Vegas Trip Report: 10/12-10/16

[Apoc]

Girlfriend had a medical conference in Vegas this past weekend, so I figured I'd take the opportunity for some reimbursed room expenses and join her. Apologies if this is gonna be long, but I'll try to break it up by category so you can only read what you want.

Prologue: Getting to Vegas

We booked out trip from Oakland to Las Vegas on Southwest Airlines Vacation site. Reasonable deal for roundtrip airfare for two plus four nights at the Mirage, but let me warn you that using SW Vacations means getting paper tickets. I can't even remember the last time I had paper tickets and having to check-in at the airport sucked as much as I remember and basically guarantees that you're in the C boarding group of the cattle call that is Southwest Airlines.

In a moment of weakness, we decided to take public transit (BART) to the airport. For those of you unfamiliar with Oakland, this entails lugging our bags onto the free shuttle to the BART station that goes around our city, dragging our bags onto the train, and cramming them onto the bus that shuttles folks to the airport from the BART station. Big mistake, as everybody and their brother apparently decided to do the exact same thing. Fortunately, our flight was leaving from the less busy terminal, so we flew through security and made our flight with a few minutes to spare. Side note: I managed to talk the TSA guy out of confiscating my hair gel because it was in a 4-oz container (instead of a 3-oz container), which was quite the coup. =) Unfortunately, my gf did not fare as well with the liquid/gel nazis.

Act 1: Settling In

Finally arrived and taxi-ed to the Mirage. Upon checking in, I tried the $20 trick with the front desk woman and just like that, we were upgraded to a deluxe room with a nice view of the Strip. For some reason, it made me feel a little James Bond to be "bribing" hotel employees, even though everyone does it, but the gf got a kick out of it.

After the half-hour long walk through the Mirage casino to the elevator, we unpacked and headed back downstairs for some dinner. The girlfriend and I are no strangers to gluttony (as you'll see later) but we decided to stay close to home and ate at Stack, the Mirage's casual steakhouse. Surf and turf for the lady, seabass for me, a side of sauteed mushrooms, plus a bottle of Cab, and somethig they call "Cones" for dessert, which is basically mini-Drumsticks ice cream cones. Overall grade: B-, wine was good, lobster was a little overdone, seabass was excellent, mushrooms were drowning in their juices but tasty otherwise, and dessert was playfully delicious. So, fat and happy, we spent another hour or two wandering the Strip, taking in the sights, until getting to bed since she had to wake up super-early for the conference.

Next parts to come: Poker Is Fun; Mmm...Delicious Food; and How to Get Married In Vegas Without Really Trying