#90. The Gang's Big Weekend
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This is a bonus episode with no movie review at all — instead Sonny, JVL, and Vic swap stories from their divergent President's Day weekends, which they'd each undertaken separately after discussing plans on the previous episode. The cold open is JVL's shell-shocked 1:45am voice memo ("I've made a huge mistake") from his first-ever attempt at solo winter camping in Shenandoah: he hiked in 1.5 miles to a primitive campground, cooked freeze-dried backpacker meals and artisanal instant coffee, was inexplicably asleep by 5pm, woke at 9:30pm in worsening cold with condensation dripping onto his face from the tent wall, and by 1:30am — joints aching, spooked by three pairs of reflective eyes in the dark — packed up and speed-hiked the trail back to his car to sleep sitting up with the heater running; he redeemed the trip the next day with a 12-mile hike that intersected the Appalachian Trail and a summit lunch he genuinely loved. Meanwhile Sonny and Vic impulsively booked a parallel Las Vegas trip, staying at the Cosmopolitan on Vic's Marriott points, hunting the strip for increasingly scarce $15 tables, and eating a seafood tower and steaks at Prime by Jean-Georges at the Bellagio (Vic left steak on the plate, which he calls one of his great life regrets) followed by a disappointing $70-a-head Bacchanal buffet at Caesars that both agreed was mediocre and over-salted; Sonny came out ahead playing cash-game poker while Vic worked the crap tables in his scattershot multi-bet style, got a barbershop straight-razor shave at "Cuts and Cocktails," and by the second night was staggering so badly from exhaustion and a gout flare-up that Sonny had to steer him back to the room by the elbow like an invalid.
From the show notes
So ... how was your weekend?
Full transcript
JVL00:00:00It's 145 on Sunday morning. I just hiked back to the car. I've made a huge mistake.
Vic00:00:24Hello and welcome to our big bonus episode of the Sub-Beacon. I'm Victor Matus along with Jonathan V Last and Sonny Bunch. Just a reminder, the Sub-Beacon is now available through Patreon. Go to subbeacon.com. You'll easily find us. Please subscribe. Today we are talking about our President's Day weekends. It's something that we decided that we were going to do all at the same time. We're going to do our own trips, if you will. And we kind of talked about it a little bit, at least JVL did, because he talked about an impending trip that he was going to take. JVL, why don't you go first and tell us what you did.
JVL00:01:07I've been working up. I really wanted to go winter camping, which I've never done before.
Vic00:01:12There's two things about that that would immediately, I would say no.
Sonny00:01:18First off, winter. Second off, camping, because that's where the bears are. So it's like... Cold bear territory. I don't understand. Explain to us your thinking and your preparation.
JVL00:01:29My thinking was I wanted solitude, thinking fortress of solitude, right? Where you imagine not having to speak to another human being for days on end and to not even hear anything, right? Just to be out of cell range. You can't answer emails.
Vic00:01:44You should have done a silent retreat. You should have done a silent retreat.
JVL00:01:47You know what they have in silent retreats? What? Other people. But we're not supposed to talk though, right? Yeah, but you can see them.
Sonny00:01:54Oh, I see. You know they're there. You wanted to go full Kaczynski. Oral and visual solitude.
JVL00:01:59I like to think of it as full Superman, full Kal-El. And so I've been planning this out with the help of two buddies who are much butcher than I am, Justin and Marshall, who both sent me gear and gift certificates to buy gear because you got to gear up if you're going to go out in nature in the winter. And so I planned this out and last weekend was it and I did it and went out to the mountains in Shenandoah.
Vic00:02:31No, not the Appalachian Trail. Not the Appalachian Trail.
JVL00:02:34Oh, why Victorino, yes. What? It turns out the campground I went to had its hiking trails intersected with the A.T. And so I went and I even got a few miles on the A.T. in.
Sonny00:02:50Look at you.
JVL00:02:51Is this enough for you to be able to say,
Sonny00:02:54"Oh, yeah, I hiked part of the Appalachian Trail"? Have you hiked? Yes. I've hiked the Appalachian Trail. Yeah.
JVL00:03:00I've hiked part of it. Could you say that with like- There's a very specific term for the A.T., as we call it. It's called through hiking. And so a through hiker is somebody who's hiked the entire Appalachian Trail. Which is- The whole thing. Pretty sensual. From Mount Katahdin and it's more than that.
Sonny00:03:2412 miles?
JVL00:03:25It's close to 15.
Sonny00:03:27Close to 15 miles. That's too many miles. You're pulling my leg.
JVL00:03:32So it was an interesting experience and I can talk a little bit more about it because I think it dovetails nicely with what you boys decided to do. Okay. So I think we should do a lot of compare and contrast here.
Sonny00:03:46Sure. Sure. Well, so after our episode discussing Las Vegas, I was like- Yeah. I was like, "I got to go." I was like, "I got to go to Vegas."
Vic00:03:57It was the rounder show.
Sonny00:03:58It was the rounder show.
Vic00:03:59It was a rounder show. And you've mentioned this to me before.
Sonny00:04:01I reached out to a friend in California. I was like, "Hey, we'd been talking about going to Vegas." I was like, "Hey, I am going this weekend." I was just like, "I'm making a plan." I was like, "I'm going to go this weekend. Can you come this weekend?" And he was like, "Yes. Let's do it. We'll be there." And then long story short, he ended up not coming. He had to work. But after I discussed with him, I texted Vic and then you, JVL, in short order. I was like, "Hey, I'm going to Vegas this weekend. I've already booked my ticket. If you want to come, we should all go." And Vic was able to, but I had kind of forgotten that it was the hiking weekend. So you could not make it, JVL. But the-
Vic00:04:48I also forgot that was President's Weekend. I don't think I would have gone because I'm sure my family would have liked to do something else before I-
JVL00:04:55Too bad. Too bad. No. Once you have families, fortune favors the bold. You got to just- You have to do it. Well, that's what they tell you.
Sonny00:05:03That's what they tell you in Vegas. You got to just do it. You got to- Yeah. If you start hemming and hawing and like, "Oh, I got things. But what about this?" You just have to pick a date and go. And I did. As soon as I thought...
Vic00:05:12Yeah. And that's basically... It was very impulsive. It was very unusual for me. I told a friend. My friend, Stevie Starris, called me. I told him I was going. He couldn't believe it. He goes, "That's so unlike you." You know, we'll see.
Sonny00:05:22We were almost able to get another one of our friends out there, remember? So we're out. Oh, yes. We're in Vegas on the first day. That would have been insane. And we reached... Can we say it? Do you think we can say his name? Sure. Sure. Of course. So we reached out to Andy Ferguson, who... He's a little bit down because of PJ's passing. We were like, "Hey..." We were trading emails. I was like, "Hey, if you're feeling down, come on out to Vegas." And he got on Google and was looking for flights. But unfortunately, there was no direction.
Vic00:05:49I thought you can drive there.
?00:05:50I thought it was...
Vic00:05:51It's like two hours away. I clearly...
Sonny00:05:53No, it's like a six-hour drive. Six, seven-hour drive. It's not short.
JVL00:05:56It's not... You always think it's two hours. Think about this.
Sonny00:05:59In Go. I see movies. In Go. In Rounders. In Rounders. Go?
JVL00:06:05Or not Rounders. Swingers.
Sonny00:06:07Yeah. Oh, that's right. Swingers. The Hangels. Swingers.
Vic00:06:12They're like, "Vegas, baby, Vegas." And then four hours later, they're passing out.
