Your First Vegas memories?

Four memories come to mind on my first trip to Vegas in '93 I believe.

1) Came in at night with my parents and they rented a car and drove down the strip at night. The lights were awesome. Stayed downtown at The Golden Nugget.

2) Parents drove us to Luxor and said they would pick us up at Circus Circus about eight hours later. My wife and I rode the rides at Luxor (back when they had them) and walked through Excal, MGM, Boardwalk, Alladin, etc. all the way down to Circus Circus. This was before cell phones and for whatever reason, my parents figured we made our own way back to downtown and left before we got there. We were actually broke and knowing we couldn't walk it (it was getting dark) we took the bus and at every stop the buses were crowded. I also remember it being cold.

3) Last day my wife and I were broke and I was going to the sports book to watch the Dallas/San Francisco NFC championship game and my wife sat down with my mom to play slots. My mom gave my wife some money to play and within 15 minutes after I left, she hit a $2,500 jackpot. We came with $500 to play with and went home with two grand. We thought Vegas was easy money at the time.

4) My first night I won $55 in nickles and had to put them in a cup. Went to Binions to meet my parents and eat and I was drunk and as I was starting to tell them about my $55 win and lift up the cup, I lost my balance and the cup of nickles went scattering across the floor. Sad thing about that is I barely remember it.

I used to go to Reno a couple of times a year, but in '91 I decided to change it up and go to Vegas. A couple of good friends had moved there and I wanted to see the town. My first impression of course was flying in, but that's not up close and personal.

This was one of only two trips (my first two trips) that I didn't rent a car. I took one of the shuttles to my hotel (IP 4 nts @$179 single occ. with air), those were the days. We made 4-5 stops before mine, so I had plenty of time to sightsee. The Excal was the one that explained it all for me. I thought that if some company spent the millions to build something that big and that gawdy, they must really be cleaning up.
I had always known about casino edge, but this confirmed it.

Good Luck!
Ric at Joes

Hey Now!
Vegoose 2005. 4 days, stayed at Terrible's. Had a good friend who lived there, and took us up the strip. Stopped at Venetian, we were amazed. I remember riding in the back of his mustang, loving the neon. We ended the night downtown- it was Halloween night. Magic. Took the bus to Sam Boyd stadium for the festival. Had a blast. We played .25 video BJ at the Stage Bar at Terrible's, I had no idea what I was doing, but it had a double up feature, and I turned $20 into $400. There we met Ziggy the bartender, and we are dear friends to this day. As a matter of fact, we are bringing him and his wife a Smithfield ham this trip. 6th trip coming up in 3 days!