Las Vegas Blowout

Well as a celebration of both Derek acknowledging he is yet another year older and Alex’s imminent departure to Alaska for work after Xmas to hang out with Palin in the frozen cold we decided to go to Vegas. The main purpose of this trip was to do one of Derek’s lifelong dreams. To fall out of a plane with a ‘professional’ strapped to his back. In the end 5 of us did this ‘silly’ activity with only Alex not doing it. His excuses was money but after watching him lose money on the Blackjack tables, well I’m not so sure :-)

The posse included myself, Derek, Alex, Scott and the tag along Canadians Jamie and Lee. We stayed in the old part of Vegas. The Fremont Experience. It was pretty cool and when the half mile long roof lights up every hour to play some rocking tunes night turns to day. It was pretty wicked. So this first night turned into a mess. I guess that’s what happens when you hang out feeding the penny slots and getting the waitresses to bring us free drinks. Especially when you ask for the strongest drinks which had a multitude of different poisons mixed together and presented itself as a toxic blue liquid. It tasted ok and by the way we were feeling the next morning it worked well too. The next morning after looking extremely hung over in McDonalds we got a call from the Skydive place. It had been cancelled. The winds were huge and there were dust storms blowing up all round Vegas in the desert. We rescheduled for Sunday and went down to the Strip. We decided to go up the Stratosphere and do the rides up there. 1 was shut but 2 were open. Anyway we get up there only to find out only one was open. We did it and it was scary and a moment after we got off the ride which shot you off the side of the tower 300m above the ground a power cut occurred. The wind-chill was nasty up there as was the speed of the wind. The whole tower was shaking. We were so lucky not to have been stuck out there.



The rest of the day was proceeded by doing the tourist thing on the strip. Like drinking beer on the streets and in the foodcourts. Mmm. Fun times. Oh and the highlight was definitely Alex procuring one of the T-Shirts that all the non English speaking Latinos wear when trying to promote the services of the many prostitutes which are available for as little as $35 straight to your room within 20mins. Mmm, yes please can I have a main of herpes and a side of the STD currently in fashion thanks. Dirty, dirty. If you have not been to Vegas you will not understand how many of them there are and how aggressive they are. They all where these T-Shirts which Alex is proudly shown wearing in my pics and literally throw these cards of girls in all sorts of positions at you. Little did I know but they were even filling up my back pockets as I walked past.

Anyway another night preceded much like the first one except it started out with a great meal and festivities at a German beer house. This included Derek, Alex and Scott attempting a competition where you hold out a 1 litre stein in front of you, with arms straight and hold it for as long as possible without spilling any beer. Alex got third overall with a great effort; suffice to say that a girl bet him. Hehe. They lasted for 7 mins which is a great effort, the world record being 12min. I wish I had tried it too but I did not volunteer because I thought it was a drinking competition and after finishing 2 of these big steins dropping another liter would not have been conducive to lasting the evening.

The next day after dragging ourselves out of our rooms at the illustrious El Cortez Hotel we filled up on yet more glorious food from El Pollo Loco. What a joke. They call this fast food. It took me 30mins to get a shitty burrito. We then drove out to Boulder City and before we knew it we were sitting in a little Cessna, 7 pairs of us climbing rapidly above the desert. The views of Hoover Dam and Lake Mead were impressive. The rest of it as you imagine is pretty stark and boring.

Anyhow my tandem fellow turned out to be this little Dutchman. And by little he is much smaller than I but in the end my worries were alleviated. Even if he did start out by saying that he had yet to lose anyone. I asked him how long he had been working here. He said 2 weeks. I thought yikes. As it turns out he is a veteran. Been doing it since tandem started and has over 13500 jumps under his belt. His record in a day is 27 jumps. Don’t ask me how.

Well what can I say? I was scared as hell. More scared than I have ever been. More so cause I was not in control of anything other than the VISA card that let me do it. After kitting up and small talk in the plane before I knew it I was crouched at the open door of the plane 5km above the earth. The rest really is a blur. It all happened so fast. I was screaming then enjoying the ride, then scared when the parachute opened up and we got tugged big time, then happy as hell at the zero gravity moments then ecstatic that he let me take the controls, then we were on the ground landing using my butt as a stopping friction pad. It was an experience I will never forget, I will not do it again for ages but don’t regret it.

I ordered a DVD of my wild ride so I will post that up when I get it. There are a few pics on here as Alex captured the before and after scenes and a few of us floating back to earth. Anyhow after the ride we all slumped back into the car in our somewhat hung-over states and spent the next 4hrs cruising back home talking about the weekend, the holes in our bank accounts and the jumping out of (well actually being pushed out of..) a plane. The traffic was very light for a Sunday so that somewhat eased the pain :-)



Overall a great trip. One I will not do again in the same capacity for a real long time.

Hotels in Vegas - $$$
Food in Vegas - $$$$
Drink in Vegas - $$$$$
Taxis in Vegas - $$$$
Activities in Vegas - $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
Being scared like that – Priceless!!!