JVL00:06:14In the park. But you were going to say JVL in Go? No. Well, they also drive to Vegas, from LA to Vegas. But I guess it was Swingers.
Vic00:06:19But it does.
JVL00:06:21It is more like driving from D.C. to Boston than it is D.C. to Baltimore.
Sonny00:06:27Oh, yeah. I would never... Oh, yeah.
Vic00:06:30Or like D.C. to New York. Oh, man.
JVL00:06:32Yeah, it's better than that even. Do that.
Sonny00:06:34So, that's what we did. So, anyway, I was just like, "We're doing this. We're doing this." And then, somehow, Vic, you had points. I had points.
Vic00:06:41First of all, the first thing I did was ask permission from my wife. I said, "You were thinking for my birthday, what to get me? How about this?"
JVL00:06:49And she's like...
Vic00:06:50"How about I get to leave you for my birthday?" "How about I get to leave you so I could just gamble away our family's savings?" And she said, "Okay."
Sonny00:06:56Perfect.
Vic00:06:57I did have points. I did have points at Marriott points.
JVL00:07:00Kate said, "Vic, when you're playing craps, it's not gambling."
Sonny00:07:04So, while JBL was getting his sleeping bag and one person tents together, we were walking
Vic00:07:14into... Into the cosmopolitan. Cosmopolitan. The cosmopolitan on the strip, which is owned by Marriott. I had no idea. Is that new? One of the new ones? It is. It's new-ish. It's new-ish. And you know what? It is just... It is one block south of Bellagio. You know, blocks are so close together, by the way, there. But it is just... So, it's like Caesars, Bellagio, and now the cosmopolitan. And it is across the street basically from Paris, Las Vegas.
JVL00:07:43I love that location. The Bellagio is my favorite location.
Vic00:07:46It is a great location. What used to be there? Ah! This is really interesting. JVL, this is really interesting because I asked my cab driver the same question because I said I hadn't been there in 10 years. The last time I was in Vegas was when I was reporting for the Vodka Book. And so, I said, "What was here before?" And he said it was always sort of nothing. It was a weird open space of just stuff. And that finally happened. But the interesting thing was the cosmopolitan was supposed to be some sort of a condo complex. And that fell through.
Sonny00:08:17And so then it became... I think they were building it like... They started right when...
Vic00:08:21Oh, 809. Yeah. Oh, the housing bust? Yeah, 809. Yes. So that's why he says when you go in, the entrance is... It's wide enough for me, but it is sort of compared to other casino layouts, it's a little bit narrower, the way it's designed and it's a tall building, it's skinnier. So that was it. But that was our thing. And so I said to Sonny, "If you want to save money, I got a room with two queens, so to speak."
Sonny00:08:46Oh!
Vic00:08:47Whoa! And he said, "Okay, we're going to do it. Let's do it." And Sonny said, "This is crazy."
Sonny00:08:52I remember Sonny... Perfect.
Vic00:08:54Let's do it. So how much is that place a night, if you're not using points? Sonny, you checked it out.
Sonny00:08:59If you are not using points, it was basically $1,000 for the weekend.
Vic00:09:03Oh my goodness. And we had a little balcony.
Sonny00:09:07We had a little balcony.
Vic00:09:08We had a little balcony. So we got it here. So not an exterior... So you got to be outdoors too. Yes, a little bit. We put on a little bit of a show. And that fresh desert air, but when I said, "Let's do it," and you can share the room with me, and Sonny said, "This is so crazy. I can't believe this is happening." I said, "Yeah, you're going to say that that night." JVL, I had to write that one down because I said, "I can't forget. I have to remember."
Sonny00:09:30It's another part of our love language.
Vic00:09:32Right. That's part of our... It is a part of our love language. And it was texting... Oh my God. Oh my God.
JVL00:09:38I can't believe this is happening. I can't believe this is happening. I'm so drunk. I'm so drunk. Oh my God.
Vic00:09:43Okay. Stop. Stop. Don't stop. Don't stop, actually. Stop. No, wait. I'm not done yet. JVL, so this is where... This is what we were doing, and you went to...
JVL00:09:54I went out to Shenandoah, and I had a very strange experience the first day where I got out there and I hiked in the mile and a half from the parking spot through the trailhead and out to the campground, which was a very nice campground. So it was what they call a primitive campground, which means that... But it really is quite nice. You could buy firewood there. You didn't have to lug your own firewood out. They had a well, so there was non-potable water. You had to boil it before you could drink it.
Vic00:10:26I wish it was potable. Sorry.
JVL00:10:29Potable. Question. Question. Yeah. Bathroom. So they had vault toilets, which were really nice. So it's a building made of cinder blocks, but nice cinder blocks with a door and you walk inside. There's a hole in the ground with a like a seat on top, which is really nice for I mean,
Sonny00:10:54this is, you know, in the bathroom, in our hotel room, there was not only a jet tub, but there was also a shower that had like a bench on the end of it so you could sit and just get soaked.
Vic00:11:04Oh, well, yeah, I didn't have one of those dual vanities, marble vanities, dual vanities. Sonny, did you use the bench? Did you use the bench at all?
Sonny00:11:12No, I did not the first the first time I used the shower. The shower was the, you know, in the morning after. And I was I was trying not to vomit as I as I as I thought about everything that had happened the night before.
JVL00:11:27Yeah, I had to clean up my mess before you, too. So what? So what did you guys do when you when did you go out?
Vic00:11:35You went out Saturday? Yes, Friday, Friday, Friday, Friday to Sunday, Friday.
Sonny00:11:40So you got to the hotel at like three on Friday.
Vic00:11:44Yes. And I got there earlier. So I was in the room. Alone. I got a quick one in a nap. And then you know, so I got in just slightly earlier and I actually actually caught up with some work and I was in the balcony. But the funny thing is, during the day, it's fine in the shade. But when you're out, even though it's February, it was February, it was like sixty eight degrees and wasn't hot. And when the sun directly shines on you, it's unbearable. It's like that. So I'm in the shade, but I was able to look over some stuff on my phone. And then Sonny came out and I said, hey, you know, get settled in. And then I said, let's what I like to do. Let's let's explore the hotel. Let's see what's going on here, specifically the layout of the casino. So I said, let's see what the situation is. Let's look around. Let's look at the table of minimums. How many? What was it like? What are the minimums? Twenty five.
JVL00:12:36Now everywhere.
Sonny00:12:37Yes. In cause in the Cosmo, they were when we were like early on Friday was twenty five everywhere. And then by by like Friday night, it was fifty.
JVL00:12:47Oh, fifty dollar, fifty dollar minimum.
Sonny00:12:50There were a couple. There were there were still like one or two twenty five dollar tables, but like most of them were fifty dollar minimums.
Vic00:12:55But then we walked further down the strip.
Sonny00:12:57Yeah.
Vic00:12:58Then we kept going. Circus Circus.
Sonny00:13:00I know we go to that bar.
Vic00:13:01We didn't go that we went to Bally's and we went to Bally's in Paris. Fifteen dollar. Yeah. Surprisingly, Paris, Las Vegas had a few. Fifteen dollar table. I was really surprised by that. They were the most crowded tables. And the fact is, once you're there, you're betting more than fifteen anyway.
Sonny00:13:16Because you got to when you're playing craps, Vic, like it's it's very interesting to watch Vic play craps because he will he'll like like a like a like a ferret. He's looking for the fifteen dollar table and then he finds it. And then all of a sudden he puts down like four hundred dollars, fifteen, fifteen, twenty five here.
