VEGAS, HERE WE COME

I always seem to post when we're going to Vegas. Does that tell you anything? Mom is here and going this time. We usually don't go when she's here because it is a five hour trip and she is seventy eight. She hasn't been for about 7 or 8 years so she is flying high.

Years ago, I would use a couple of days vacation and we would take off. Sometimes there were four of us women-sometimes just Mom and I. What a time we had! No husbands to tell us we had to go to bed, no one to tell us it was time to get up. We just did whatever we damn well pleased for a few days. That is a heady experience for a grown woman. It only happens when your children are all grown and secure and you have a husband who knows how important this kind of time is once in a while.

We did have some situations: one time we went in my little blue Toyota which was wearing out. By the time we hit the top of mountains, we were doing about 20 m.p.h., There were two Hispanic men who looked like Father and Son having the same trouble so all the way to Vegas we would wave at each other and laugh at whichever of us had the least head start on each mountain. What a hoot! The unfun part was when my headlights went out on the way home just as we came off a hairpin turn on Old Highway 58. The car would never do it again but needless to say, it was time for a trade-in.

One night we went to Binion's to play Bingo and couldn't find our car afterwards. Finally, after watching us walk by him about five times (2:00 a.m.), a nice security guard explained that we had to turn around and walk the other way to find our car. We did but I've never figured out how that garage worked. Actually, I think that was the same trip with the Old Toyota and if someone had stolen it, they would have done us a favor.

One time we went to Laughlin. I kept telling my husband that there weren't any mountains on the way. He half convinced me, though. We had a flat about 75 miles out of Barstow. A nice young soldier stopped to help us. After he changed the tire and asked us where we were headed, he kindly told us we were going in the wrong direction. We had to go back to Barstow, get a new tire and head back out in the right direction.

When we went with our Friends, B and M we would have a great trip, too, except M is my good friend but a little odd. She gets really absorbed in slot machines sometimes and misses part of the fun we are having. She is a dreadful tipper, too. Mom would distract her and B or I would sneak back and adjust the tip under her plate. If we can save up enough money to go gambling (we're working people), then by Damn Sure we can keep enough money to tip working people over there enough to help them live. I would rather not go out to eat if I can't include a decent trip.

I think the funniest thing that every happened was this: We went to the Colorado Belle in Laughlin. Everyone sat down to play slots while I checked us in. Mom and my money were in an envelope in my brand new purse. I got us checked in and walked over to her. Just at that minute she won an $80.00 jackpot. In her excitement, she dragged the cord connecting her to her slot club card across my cigarette (we all smoked, then). The ash dropped into my purse onto a tissue next to our money and caught on fire. I was able to get it out without burning up our money but ruined my purse.
I put the burned mess in an ashtry. M came over to see what Mom had won and put her cigarette out in that ashtray and caught the whole mess on fire again. I bet the people who worked there were dismayed that we were checking in instead of out.

Anyway, we've had lots of memories and stories.

Later,

Bev