definitely not a high roller

I am back from Vegas...finally. Drive back from Indy is a real killer when you're tired.

The trip was mostly good, wedding was beautiful. Among the high and lowlights:

1. Despite the fact that I had calculated out when I needed to leave for the airport at Indy, taking into consideration their freakish inadherance to daylight savings time, using timeanddate.com, when I left the apartment Thursday morning I got it into my head that they were an hour ahead and there was, therefore, no possible way I would be able to get to the airport in time for my flight. I figured that I would arrive at about 7 a.m. - my flight was at 7:05. Not so good. I sped to the airport, walked in the front doors at 7:10, figuring I had missed my flight, totally stressed out. I went to do e-ticket check-in, not knowing what else to do. I figured I could (hopefully) change my flight there. Looked at the e-ticket screen: 5:10 a.m. I am such an idiot. Needless to say, I did not miss my flight.

2. Vegas is huge. Yeah, duh. But seriously, I did not realize the full magnitude of it from TV/movies. Like, the buildings just look like buildings. But then you get there and those buildings are like a bazillion stories tall and a mile wide. We stayed at the Golden Nugget, which was downtown, but me and my friend Sarah took a bus out to the strip. We started at New York, New York and ended up walking all the way down to Wynn. Which was, we learned later, insane. But the buildings are so big you have this off depth perception, and it's all, "we can totally walk to the Venetian!" It was really cool to see some of the casinos. The theme ones were kind of fun, but I think my favorite was the Bellagio. It was really pretty and classy. We didn't go in Wynn, but I heard mixed reviews on it from others who did.

3. I thought it was interesting that they had a city ordinance that from every point in Las Vegas, there has to be a Starbucks within spitting distance. Seriously.

4. I gambled a bit. By a bit, I mean like $5. In the penny slots. In and amidst the strip walking, we stopped to feed a few slots, but that got boring really quick. It's like, wait, I just put my money in here and play this sort-of-but-not game, and keep feeding it dollars? Windows solitaire is more fun than this shit, and it's free. Maybe Microsoft should make slot machines. Then you could totally hack them and steal money. They should make a whole Microsoft casino. And put a McDonalds and a WalMart in there. They could call it the Evil Palace.

5. Spent Friday before the wedding by the pool and then in the spa with a book (Oryx and Crake...holy pacing issues, Batman). Definitely much more my idea of a vacation. Got moderately tan, which was good. The sun there is really scary -- I got in the pool and then the shade when I could feel myself baking.

6. We took a party bus from the hotel down the strip to the wedding chapel. Pretty wild. I've only now been in one Vegas wedding chapel, so I can't really gauge, but I thought this one was nice, especially compared to some of the places we passed along the way. Heh. As I said before, the wedding was short, but beautiful. Not without light moments, too, like when the preacher was talking about a rainbow, and what's at the end of a rainbow. We're all like, uh, a leprachaun? A box of Lucky Charms?* But anyway, my friend Katherine looked really beautiful, and I'm so happy for her and Eric.

7. Somewhere along the line, I apparently picked up a mild case of food poisoning. Woke up at about 3 a.m. this morning and did. not. feel. good. at. all. I've felt mildly nauseous all day, even after the worst of it passed. I bought the world's smallest bottle of Pepto at the hotel for $6 (ironic, considering that I ate at the hotel all Friday). Then I got hungry at the airport and decided to try a Cinnabon and coffee. Remember how I said that I am an idiot? Yeah. Not a good idea. So then I wandered around trying to find some ginger ale, because that was about the only thing I thought I could stomach. But all the little grab-random-crap-before-you-fly stores only had water. WATER! That's it! Then I passed an airport bar and thought, "they will totally have ginger ale there!" They did not. What kind of BAR doesn't carry GINGER ALE? In an AIRPORT? I did finally get some on the plane.

8. Speaking of airports, I have to hand it to McCarron. I gave myself three hours from hotel to flight time, partly because of the Indy scare, but also because people said it was a bigger airport and it might take a long time to get through security. Nuh uh. It took an hour to get from the hotel (via shuttle, not cab) to my gate. Now, this might change later in the day as it get busier, but I was impressed. Big airports don't screw around with stuff -- there were a lot of people that needed to go through security, but they had a ton of lines. And they didn't do stuff the smaller airports do, like make you take off your shoes, no matter what shoes you're wearing. They did that at Indy. People were taking off tennis shoes, even. I'm there like, these are Nike sandals, I SWEAR there's no metal in them. But if you try to argue it just takes longer. Ironically, I was so flummoxed over the shoes that I forgot to take off my watch at Indy. It didn't set off the metal detector -- nice. At least the floor wasn't filthy, like in San Juan. I flew Northwest both ways, mostly because they fly nonstop there out of Indy. My planes were, like, older than me (WAY older, I think), but the ride was okay. I think they even had a little more leg room than a 737. My prize for best planes still goes to Continental, who have those little wing-headrests, so you don't fall asleep on your neighbor (and vice versa) or wake up with a sore neck. Got to see the Grand Canyon from above, so that was cool. It even looks freaking big that high up.

Maybe I'll try to figure out how to post pictures tomorrow.

* FYI: Pot of gold. I think everyone simultaneously blanked on that one.