Vic00:13:36That's not true at all. You know, my wife is listening to this. Dealer bet.
Sonny00:13:40And I'm just like, I'm just like, what's happening? My sonny, stop. How do I? How do I?
Vic00:13:45I just want to bet my fifteen dollars. I'm just talking. My wife is listening to this. I told her I lost twenty bucks. I lost.
Sonny00:13:51No, no. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. That's not what it is. No, but it was that because it was that because he's telling the truth. Vic plays Vic plays like six different things at any given time. And I'm just like, what is that? What is this? Isn't like blackjack where I just play my hand and I get it and then pass.
JVL00:14:08Don't pass is not enough action for me. No, no, no. It is. Get it up.
Sonny00:14:14It's going to be more action than that. It's got to be at the point. He's got odds. He's got it. He's like he's putting things down.
JVL00:14:19He's like Bob Crane.
Sonny00:14:21He's putting he's putting chips down on the little buttons that I have always the two way any soccer bats.
JVL00:14:25Two way any. Oh, I hit one later.
Sonny00:14:27And I'm just like, I'm like, I'm like, oh, what do you even need right now? Like, what?
Vic00:14:32I do. I want to win with the dealer. You win. We win. Everybody's friends. Nobody has to be adversarial. Whereas Sonny, Sonny goes and he plays poker. I can't even go near Sonny. Yes. He finds a table. First of all, it takes you. Much like my situation.
Sonny00:14:47No, no. We'll get to that. We'll get to that. We'll get to that. We'll get to that. We'll get to that.
JVL00:14:53So what did you eat? Yes. JVL. So I had a pack. I must confess that real outdoorsman when they're going to go out on they spreadsheet this shit. And so they've got everything they're going to take. They have its cubic volume as well as its weight in grams. You know exactly what they're going to do. I left on. It was Saturday morning and I didn't while I have been thinking about this for a long time at the last minute, I just started throwing shit in my back and I, that's a violation of the, I took more what's violation because you need to carry it. So I, I was carting around more than I should have. I mean, there were things when I looked at it, I was like, why did I pack my camp chair? I don't need a camp chair. Why? Why did I pack like two changes? I'm not gonna change clothes while I'm out here. Why? Why just like wasting grams that I have to carry around? Uh, you know, I, I brought a pot to boil water. I don't need a pot to boil water. I have a jet boil system to a little stove to boil water.
Sonny00:16:01I don't need the pot.
JVL00:16:03Yeah. So there was a lot. I took a Yeti tumbler for my coffee in the morning, what the fuck do I need a Yeti tumbler
Sonny00:16:09for my coffee?
JVL00:16:10You know, I thought to myself like, oh, I'll get to have hot coffee in the morning. Well, that's great. But you're also lugging around, you know? 140 grams worth of Yeti.
Sonny00:16:17It's an extra, it's an extra three ounces.
JVL00:16:20Anyway. Uh, so I, I had some really good food from, uh, backpacker, backpackers, pantry and mountain house, which for people who are into camping food is great. You, it's a nice little pouch and these things like MRE, eh, like really nice MREs. Yeah. These things are often good till like you look at the, you know, the sell by date on them and it's shit like good till March of 2016. And, uh, you open it up and, you know, they have really good stuff. There was, there's a beef lasagna, there's pad thai, chicken pad thai, uh, even some desserts, chocolate cheesecake, uh, good granola and three berry granola for breakfast. You just, yeah, yeah. Boil your water from the well, make sure you boil the water and you pour it in.
Vic00:17:08You stir it up. You seal the pouch in your water boiler thing that you have and you boil it in the little,
JVL00:17:14your little jet. Yeah. Jet boil system. Yeah. And, uh, and then let it sit for 10 minutes and et cetera. And just make sure that when you're done, you, you take your, your used pouch and you go put it into a bear box because you don't want to leave it out anything that is used food.
Vic00:17:32Yeah. Out. I w I, I would agree with that even though I wouldn't do it, but I would think that's the responsible thing for you to do question. What did you do? You're a, you're a very serious coffee person. What did you do for coffee?
JVL00:17:43There is a. Uh, there are a bunch of, of options for this. I chose the upgraded option, which is the artisanal instant coffee and, uh. Just need boiled water. Just boil water or not. You can do it as iced coffee, you know, whatever, whatever kind of water you want. This is unlike the old days with Sanka was remember Sanka. Yeah, yeah, sure.
Sonny00:18:06Like that was dehydrated coffee. So that was like a crystals. Yeah.
JVL00:18:10So what you're really getting, you're getting crystallized the oil from coffee beans, you can crystallize version of that. They're getting reconstituted. This stuff is really like micro ground. It is ground so fine that it's simply dissolves in the water and we've made real advances in instant coffee. We really have actually, it was Starbucks who did it. It was Starbucks who did it when they, when they pushed via to market, which was their instant. Uh, everybody else followed them. It was really good. Okay. I, I enjoyed it. Question.
Sonny00:18:41Yeah. Who brought you your seafood tower?
JVL00:18:45Hmm.
Vic00:18:46So I, did you guys have a seafood tower? Okay. So we, uh, we, we went around, we play it a little bit. I think Sonny, did you actually, were you able to play a little bit of poker that first
Sonny00:18:58day? I didn't, I didn't play any, I didn't play any poker before dinner. Uh, but I, I played, I played, I played like 30 minutes of blackjack. I won $15. That's right. You played blackjack. I enjoy this. Okay. And we, and then we played a little bit of craps and I think I won like $7. I was like, Oh, I'm done.
JVL00:19:13I'm done. So you're up 22. Yeah.
Sonny00:19:15I'm up $22. Um, but, and then we, we go to, we go to dinner. Yes. Uh, well first, before that we get some drinks.
Vic00:19:22Oh yes. I met, I, yes, I, well, we got, well, what happens is because we're both genuine degenerates that we actually. Did you get bottle service? What? No, no, no. But what, what happens is, you know, we split up. So, you know, there's whole times of the day where I, we don't see each other because he's, he's playing his games. I'm playing my games.
Sonny00:19:40We're wandering around. No, no, this was not until after dinner. It wasn't, we spent, we spent most of that first day together.
Vic00:19:44Remember how I had to find you in.
Sonny00:19:46Oh, well that's true. Well, that's true because I was going to look for, I was going to look for a blackjack table
JVL00:19:51and you wanted to play crap and I didn't realize a cell phone on the casino floor.
Sonny00:19:55Do they? They've gotten, they've gotten pretty, they've gotten pretty lax about that sort of thing. Like I was, I was sending texts and stuff and I kept like, I kept like kind of like sitting away from the table and like doing it. See?
Vic00:20:06Like nobody said. Nobody cares. It used to be a big deal. JV, right?
Sonny00:20:10You could take photos. They used to, they used to like, well, I think they'd still probably freak out if you started taking a photo of the table. But like, uh, but they used to like be real strict about like no cell phone use. And now I think it's like, eh, everybody has cell phones, it's what are you going to do? That's right. Um, uh, but yeah, no, that's right. I forgot. I forgot. We had separated a little bit cause I just started wandering and I like found myself in Paris. I was like, oh, I forgot these two hotels were connected.
Vic00:20:34Oh yeah. Bally's is connected to Paris, conveniently. And I didn't realize that. So then he said, where are you? Let's meet. I went on. I didn't realize they were connected. I went out. You know how long it takes from the street? I was like, I was like, come meet me.
