First Vegas Trip

McGoo: My First Vegas Trip


McGoo shares his first Vegas trip…

My mother is to blame for my Vegas addiction, as she admitted my wedding, and I couldn’t be happier about it. She had visited Las Vegas a few times prior our trip and had always come home to tell me of all the wonders. She promised that when I turned 21, she would take me there. She made good on that promise and went just after my 21st birthday. I guess some young guys would prefer their first Vegas trip to be with their buddies, but she and I had found that visiting a casino together was a way that we could bond.

As I tried to piece this 2003 trip together from memory, I started to understand how this trip would mould the trips of my future. I wish I could recall more detail and that camera phones were more prevalent at that time. My mother and I spent time together and apart, allowing me time to explore on my own, something I very much enjoy today on solo ventures.

We stayed four nights in a regular room at Treasure Island. We dropped our bags and went to gamble, my mom to a slot machine and I walking around the pit gathering the guts to sit down and play. I wanted to play blackjack, but it was $10 min, a bit pricey for a student. I saw a $5 Casino War table, and Vegas Vacation flashed in my mind “War, bet again!”

First Vegas Trip

It was too ridiculous not to play. I bought in for $40 or so bucks and ordered my very first comped beer in Vegas (Sam Adams), a momentous occasion that would lead to far too many future occasions. I left the table $200 richer with a solid daytime buzz.

First Vegas Trip
Before City Center, Encore, The High Roller…

Through the front doors and down the wood plank roped walkway, I saw the Las Vegas Strip for the very first time. It’s that moment when night falls and you see Las Vegas for the first time while crossing the boulevard, street lined with never ending twinkling lights. The energy, the lights, the sounds and the overwhelming feeling of what if…. all comes together to create a place you never thought existed, but you are there, surrounded by it. The rich and poor all viewing equally with wonder and excitement, everyone being able to share it in their own ways.

She had told me we just had to see the Pirate Show, so at the right time, we took our place and watched the show. Unfortunately, this is when the Pirates had given way to the Sirens of TI. After the show, we both looked at each other like WTF was that?

Fancy dining was not in the cards for us, we ate at some of Vegas’s historically worst buffets. I remember having the IP breakfast buffet and dinner at the Boardwalk Buffet…. “I’ll have some of the yellow”

Boardwalk-Casino

We hit up all the Casinos, walking through and playing wherever. I remember walking through the Frontier, by the Westward Ho and weaving in between the concrete planters in front of the Stardust. We somehow ended up at Stratosphere, both of us going on a big run on the nickel machines. I remember playing the Million Dollar Pyramid and having a legit shot at a million bucks when I hit a bonus on max credits. All I needed to do was perfectly pick the correct five squares from the pyramid, I think I picked two correctly. We used some of our winnings on dinner, a trip up the tower and to see American Superstars.

First Vegas Trip

At some point, we spent some time walking around Downtown, and I distinctively remember playing slots in the California when a slot machine malfunctioned during my Mom’s bonus, earning her the minimum payout.

Three years ago I married the love of my life in Las Vegas. During that week my mother and I got to spend, not enough time, hanging out playing slots together just like our first Vegas trip.

[Images: Youtube, OldVegasChips, Robert Thorne | Cover by By Ronnie Macdonald from Chelmsford, United Kingdom (Treasure Island) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons]

2 thoughts on “McGoo: My First Vegas Trip

  1. Awww, that’s a great story. Sounds like you and your mom have a great relationship!!

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