

Sunday morning was quite relaxed. After another ridiculously over priced meal we visited the Pawn Shop that is the setting for the Reality TV show Pawn Stars, went to see the Hoover Dam, and headed home. We had arrived in Las Vegas in a full charge, done the place in style, and even won at the blackjack tables. And most importantly, I fulfilled my promise to Beth, and took her to Vegas.

On the way to Vegas we had driven through a blizzard in the mountains north of San Bernadino, crawling along at times as we climbed higher into the pass and the snow thickened. For the return trip we took a shortcut across the desert from the Dam, arriving 51 hours after we had departed. Booze is available everywhere in Las Vegas, they even give it away free in casinos. Between the free beer we scored courtesy of Beth's co-worker and the stuff that was available on every street corner we somehow returned to Palm Springs with even more alcohol than we had when we left. And it quickly got worse. Or better, depending on whether or not you're a friend of my liver.

On Monday morning I went into our local grocery store and discovered that there was a 30% off sale on liquor, as long as you bought 6 bottles or more. That made the price of a bottle of Grey Goose only $21.99, as long as you bought 6 bottles. Six Bottles? That seemed like a ridiculous amount of Grey Goose to buy at any one time for anyone, even me. I mentioned it to Beth at dinner that night and jumping to the conclusion that I wanted her to help me justify the purchase she quickly did the math and pointed out "It's like getting 2 free bottles! And it won't go bad!"

Hmmm. Tempting, but there were already 2 bottles of Vodka in the freezer including one of Grey Goose, and I just couldn't justify adding 6 more - we'd run out of room in the freezer. Tuesday morning I had to go back to the grocery store, and found myself again standing in front of the sign saying "30% Off!". As I stood there, one of the staff walked past and cheerfully pointed  out the part of the sign that said "Minimum 6 bottles", and the part I hadn't noticed that said "Mix and Match". Mix and Match?!?! "You Mean I can buy an assortment, and I get the deal as long as I buy a minimum 6 bottles?" "Of course!" he said.

On some level it made total sense to me to buy 6 assorted bottles of Vodka while buying 6 of the same type was overkill.

From left to right: Effen, Ciroc Snap Frost, Grey Goose regular, Grey Goose Cherry Noir, Grey Goose Le Citron, and Crystal Head.

I'm a weak man.

Beth walked through the door that night to the sight of the bottles lined up on the counter. When she finished laughing she declared "We must have a martini night!" Fabulous idea! But I don't know anything about martinis, so if everybody could please post their favorite martini recipe in the comments section it would be much appreciated.