Sonny00:20:46I was like, I was like, come meet me in this bar and like 25 minutes later he still hasn't shown up. I was like, where, where is in all of a sudden he comes walking, he's like sweating and you know, he's walking back. Remember what I said?
Vic00:20:57Where'd you go? I said, I was literally wandering the streets of Paris because I just couldn't find you. So I found him. Then we had a couple of really quite tasty old fashions, good old fashions, really good old fashions.
JVL00:21:08And then I think crepe bar, they used to have a really good crepe bar at Paris.
Sonny00:21:12No, it was like a, it was just like a. It was like a.
Vic00:21:15The main bar.
Sonny00:21:16An outdoor bar.
Vic00:21:17It's not cafe Americana, which is a different one, but it's this other one and it was always called the chandelier room or something like that or whatever it was. And uh, so afterwards then we, I think that's when we decided, let's get back and we went back, we changed and go out to dinner and then we went, no, then we went to click on
Sonny00:21:34the way. Remember we went to that second, we went to that bar and we had another, we had another
Vic00:21:39old fashioned, we had two old fashions at Paris and then we got another old fashioned at the bar at click click click.
Sonny00:21:46And then we went to, and then we went to, uh, the, the steakhouse, a prime, I think it was.
Vic00:21:52It is prime by Jean-Georges van Gerichten at, uh, the Bellagio. It was wonderful. And it goes down, you go down these stairs and uh, you know, we had, it was a big table for us. It was just the two of us there. Here's what's interesting. Sonny and I are dressed up. Uh, Sonny of course is, he's wearing in a very sunny way, a sort of a suit with a, you know, just a button down, no tie and, uh, your samba's sport coat, sport coat.
Sonny00:22:19No, but I had, I had my American flag converse. Yes. American flag converse. Very little, little, little bit of a little bit whimsy.
Vic00:22:27And we, so we sat there, but here, oh, by the way, before we said, before we went to our table, we also got a drink at that bar. So we go to the, so we drink, but of course that's what I decided we're on.
Sonny00:22:36This is like four or five.
Vic00:22:37I think. Yes. This is what I decided to switch gears and have a martini.
Sonny00:22:41Oh no, no, no, no. We got the bottle of wine. And you weren't going to have, you weren't going to have the martini. You weren't going to have. So we got a bottle of wine. We're going to split a bottle of wine. Uh, and then.
Vic00:22:50But Sonny, I got the martini. I got the martini at the bar. Oh, did you? Yeah. Did you? I did. Oh God. And you're like, why are you doing this?
Sonny00:23:00I said. Oh, that's right. That's right. No. Cause I was like, we're just going to, we're going to have a, what are you doing anyway?
Vic00:23:05And so I bring him my martini over and then we've got a delicious bottle, a great little, uh, a Zinfandel. And then Sonny, you're the one who said. Yeah. Because it was like, oh, what are we going to get for appetizer?
Sonny00:23:15And you just said, let's get the mini, a mini tower. We do the mini. We do the small one.
Vic00:23:21We do the small one. Little. A little. And I have to tell you that for me was the, of the whole, of all the meals, of all the meals we had, that particular meal and that particular moment. That part of the meal. That part of the meal was the best part of the trip because you're talking these, these chunks of lobster, which I dipped in, uh, in the cream sauce. It was decadent. It was decadent. It was the only way to describe it.
JVL00:23:46Oh, how much did this look like the party that Bruce Wayne and Selina Kyle go to in dark night rises?
Sonny00:23:53No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, not that.
Vic00:23:56And then, and then, and then afterwards the steaks came, but I was so, I could not finish.
Sonny00:24:02You did. Yeah.
JVL00:24:04You left a lot of steak on the table. You wasted table. You wasted food Victorino.
Vic00:24:07It is a sin. It is just one of the. I've never seen that happen to you in your life. It happened to me. It happened to me. You know what? It happened to me once before at, um, the, uh, the, the Del Frisco is in Dallas many years ago also because I had too much to drink. It's my great downfall. Were you ashamed? I'm still ashamed.
Sonny00:24:27You were ashamed. It's one of my. The next, the next day, the next day as he rolled over, he says to me, he says to me, uh, he says to me, I can't believe it.
JVL00:24:36I can't believe it.
Sonny00:24:37I can't believe how much steak I left at the, I, I wish I could have brought it back to the hotel.
Vic00:24:41Yeah. No, I wish I, I wish I did. I wish I did. Did you ask for it for a doggy bag? Victorino? Could you pop something for me please? You know what? They were, they kind of, it's just seemed so wrong to do it, but I, I tried so hard. I tried so hard and it just couldn't do it. And I, it's still one of my great regrets of my life is that I still think about it when I'm, whenever I'm hungry, I think about what I left behind and it really hurts me.
JVL00:25:03What is a, what does a seafood tower go for?
Vic00:25:07A prime. How much? It was 84. Yeah. So that means it was 42 per person.
Sonny00:25:12Sounds like a bargain. 42 per person is not bad. For Vegas? It actually like, it frankly wasn't, it wasn't insane. No. No. And that's, and that's why I said we should do it because it was like. Yeah. That's it. It was, it was only like 10 bucks more than. That's right. The other appetizers.
Vic00:25:24That's right. I was just like, let's do it. Now, JVL, you were out there. How many other people were there? Because you talk about, because they have facilities, which is good. I assume other people are using those facilities, whether it be the restrooms.
JVL00:25:35Yeah. There were 24 campsites and I think there were people in three of them. Uh, I, so I had something happened to me on that first day that I, I don't really fully understand. Um, so I.
Vic00:25:49Sounds like that, that Whitney Stramer book communion. It's like the alien, the Blair Witch Project.
JVL00:25:56No, it wasn't that. It wasn't that. So I, I hiked in and got the camp set up and you know, setting up camp is always a thing. Uh, but it was fine. I got it done in reasonably short order. Nice. Got everything arranged. And then I went out for a, for a walkabout, for a little hike, I don't know, a hike four or five miles and came back, made myself a thing of chicken and dumplings from backpackers pantry.
Vic00:26:21So you leave your camping stuff where it is and then you go out.
JVL00:26:23Yeah. Yeah. Just go out and hike the trails. Okay. And I had an early dinner and at five o'clock PM, I was just overcome. Um, with, uh, fatigue, huh? Like I, I felt like I could barely keep my eyes open and I, I crawled into my tent and I took my contact lenses out and I zipped up and I just went to sleep and I honestly 6:00 PM, 5:00 PM, 5:00 PM. And I don't know whether it was the, just the cold. It was cold. Unlike in Las Vegas, it was quite cold. So it was 5:00 PM with plenty of daylight. It was about 20 degrees. Oh. Uh, and I just wanted to say, I literally, it's 5:00 in the afternoon and I could not keep my eyes open. Almost like when you, you know, are feeling sick and feverish or something, but I was not sick or feverish and, uh, and I, I just went, fell right asleep.
Sonny00:27:30You're hibernating like the bears. Maybe that's what they do. It's cold. Oh no.
Vic00:27:37You, what? 9:30 AM or PM?
JVL00:27:39PM.
Sonny00:27:40Oh.
