It's Not A Bender, It's A Lifestyle.

Back from the yearly Xmas trip. Things happened. Flights:  Both Alaska and both fine. On time and no drama. No seat mates either flight and no 'rona concerns. Forfeited the flight credit on Allegiant not taking the Sunday flight back but it was a very good decision. Rooms: Cosmo was the reliable Terrace Studio for the first 3 nights. Had the view facing PH this time, quite nice. Had a look at the ice skating rink. Room great as always, this resort and room have cemented themselves as my go-to now for trips and I'm sure I'll be there many more times. Bellagio I had the Resort Tower King, non fountains view, so a view of the side of Caesars and of the Rio/Palms. Pretty meh. Bellagio has a kind of old, run down feel. Everything is in need of renovation; wallpaper peeling, old furniture, barely working shower. Best way I can describe it is it's your grandma's idea of a luxury room. Vegas has moved on and Bellagio needs to keep pace. Nice enough for $20/night though I gu...

By this time tomorrow I'll be sitting around SFO waiting to get on an airplane to the Vegas. Everything is ready. Money out of the bank, laundry done, devices charging, playlist completed, just need to get a good night's sleep tonight, dump the car at the work garage in the morning, catch an Uber to SFO and go go go. A last minute travel embargo placed by the City will not be enforced in any way and is therefore meaningless, but it gave me a palpitation when I read about it. I'm not concerned about my health traveling there. I feel at least as safe in Vegas as I do here, maybe even more so. The resorts are no joke about enforcing mask/distancing now. In terms of people, I expect it to be pretty damn dead. It always is for Xmas week, but this may be half again deader. The wildcard will be what the foreign contingent does. The strip is usually little Pakistan/India during Xmas week, but if they are not able to fly in it could be truly a ghost town, which I really don't mi...

So, after all that bullshit , I'm going to Vegas for Xmas, and it will probably be most of a normal trip. Or as normal as a Vegas trip can be in this fucked up year of doom. I will be willfully ignoring our state's governor (and the City's mayor) and boarding a plane in 4 days for my happy place. I'll be staying in 2 beautiful resorts, right next to each other (The Two Towers?), and going by the Turkey trip as a guide it'll be fairly normal-ish for an Xmas trip, mellow but that's always the case for Xmas trips and that's one of the reasons I love them. Hearing that hotel occupancy will be exceedingly low, somewhere around 5% even which seems crazy but that doesn't count all the peeps who may drive in for a day or two just to gamble and hang out. I may end up being the one and only at a lot of bars, but as long as they are open that doesn't bother me a bit. Some of my standbys like Fuel with tiny capacity will probably not be doable, especially since ...

His Eminence the Governor of Nevada holds a press conference at 4p today to presumably decide the fate of whether I get to go to Vegas or not. Nervous, but at least relieved that I won't have to wait until Tuesday to find out. 4 days before the trip was going to be a bitter pill if I'm fucked. If there's something like a test mandate to enter NV I have time to have a chance to schedule it. The way this year has gone I'm sure there will be some new wrinkle I'll either have to deal with or that will break the camel's back. One way or another, I either get the real hype going after 4p or I get the real depression.  Fuck it, I'm going to be an optimist and say my chances of going are now 80/20%. Why not. Check back at 4p as I live react. UPDATE 1: @VitalVegas, who is about as in the Vegas know as anyone alive, thinks there will simply be an extension of the current restrictions, nothing more. Hoping... UPDATE 2: Press conference starting...late. More cases...mor...

Still no clue if I'm Vegas-bound in a week. No change to CA's travel policy, it's "hey don't go anywhere" but there's no actual enforcement. The rub continues to be what will Nevada do. As has been the case for most trips this year, I probably will not know until a few days before trip time. Sisolak is likely to hold another press conference Tuesday at the end of the original "pause" that placed the 25% occupancy restrictions on. I have until Thursday to cancel the trip if need be so he's cutting it close as always. If he keeps everything as is, with the current occupancy rates and bars open, it's full steam ahead. If he shuts down or closes the bars, it's either go and be pissy or don't go at all. I don't want to do another seating required trip like August, but I guess if it were that or sitting at home I would go. Nothing to do now but wait until he decides my fate, for the 3rd time this year. Slightly more pessimistic now,...

Whelp, a little over a week out, and I still have no concrete reason to think I'm NOT going to Vegas for Xmas, so, plan post time. Sunday: Fly in day, early to rise and down to work to drop off the car, then on to SFO for the flight out at 11:45a. To town if all goes well by 1:30p or so, taxi to Cosmo and try to check in, if too early I'll drop the bag and get a couple drinks somewhere while waiting. Once up in the room, do the unpack and head out to the strip. Getting sorted on day one is the priority after getting on the ground. Any drink/gamble time is a bonus. Sunday evening, since reservations for the trip will likely be required, I have a reservation at the Pub at Crystals for 4p. Figure that's a good spot to soak up a little booze and at least it's close to the Cosmo. After that it'll likely be a cab and over to the Palazzo to hang with whomever is at Electra and Rosina, hopefully the Evan/Daniel combo. Then we'll see where the night goes from there. I wi...

The winter of my discombobulation continues. Our old friend COVID is spiking across the country. The Bay Area including SF has basically re-imposed the full shutdown again, at least until after Xmas. There's no ban on travel, yet, but it's "discouraged". I don't think legally they can ban air travel unless cases go through the roof, and in an emergency I could always drive anyway, so now the only roadblock (probably) to me being able to go to Vegas is the NV Gov. He could re-impose a lockdown like March - probably unlikely. To update a previous post, I'd probably put my go/no go odds now at 70% go. But enough worry for one post. Assuming I'm able to go and do a Thanksgiving-level trip, I think I have a good one lined up. 3 nights Cosmo in a Terrace Studio, 3 nights Bellagio in a Resort Tower King still locked in. Moving resorts not ideal but I'll just do mobile check-in with the MGM app and avoid the check-in lines, I doubt there's an upgrade avai...

The mandatory 2020 pre-trip worry post to follow. Back from Turkey Vegas, got that one in more or less unscathed, but now more possible clouds on the horizon for the Xmas trip. COVID cases are ballooning all over the place, and things are escalating rapidly in terms of how governments are responding to it, and trying (in vain) to contain it. CA has imposed a curfew and rollback to basically lockdown, and there are rumblings that a travel quarantine may be put in place. This would obviously mean having to isolate for whatever arbitrary period of time after, say, a trip to Nevada. Can only assume this would be enforced at airports, not sure how they could do it on cars without causing traffic meltdowns. If it came to that, I could drive again (ugh), not ideal but I would do it if it meant a trip happening or not. Can't see Nevada putting one on, it would effectively be a death knell for the resorts. Speaking of Nevada though, next week Tuesday is the end of the 3 week "pause...