On a recent Tuesday afternoon my wife and I decided that we should take our very own walking tour of the Las Vegas strip. This would be an abbreviated tour only in locations visited but not in overall distance.
Our tour began at the Paris Las Vegas with breakfast at Cafe St. Louis . My wife has this thing for crepes and we missed the specialty crepe storefront by accident. Needless to say I found myself engaged in a large helping of “American breakfast” that would prepare me for my long journey.
Our goal for this day of walking was to make our way south along Las Vegas blvd. until we came to the Mandalay Bay hotel and then head back and have dinner at the Venetian. Somehow we would interject a few snacks, some alcohol and some gambling into our daylong trek.
We both were adequately prepared for a walk, if you need a little direction in that respect see walking tips to prepare yourself.
Here is our plan; we each have fifty dollars for gambling, fifty dollars for drinking and fifty dollars for food. Our idea is that if we spent an entire day in a casino we would lose much more than that. Our drink stipend is actually not money we are prepared to spend because if you are gambling, drinks are complimentary. Our money for gambling will be considered lost before we start walking so as to achieve that mental state that we are having a good time and not paying fifty dollars each to walk a few miles. As for food, well, I love to eat and realistically if I have to dip into the other two allotments for a decent meal it will happen.
After breakfast we walked over to a roulette table and decided we would wager in five dollar increments no matter where we were at. I felt lucky and decided to put my five dollars on number fifteen, if you consider that with one spin of the wheel I could make $175 dollars I began to taste the lobster lunch I could be having. My wife ever the cautious gambler placed her five dollars on red. An even money bet, not too daring.
The ball bounced around like a Mexican jumping bean on your kitchen counter, it stopped and darted and hopped and stalled and finally settled into its resting place. I began counting my money as the ball hit the black 15, my arms raised in excitement and I screamed as the drink lady came by with my early morning Jack and coke. At that moment the most peculiar thing happened, the ball simply moved its way out of the black 15 and into the red 19 slot. The chips were practically in my hand before they were rushed away. The dealer placed his marker on the 19 and I looked away in embarrassment of my premature celebration. My wife, well she collected her five dollar chip and her cup of coffee and we left the Paris casino.
It was a good omen, with the idea of community property neatly in my psyche I figured we were still even. I lose five my wife gains five, hey we are even, and even is good in Vegas. We did tip a dollar each for our drinks so we were down a dollar on each of our drink allotments.
We headed south along the east side of the boulevard and realized we had not climbed the steps of the Eiffel tower. As we turned to look at the landmark tower we could see a line forming at the elevator. We quickly made our back to the tower and paid our $9 dollars each to ride to the top of this 460 foot metal structure. The views were great but I wasn’t so sure the price tag was worth it. We took the nine dollars out of our drink fund and decided to be a bit more frugal about what we decided was worth spending money on. We did have to eat, you know.