JVL00:27:41And at first I thought, okay, this is just waking up cause like I have to pee or something. And I just laid there and by this point, it was about eight degrees maybe. And uh, I would say my sleeping bag, my feathered friend Flickr AF performed admirably, but no matter what you do, you can't get your face warm. Right? So I've, you know, I'm, I'm inside the sleeping bag. I've got my micro fleece sleeping liner. I've got a pool. I've got my hat on my hood over my hat. Uh, I've got the fleece liner over, so I'm almost full. I hope you took a picture of yourself, but you can't, you can't put your whole face under the sleeping bag. Cause if you do that, then your breath creates condensation inside the bag. That and it gets wet, right? And so once you start getting the, the surfaces inside the bag wet, it starts getting, getting bad. So I'm trying, it's 9:30 PM. I've slept for four hours and I, I am, I'm just waiting to go back to sleep. I figured it's going to happen any minute, uh, perfectly controlled narcolepsy is one of my superpowers. I'm really good at this and I'm, I'm laying there and I'm laying there and I'm not falling asleep and it's, it's 10:30, it's 11:30, it's midnight. My body is starting to ache in like deep, deep ways. All of my joints, my back, my shoulders, my knees, everything is starting to hurt. And the way that, cause your tent is, you know, like when you're in a tent where your head is, you know, you get the stuff, uh, the, the wall, the tent is right there. And, and the beads of condensation from my breath in the freezing cold air are on the tent and then dripping down onto my nose. And it's now it's like. 1:30 in the morning and I haven't fallen back asleep and I'm starting to freak the fuck
Vic00:29:40out. Yeah. That you can't go back to sleep.
JVL00:29:43Yeah. And I, I just thought to myself, whatever's happening here, no, no me gusta, no me gusta. I don't like this. And uh, I 1:30 in the morning just said, fuck this, I am getting outta here and I threw just whatever I could lay my hands on into my pack and I put my boots back on and I strapped on my Pitzel headlamp, which is an incredibly fancy headlamp. I picked up my trekking poles and I made a speed run back out the trail to the car.
Sonny00:30:26Oh my goodness. Were you worried about like coyotes? Yeah. No, freezing to death. What is out at this time of night? What is out at this time of night?
JVL00:30:32Were you worried just about freezing to death? Everything in my body felt wrong.
Sonny00:30:34No, no, no. I don't mean like, I mean like, I'm, I'm not saying like, were you scared while you were laying there? I'm saying like when you start the hike, aren't you worried about like deadly animals? Sure. Especially in the middle of the night. No, no. Or like the Texas Chainsaw Massacre family coming out of the woods?
JVL00:30:49No, I'm much more concerned about like turning an ankle. Right. And not being able to walk the rest of the next mile. Right. Or losing, missing a trail sign and because I've only made this hike once. Right. And there are multiple. The trails are all well marked, but they are intersecting and I didn't, I didn't bring my, uh, my trail map with me. So I, uh. And it's in the middle of the night. And I, it's the middle of the night and it is such, it is so cold that my breath when I, when I breathe out and exhale is like a fog machine. I mean, just like and as I am making my way down, I go through this little clearing. Um, and I look out to the side, head on a swivel and I see three pairs of reflected eyes.
Vic00:31:41Oh no. Back at me. That's it.
JVL00:31:44That's it. No. And they're all looking right at me and all, all you can see is, you know, like the, the, the light hits the back of their retinas and reflects back at you. And I would bet anything in the world that these were dear, anything in the world that these are dear, uh, certainly weren't bears. Uh, the only other thing that is possible is that they could have been. Like foxes or skunks or something like that.
Vic00:32:07Yeah. It's hard to tell if from a distance, I guess where, how tall they are because they could
JVL00:32:12be. And also because you can't tell how far again at night, you can't tell how far the distance is to them.
Sonny00:32:18But so they're looking at you and I say, I wasn't freaked out because I was afraid of
JVL00:32:24them. I was just freaked out that these fucking eyes staring at me while my breath is everything about this is just wrong.
Sonny00:32:31Well, there's, I mean, everything in the woods. I knew you were there. Everything in the woods for like three miles knew, knew you were there and we're making
Vic00:32:38that JVL. Is this, so this is Saturday night, Saturday night. Okay. It's amazing. So this is right. What?
JVL00:32:461 32 in the morning.
Vic00:32:47This is like 1 31 45. Okay. In that, that hour, I think around that very moment. That's when Sonny and I were walking, uh, from, uh, one casino to another and Sonny was genuinely worried genuinely about you, about you.
JVL00:33:02Yes. So you. Sonny had said, uh, you know, we should do this thing where we check in and leave little voice memos of our weekends, cuz that would be funny. And so when I finally made it to the car and I gotta, I gotta be honest, I felt a mild sense of accomplishment, but a very real sense of relief in making it to the car. Uh, and I just, I turned it on, I cranked the heat up and I, you know, pulled my sleeping bag around me in the driver's seat and racked the seat. And I, I left you guys a little, little message that I then sent you once I finally got cell service two days later. And uh, I just, I don't know what I said, but I thought I just ran back to, I've made a huge mistake.
Sonny00:33:48I've made a huge mistake. I've made a huge mistake.
JVL00:33:50It sounded like Blair Witch. Joe, Joe Bluth style. Yeah. Uh, and I wondered as I was sitting there in the car, letting the car run desperate for it to heat up, uh, and I honestly went a little bit in and out of consciousness. Where once it warmed up, I was able to fall asleep and I had enough presence of nine that when the car got too hot, I would just like, without even opening my eyes, just like press the button and turn the car off. And then like an hour and a half would go by and it'd be too cold again. And I'd like push my foot down to the break and press the button.
Vic00:34:21It wasn't like you were getting in the car to drive back home. You were just in there for shelter.
JVL00:34:25Just in there for shelter and warm. It was, it was so fucking cold.
Sonny00:34:29Well, so we, the, the problem with our stories now is that we've diverged a little bit because this is your first night was actually our second night. Uh, so I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna like, imagine me, imagine me moving the days on top of each other. Okay.
JVL00:34:45Like it's a Christopher Nolan movie. On your, on your first. This is your first night. We're doing time dilation.
Sonny00:34:49Yeah. This is your first night, your first night at 1:30 or so your time. Our first night is about 11:30 or so our time. And that's when I'm finally sitting at the poker table for the first time. That's when I have finally, after 30 minutes of getting massage. Uh, cause I was waiting for my table, uh, cause I was waiting for my table. They had the, they had like the walking, they had like the people row roaming around doing like two, $2 a minute for like shoulder rubs. I did that. It was amazing to the, to the extent that I think I actually fell asleep for like 30 minutes.
Vic00:35:22It's funny. Cause mine was $25. Oh boy.
Sonny00:35:25We lost him.
Vic00:35:28He's not even on the screen. Anyway. So anyway, uh, about 11:30, it was about when I was sitting down, mine was $25 for five minutes. That's what's crazy.
Sonny00:35:41Yeah. Okay. So I don't, so I don't, did you, did you go back to the hotel after dinner?
Vic00:35:47No, I, so I, I played a little more and you played a little more and I wandered like, like this, you know, I'm like a shark. I've just got, I was going in circles and you're looking at tables and sometimes watching, but I had gone over to the poker section.
JVL00:36:01You've had five old fashions. Yeah.
Vic00:36:04Something to that. Yes. And half a bottle of a delicious wine. And, and then I went over to the poker area and I saw Sonny's name on, on the sign.
Sonny00:36:12My name was on the one, three waiting list. That's right. So he sees my name on the one, but he assumes that means I'm at the table, but I was not at the table.
Vic00:36:20And I had walked around these guys getting massages. I had no idea you were one of them.
