The wife told me that grandma was going to come visit us the week of July 4th. For the record I love my mother-in-law but she has been known to make some very long visits. She makes a 3-4 week visit every fall that is just too long. Furthermore, the family just drove from Arizona to visit family in Texas a little over a month ago that included quality time with grandma. With the weather around 110 degrees every day an 8 day house arrest with grandma (who doesn’t enjoy the heat or get around too well) didn’t seem like a good plan.
The wife and I decided to fly grandma to Vegas and spend a portion of her visit there out of the house. All in all it went pretty well.

My wife, my 7 year old son, and I woke up early on Saturday June 30th and headed to Las Vegas. We live around an hour south of Phoenix so the drive figured to be around 5 or 5 ½ hours. The drive was enjoyable and we arrived at the Sunset Station around 1pm. It was a little too early to check in so we checked out the hotel. As this was our first trip to Las Vegas with our son we wanted to make certain we stayed at a kid friendly place. This was our first time in the Sunset Station and we were generally pleased. Movie theaters, bowling alley, kids quest, nice looking pool area, and relatively cheap decent food.

After around an hour we checked back at the registration and our rooms were ready. We got adjoining rooms on the eighth floor that were generally clean and acceptable. After taking our bags to the room it was time to drive to the airport and pick up grandma. Her flight was only a little late but the three of us walked around the little Las Vegas flight museum area on the 2nd floor just above the baggage claim. I’ve probably walked past it a dozen times in the past but actually had some time to kill and enjoyed looking at some of the items.

When grandma arrived we headed back to the Sunset Station and ate dinner at the Italian place. It was pretty decent (think Olive Garden) and not too expensive. We managed to score a table overlooking the bar area where my son and I could watch the Fox Baseball game of the week. My son was watching the stats roll across the bottom of the screen and kept asking me about how the events of the day affected my fantasy team. At any rate, we finished dinner and walked grandma around the hotel area. My son asked me if he could go in the Kid’s Quest when he saw some kids around his age running around in there. We dropped him off for around an hour and played some Ultimate Texas Hold ‘em (UTHE) and Blackjack (BJ). Finished up a little and got the little guy from kid’s quest. We all headed up to the room. Grandma and my son crashed and the wife and I headed back down to the casino. We played more UTHE and BJ….gave back previous winnings and a little more. It was generally a nice vibe and not too crazy for a Saturday night. Went up to the room and called it a night.

We woke up early Sunday morning and went down to check out the bowling alley. It is open 24 hours but when we arrived around 7:30 am no one was working the counter. After a few minute wait a maintenance worker came in apologizing about the wait. He seemed both very nice and extremely overmatched by the customer service/register duties he is supposed to handle until around 8 am when the normal crew arrives. After he finally figured out how to work the register and get us on a lane that worked Son, Wife, and I bowled while grandma watched. Pretty fun and wife managed to not completely throw her back out so win-win. Finished bowling and went up to the room to put on bathing suits and head to pool area.

The pool area is very nice. It’s not the MGM, Mirage, or Caesars pool but it was just the right vibe for our family with a 7 year old. Soft Rock music playing at a reasonable level, plenty of lawn chairs, big clean swimming pool, and plenty of palm trees to add to the effect. It seemed just about perfect until we went into the water…..How can it be 110 out every day and have water that cold? Our pool at home is like bath water. This was like some sort of liquid cryogenic chamber! I fought through the initial jolt and waded into my neck with my son. Mom was really struggling. She hates cold and wanted none of it. I decided to try and warm up by swimming a few laps. I was into my 2nd lap when I bumped into Ted Williams’ head and decided it was time to call it quits.

To the room, changed, and buffet for lunch. After lunch I did one of those things for my son that I would never do without him…….I went to Circus- Circus. I won’t spill a lot of ink on this other than to say it sucks. It’s worse than you remember. If your over 10 years old this place will put you on suicide watch if you’re there more than an hour. Grandma was having a hard time getting around so we left Son with her in lobby while wife and I retrieved car from parking garage and picked them up out front. After we left this place I looked my wife in the eyes and told her “I’m never setting foot in that place again.”

Sunday night was Dancing with the Stars at the Tropicana. It was a pretty easy drive from the Sunset Station to the Trop parking garage. I really like what they’ve done with the Tropicana. It looks really nice inside. The wife and I may give this a whirl on one of our grown up trips. The Dancing with the Stars was for Wife and Grandma. There was enough stupid stuff intertwined to make my 7 year old laugh a little and enough hot dancers to where I didn’t completely hate it. Show was over and headed back to Sunset. What a busy day. Son and Grandma to bed Mom and I to the casino for more UTHE and BJ. We lost back our winnings from an hour long session earlier in the day and up to the room.

Monday morning Mom and Grandma slept in while Son and I went down to bowling alley. Same overmatched dude working the counter. Son bowled really well. He bowled a 60 with no bumpers. He was pretty excited. Mom met us in the bowling alley and off to breakfast at the buffet. After breakfast it was to the Fashion Show Mall to hit the ½ price show ticket outlet for the Tournament of Kings. I had the stubs from the Dancing with the Stars from the night before so I got to skip the commoners and cut to the front of the line. They give you a voucher that should be redeemed at the Excalibur box office before the show. We left there and went straight to Excalibur to swap voucher for tickets. I left wife, son, and grandma in the car while I ran in and swapped. Back in the car and off to Red Rock Casino.