Sonny00:36:24I was getting, I was getting a massage. So, uh, so my name finally gets called. I go, I go sit down at the table and, uh, and I, I, uh, I, I put down my, it's a, it's a one, three, no limit game with a, I think a hundred dollar minimum or a $300 maximum buy-in. So I, I, you know, put in my 300, um, and I, it was, it was a fantastic table. Like it was friendly and, uh, and very loose. Uh, and there were, there was a guy who like would get up about every 45 minutes and go get 200 more dollars and come back. Did this for like three hours.
JVL00:36:56Could buy in after. So it's not like tournament poker.
Sonny00:36:59It was just a cash game. It was just a cash game. Yeah. So he, uh, anyway, he, he. He probably, uh, ended up contributing about 800 or so dollars.
JVL00:37:06So he was the mark. He was the fish.
Sonny00:37:09Oh, he was, he was, uh, he was one of them. There, there, there were other people who would come and go and the, the, the thing about the thing about low stakes cash games is that you can get a very good sense of how good somebody is just by how much they buy in. So when somebody sits down, if you sit down at the table and you see that a guy has like a stack of $700 in chips, he's a been there for a while and B has won at least $400 because you can only buy in 300, right? If you see, if you, if, if you're sitting next, if you're sitting at a, next to an open seat and the guy who sits down there buys in with a hundred dollars, you know, he has no idea what he's doing. That's not, that's not how you play.
Vic00:37:47Unless he gets extremely lucky.
Sonny00:37:49Yeah. That's just like, that's not, that's just not how you do it. Uh, so like just from the buy-ins, you can tell kind of who is, who knows what they're doing and who doesn't anyway, um, uh, long story short that first night, uh, I've won 250 bucks or something like that. That's good. Um, cashed out with my, you know.
JVL00:38:07Did you twist your Oreos?
Sonny00:38:09I was, I was, I was, I, I just played my, I just played my normal.
Vic00:38:11Well, he was basically wearing a tracksuit there as you could see the tracksuit he was
Sonny00:38:14wearing. I just, I just played my normal style, very tight, uh, and like very tight and passive at first and then a little bit looser and more aggressive after that. Uh, and it just like, I just, I kept winning hands.
JVL00:38:26So you only like, you only raise when you're on the button and right?
Sonny00:38:29Yeah. I mean like I would raise, I would raise on the button. Right. But, but for the, for the first while, only if I had decent hands, I mean, I was not, I was not like making position raises, um, because these were also not the sort of players who could understand position raises. I was, I was not, I was not playing with the sort of players who were prone to folding if they had anything. Oh. So it was like, I was just like, okay, okay. Uh, but, but again, that sort of game is easy to play because then you just start, you start betting with slightly worse hands and if you, if you, if you catch your, your in, uh, uh, you're in good shape cause they'll just stay till the end. Um, anyway, like I said, I won, like I played for like three or four hours. I won 250 bucks. When I came back to the hotel room, Vic was asleep and he was like, so, uh, how was the strip club? I was like, Vic, I didn't, I think I've literally just been playing poker the entire time.
Vic00:39:21How was Sapphire? I said, how was Sapphire? I figured he won. Did he still wear masks? I hope not.
Sonny00:39:26Yeah. So anyway, it was, uh, that, that was very fun. That's right.
JVL00:39:30That's right. Did, uh, did Vic. Did he ask you to play one of his degenerate slot machines? No. We didn't. We didn't. Cause that guy loves the slots.
Vic00:39:40I play. All right. Full disclosure. Full disclosure. I did one machine. Okay. I did a machine. You did? You did? I did. I did. I popped a 20 in to a dollar machine and then I got 66 and I cashed out. I said, that's it. That's 66 bucks. I just, just give me a little extra, just a little, you know, just a little extra walking money. A little walking change.
JVL00:40:02See what, what Vic always explained to me about slots is that this is his hand to God. When we were young, young bucks, 23 and 24 years old, Vic used to say, oh yeah, you always go to the slots to get well. That's when you, when things are a little down, that's when you go to slots to get well.
Vic00:40:22That's right. That's a pick me up.
JVL00:40:24It's a little pick me up. I would look at him like, what the fuck are you talking about, dude? But you have to understand that in Vic's charmed life. Monsignor Donovan, Georgetown University, the weekly standard, the Washington Free Beacon, the slots are a place where you go to get well. You just, you pop your 20 in, you know, on your third pull, you get 66 bucks and you walk away.
Vic00:40:48Yeah, you know, it was, it was like the third or fourth pull. It's funny. And it was one of those like little bonus things. I don't even know what it was. It was like, looks good to me. And then get that out. The only difference of course now is a little paper receipt comes out. It is not the same. As like the quarter is coming out and everybody would be walking around. Yeah. The sound it's, it's very sad that they don't do that anymore. Um, so, so that's what I did. And then the next morning, of course, I, I, my, I'm all off because of the, the, the, the jet lag and the time zone.
Sonny00:41:19You were, you were awake at like seven. Yeah. You were like, I'm going to the gym.
Vic00:41:22I went to the gym. I went to the gym. It was crowded. And we did some lifting and, and, and ran for about 20 minutes, got the sweat out of that. Again. And then we went out to drink, uh, that, that day. And then did you guys get sick from, no, I did not. I did not. I kept it together.
Sonny00:41:41And so I did not, I did not, but I was, I was not, I was, I was as, as hungover as I've been in a long time. That's right.
JVL00:41:48I played poker when you're bombed.
Vic00:41:50Uh, uh, uh, apparently, yeah, he was, he was sounding chipper when he came in. He was sounding.
Sonny00:41:57No, I wasn't. It's funny. I like, I, we drank, we drank a lot, but we drank over. Uh, an extended enough period of time that I was not feeling, I wasn't, I wasn't really feeling it when I was playing cards.
Vic00:42:09I don't know. I also, I also, after I worked out and took a shower, I got a shave, like a real sort of barbershop shave. I always wanted to do that. I liked doing it from time to time.
Sonny00:42:19So I had to have four hairs.
Vic00:42:21I did. I stopped shaving about a week before, because you get a little bit of a stubble, a little stubble.
Sonny00:42:27And then double, I like literally, I was like, what are you?
Vic00:42:29Yeah. And, and Sonny could tell you, cause it was really up close and best. He could really see it closely, but when I touched his face, it's like, you got a real zoo. You got a real closeup of it.
Sonny00:42:40And, uh, Victor, Victor, you're like a mountain man, Victor.
Vic00:42:45So, so I went down to, it's a place called, it's at cosmopolitan and I can recommend this place. It's called cuts and cocktails. It's a very cool concept. It's very unabashedly a guy's place. And there's like this speakeasy door that leads into a bar in the back that opens at four o'clock and the whole deal. But, you know, the front. There, this guy, uh, Mikey is his name. He gave me a straight blade, you know, the hot towel. Did you have the dreads guy? No, the guy with the dreads. No, I had an, I had this other fellow who kind of looked like my cousin, strangely enough. Anyway. Um, and, uh, gave me the full, like the hot lather, the whole thing, but the funny, here's the funniest thing. Um, so he does the, the hot towel and then he puts, and then a face massage, some moisturizer that he puts the shaving cream on, but not on above, above the lip, just the shaving cream around the sides and the beard. So I'm like, well, he's got a shave there. What's he going to do? But I can't see my eyes are closed. Suddenly I feel this like squirting thing on my face. Like it's like this, it's like a, a, a, a liquid. It's like a, a, some sort of a lubrication, a warm. Yes. Yes. Yes. Unfortunately, my mouth was closed, unfortunately, no, no, no, no, no. So it's, it's clearly some sort of a lubricate lubricant that they use for that part. And so then. For your pleasure. For your pleasure. And so he shaves, I can understand the, the allure of the straight edge because you can cut in all sorts of directions and you know, the, it's the weirdest thing when you're cutting left to right, rather than up and down and every, you know, cause he can get all the different angles and it was great. And I just felt, I felt like a baby when I got out of there, it was very smooth. And then, uh, after that, I think, uh, I had a Bloody Mary to get me back on track and, and then.