First time at Red Rock and liked the vibe. The four of us were going to see the animated movie “Brave” and decided to see it here. Nice theater with really good popcorn. After the movie we dropped son at Red Rock Kid’s quest for an hour for UTHE and BJ. Picked up son at Kid’s quest (thumbs up) and headed to Excalibur for show.

The Tournament of Kings was as advertised. I was starving and actually enjoyed my chicken dinner. Son and I missed the biggest battle scene as the bottomless cup of Sprite got the better of him and we had to make a dash to the restroom. Such is the case when traveling with kids. All in all it was a nice show.

The highlight of trip to Excalibur was before the show when Son and Wife did the dancing head videos, Son did “Thriller” and “Sweat” video and Son and Wife did “Bad” video together. If you haven’t seen the dancing heads they are kind of funny. Essentially you make facial expressions and your face is superimposed on a cartoon body doing the dance moves. After show it was back to Sunset and Son and Grandma went to bed and Wife and I went downstairs for UTHE and BJ. We lost the winnings from Red Rock and back to bed.

Tuesday morning Son and I went down to bowling alley and arcade while Mom and Grandma slept in. We all ate in the café and Son went into the kids quest for two hours which was his longest stay of the trip. Wife and I played UTHE and BJ and met Grandma for Bingo. It was a very nice Bingo Hall. I stopped just short of issuing another Circus-Circus edict about never playing Bingo again but it was less than exciting.

We picked up Son, went to room, changed clothes and went back down to the liquid cryogenic chamber. In fairness, the water felt warmer in the late afternoon than it did in the morning a couple of days earlier. After the pool we went upstairs and changed and left Son with Grandma as Wife and I went to Fremont Street for our last night in town.

We had to make a detour to the Excalibur so Wife could express displeasure at the quality of the Talking Head Video from the night before. I almost felt sorry for the girl working the kiosk.
My wife is a lovely woman but has very little patience for bad service and incompetence when working in the service industry.

When the girl working the kiosk responded to my wife’s frustration about being forced to drive back to the Excalibur by saying “That’s life….bad stuff happens.” It was not going to be pleasant for that young lady. As expected the movie was not fixed, the wife was frustrated, and the girl was almost in tears. I’ve been with my wife for 20 years now and have just accepted the fact that she can’t let stuff like this go. For me, I don’t see the point in getting myself frustrated and wasting my time when I know the situation won’t be made better. It’s like asking for help at Wal-Mart. There is no reason for me to do it. I know I won’t be helped and I know I’ll get frustrated. At any rate the Wife let her have it.

She cooled off on the drive down to Freemont and we parked at the Main Street. We walked Fremont a little before settling into an UTHE game at the “D” (Stupid name….formally Fitzgerald’s). This game was worthy of note as this was one of the +EV UTHE games that I have written about in previous posts.

Not to bore you with details but we were sitting at the 3rd base location and the one dealer would flash both his hole cards and the community cards on the flop. Close to 100% of the time I could tell what one of the dealer’s hole cards was and what one of the community cards was on the flop before it was played. This was a huge advantage….We deviated repeatedly from “optimal strategy” because of the dealer’s poor holdings or because we knew the content of the flop beforehand. These types of games aren’t everywhere (flashing dealers) but I’ve seen enough of them over my visits the last couple of years to know there are several. If I lived in Vegas I would take a week and explore the different places that spread this game and note the games that deal in “packets” (1st five cards are community, next two to first base, next two to 2nd base, etc. and last two to dealer.) and watch the dealers. I’ve come across these flashers at the “D”, Harrahs, and Planet Hollywood. We folded large pairs knowing the dealer had paired his Ace. We pressed marginal hands before the flop for additional money knowing the flop was going to pair our hand.

We sat in the “D” for around 5 straight hours playing UTHE. We finally left around 1:30 am and headed back to Sunset to get some sleep before leaving the next morning.

The funniest part of the whole trip came on the ride back home. Wife and I in the front seat with Son and Grandma in the backseat. Son was watching “Naked Gun” in the backseat (he loves the baseball part at the end of the movie where Leslie Nielsen plays the crazy umpire) and grandma was sitting next to him. It sounded like the movie just got turned up when I’m driving and hear Leslie Nielsen yell “Nice Beaver!” as Priscilla Pressley pulls the giant stuffed beaver from the attic and says “Thanks, I just had it stuffed!” Grandma chimes in and starts telling son about his cousin who has also has a “Giant stuffed beaver.” Is grandma really this clueless or is she just trying to play it off? Apparently, as I learned from the conversation, there are several extended relatives on my wife’s side who have really big stuffed beavers. Luckily, I managed not to drive off the road but it was certainly jolting to hear my 7 year old son and his grandma having this conversation.

While it wasn’t by favorite Vegas trip it was better than sitting around the house all week with Grandma. I’m around 3 months away from my annual guys trip to Vegas which will be poker and sports betting intensive. I will certainly share that experience with you as well.