Sonny00:44:29I had a Red Bull. First time I've had a Red Bull.
Vic00:44:3110 years. JVL, you had better access to coffee than we did. You could not get coffee.
Sonny00:44:36We couldn't there. We couldn't find a coffee. Like there was, unless we wanted to wait, unless we wanted to wait in line in Starbucks
Vic00:44:42like a sucker for literally like 30 minutes.
JVL00:44:45It was, we couldn't, we couldn't go to a place like at a normal Starbucks, we couldn't, we
Sonny00:44:49couldn't. Well, I mean, we're walking around.
Vic00:44:51We're like walking around.
Sonny00:44:52I just want to go get a cup of coffee. We just, we just wanted to like sit in a, sit in like a little, little cocktail lounge and have a cappuccino or whatever. And every time we sat down, they were like, no, we're out. We're out of coffee.
JVL00:45:02I don't think that's the, the, the economic interests of Las Vegas to let you have a coffee.
Sonny00:45:07Yeah. They all had, they all had coffee on the menu. And like, again, I had a, I had a, I had a, I had, again, I had a Red Bull, so it's not like it was, it's not like I, we're at 45 minutes on this episode, we need to, we need to, we need to move things along because, we haven't even talked about the buffet yet.
Vic00:45:25So Sonny and I at, we did a 12:30 PM, the Bacchanal buffet at Caesar's palace and Jay VL, you would have hated this because I.
Sonny00:45:34Biggest mistake we made on the whole trip.
Vic00:45:36Yes. Yes. Okay. It's a lavish buffet. So you're spending $70 a person. $70. $70 for this buffet. For me, to get $70 worth at the buffet for me was a challenge. You gotta go to the crab legs. Why? Question. And they're going.
JVL00:45:51People are just going. Why did you, why did you choose the Caesar's buffet and not the Bellagio buffet? Because the Bellagio buffet is legendary.
Vic00:45:57Yes. Yeah. I couldn't get a table. I couldn't get a, uh, but by the time, it was such a last minute. Yeah. Decision that all this stuff is booked. Fair. But even though we had a reservation at Bacchanal, it was still like going through a line to Space Mountain.
Sonny00:46:08Good. You had to get, you had to get in a line to check in for your reservation. Then after you checked in, you had to get in a line to pay for it. Then after you pay for it, you get in another line at the hostess stand to seat you. It's too much. At the, to seat you at the table. It's too much. Has Vegas not discovered smartphones? And then once you get seated, once you get seated, you have to get in a line again to get the food. Yeah.
Vic00:46:28Yeah. I, I, I was. And there was lines at every station. Yeah. It was so annoying. I was, I was, I was amazed because it's $70 a person and this place was packed with so many people and, and, and at every station. And so my normal strategy.
Sonny00:46:40And the food all sucked. The food all sucked. Here's the, like this is the problem.
Vic00:46:43We should have, if we could go to the Wicked Spoon, I bet it was better, but we couldn't get in there. That's at the, that's the Cosmopolitan's buffet called the Wicked Spoon. Instead we were there, my whole strategy of breakfast first and the whole thing was thrown out the window. I said, we take evasive maneuvers. I'm just trying to get my money's worth and the best thing I could do, I got some shellfish and then the Asian station, which was unusual and it's not things you can find anywhere else. Uh, so Korean Filipino meat skewers, Korean fried chicken. Is that where you think the dollar value was? No, it's what I wanted though. And, and, and I went crab Rangoon crazy.
JVL00:47:21Yeah.
Sonny00:47:22And they were really, I, uh, I, I was, I was, so here's, here's, it's all cream cheese, cream cheese.
Vic00:47:29I just basically had a big block. Yeah. A block of the Phillies. Yeah.
Sonny00:47:33I mean, that's basically what I had. Okay. I, so here's, here's the problem. Like I took pictures of all the plates and I was going to do like a breakdown of our strategy, but like, as Vic said, the lines were so long that it was just kind of like jump in where you can and do, and do this. So I went to the carving station and I got like, I got one piece of everything at the carving station. I got a piece of brisket, a piece of a whole slab bacon. I learned from Sonny because he gave me the, and, and I like, I, I took one bite and I was like, oh my God, it's like they poured a bucket of salt. Too much salt. Into this. Too much salt. It was, it was almost inedible. The food was the, the, the food at the carving station was almost inedible. There were other stations that were better. They had like a Mediterranean small plates thing that was pretty good.
Vic00:48:10Yeah. I had eggs with black truffle.
Sonny00:48:12That was very good. Um, the dessert, the dessert bar was very good. The, the, the like seafood cold bar, I actually didn't even go to, cause I'd had the seafood towers and I probably didn't have any.
Vic00:48:21But people were scavenging through there to find it. But people were, people were like. You know, it's just unappetizing.
Sonny00:48:24But like I, everything was just very mediocre. Yeah. Everything. I, this is, I, I have long argued this about buffets that if you, a, a good cheap buffet, like a good, cheap. Mm-hmm. Chinese buffet. $12 Chinese buffet.
Vic00:48:39Oh.
Sonny00:48:40Oh. Great value. Oh, you could kill it. Yeah. But if you go to like a Fogo to Chow or something, I would rather just spend, you know, instead of getting like 17 average cuts of meat at Fogo to Chow, right. As you're like gorging on the meats, as the guy's coming around with the skewers, I would rather go to a steakhouse and get one steak for $70 or whatever the price is. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I want one good steak. Mm-hmm. That's all I want. That's right. Um, and, and that is, that is the, the, the, the Caesar's bacchanal is that problem just on a grander scale.
Vic00:49:10That's right. It's, it. There were moments where, I mean, you talk about the salt, the sodium levels where I didn't tell, I don't want to alarm Sonny, but I could feel my heart, you know, like boom, boom, boom. And I'm like, I might die here and I died in Vegas and then Sonny will be like the last person to like see me. Uh, and, um, but you know what I did at the, at the end, you know what, how I finished off? I, there was a gelato station. I had green tea gelato and that made everything okay. It balances it out. Antioxidants. Yeah. Green tea is very good for you. That's what they say. So I had the green tea ice cream. Uh, okay. But that basically is the trip. I'm trying to think if there was anything else, Sonny, that we gambled a little more.
Sonny00:49:47We gambled a little more. I play, I played poker for another five hours or four hours or whatever on Saturday.
Vic00:49:51And so the trip paid for itself. The product for Sonny, maybe not for me, not for me. But you know what? You were talking about the two way, anything. And if you're into craps and I said, you know, let's make a bet, uh, with the dealer. And for the first time in the only time in my life, it actually worked out. And it was a $5 bet for me, a $5 bet for the other guy, uh, for, for the dealers. And uh, he put it on a crap so that when the guy's going to roll out, you know, the, the, the come out role, if, if it's a crap, uh, which is not to say that don't pass line, but it's just, you know, a single bet there, um, then great. But you know what? It's a tip. Either way. It's a tip. Um, and the guy rolled a 12, so that worked out for me and my five bucks became 70 bucks. So that was very exciting. And uh, and, and, and that it was all downhill after that. Well, here's my problem to be really brief about this. Um, I feel even for myself, I'm very much of a tentative craps player and I'm too tentative. I should be all in. I should be, I start getting, I, you know, I, I'm always, that was not, that was not
Sonny00:50:59a sense. I got watching you.
Vic00:51:01All right. Here's my, okay. Let me move on. Let me move on.
Sonny00:51:05My sense of Vic is like, my sense of Vic is like, uh, like a, uh, cartoon octopus.
Vic00:51:11What do you mean? We're doing everything like this tentacles going up. People can't see what I'm doing. The people I can't, I couldn't even see our listeners can't see our arms, but our arms are moving crazy. Our arms. Yes. That's true. I was like, I had numbers. I was totally straight.
Sonny00:51:27I had, okay. Oh, I could barely figure out where to make it.
Vic00:51:29I'm like, he's got to hit a four, five, nine, or 10. How hard can this be? Four, five, nine, or 10.
Sonny00:51:34It was literally, it was like he could, all right, he could roll a four, a six, an eight, a 10 or 11 and we're good. And we're good.
Vic00:51:41And I was just like, I hit a 10 on my own 10. I had to hit a 10 and I rolled and I hit a 10. It was like the best moment. That was the highlight for me on that trip was hitting a 10. So that was one thing. But the other thing is this. So I'm looking around at tables and some of these places I was like, Hey, that's the same guy I saw before dinner and after dinner, he must be on a roll. I look at the table. It's covered in chips. Right. I'm like, I got to get in. And then I start thinking to myself, wait a minute, you know, am I coming in at the end of his streak? Because he's been there that long. And then sure enough, it ends up, wait a minute. Am I the cooler? You know what I mean? It's, it's, it'll freak you out. You can't think that way, but that's what it happened. That's what happened. But in a nutshell, and that far, the second night we went to the old homestead at Caesar's palace, but we couldn't even eat steak that night.
Sonny00:52:22Sonny had got fish, got Chilean sea bass.
Vic00:52:25I had a burger, a prime burger and I did have oysters Rockefeller. So.
Sonny00:52:30Uh, JBL, we have totally ignored your second day. No, it's okay. It's okay. What, what, uh, what, what happened on your second day?
Vic00:52:39Cause I keep on thinking that you went home, but you would just use the car for sleeping. Just use the car for sleeping. I thought about it. I thought about just leaving.
Sonny00:52:45Did you? So did you go back?
JVL00:52:47That's what I thought you did because of the audio. Uh, I, I did. So the next morning after the sun came out and it warmed up to 15 degrees or so, I, uh, hiked back into camp and made myself some breakfast. And broke down camp and got everything stowed away and I had a choice to make. So I wanted to go and take a nice long hike and hike was going to be about 12 miles round trip. And my choice was this, I could leave everything at the campsite and hike with a very, very light pack, just like food and water. Right. Uh, but at the end of the hike. I'd have another couple miles where I would have to hike back to the campsite, load everything in and then go back to the car or so, you know, like an extra couple of miles, or I could just pack everything and just go hiking with it. And then at the end, after I've done my 12 miles, I can just, uh, be done, just shove it into the car. So that was my choice. Uh, what would you do? What would you gentlemen have chosen?
Sonny00:54:01How many miles did it take you to regret this decision? Was it one mile?
Vic00:54:05I know I, I could see the allure of the convenience of saying, woof, then I'm done. I don't have to clean up this stuff. But how much is that way?
JVL00:54:13I think I was carrying between 35 and 40 pounds, 40 pounds. Okay. Uh, the, the answer is that it was by about a mile and a half. And the reason I, I regretted in the first, because the first three miles were really the, the climb up. Uh, and then once, once you made that, it was fine. But I, at one point I got passed by this old fella, that's 65. You just tell that this guy, all he does is hikes, you know, he's like trim with a beard and outdoors. Like, you know, I've got this gigantic hyperlight mountain gear, a massive pack on, and he is in a short sleeve, a short sleeve button down flannel shirt. You know, like a little fucking mountain leprechaun. Yeah.
Sonny00:55:02It's got a little, you got a little walking stick.
JVL00:55:03Uh, he, of course he has, well, everybody has trekking poles. I was using trekking poles and, uh, so he, you know, I step off to the side of the trail so he can blow past me and he, uh, is like, ah, how much weight are you carrying there? And I was like, I have no fucking idea too, too much. And he just blew past me. But, uh, but it was great and I really did enjoy it and I got onto the AT. Which was a bonus. I had not quite realized that, uh, the, the trail intersected with this park and I had wonderful time and it was quite pretty, quite nice. I had a fantastic lunch, uh, at the summit and there was a little picnic table there with this gorgeous view out over the valley. And I, you know, like I pulled out my little stove, I boiled myself up some water, made a cup of coffee, made a little pouch of lasagna and sat there in the, the freezing fucking cold with the wind whipping and chapping my lips, uh, and, and, uh, out of my weekly standard Yeti tumbler. And it was really, honestly, I loved it. It was great.
Vic00:56:12Quite a question. Yeah. You're up there. You decide to have your lunch up there with this gorgeous view, I assume, and I hope we see pictures. Did somebody come over and say, Hey, can I join you for lunch? Did that happen? That did not happen. Like the theater, like the movie theater?
JVL00:56:25That did not happen. Thankfully. But anyway, and I, I got back down and, uh, I was just ready to go home. I was like, I have had enough adventure. This was everything I needed it to be.
Sonny00:56:35And so was this, were you, were you planning to stay a second night?
JVL00:56:39I had been planning to say a second night. And after that first night, I just, I said, I can't, why, why would I put myself through
Vic00:56:47this again? I had gotten all the adventure I need out of this. I was going to say the question, the, the, the answer would have been the solitude because you, you did, you did a fact. There weren't a lot of people, right? I mean, there weren't a lot of people near you.
JVL00:56:59I, I, I spoke probably 30 words total over the course of 36 hours. It was glorious.
Vic00:57:07Do you get to the point where if you haven't spoken for a long time, you start talking, talking to yourself out loud?
JVL00:57:13No. Okay. No, I don't. Okay. Me neither.
Sonny00:57:18And it was just glorious. You don't start trying to make friends with yourself. No. You don't start, you don't start trying to win your, win your own race.
Vic00:57:24Right. I tell jokes that I I tell my own jokes and say, yeah, that's what she said. Oh, you know, what happened? And then you made it back. And how long does it take to get back from the, it was a couple hours.
JVL00:57:39It was, uh, I would say though, the combination of the 12 miles when I am not in hiking shape with the pack, I felt like death the next day.
Vic00:57:51Yeah. But in a good way, because you, you probably, you got a great workout. Sure. In a good way. Yeah. Better, better than us.
Sonny00:57:58Um, I, I felt fine the second day I've you, I don't, I, so this is, all right, so we, we go to, we go to the, we go to the old homestead in, uh, was that Caesars and where we leave and where we walk across the valleys, we're looking for, you know, uh, in Paris, we're looking for like the $15 tables again. And we see a couple and all of a sudden I, I look over at thick and he's kind of, he's staggering. I don't, I don't know how to describe it other than to say, I was stroking out and not in
Vic00:58:31a good way.
Sonny00:58:32Yeah. He's staggering and his eyes are very heavy and droopy. What time of day is this? And I, and well, I mean, at this point, by this point it's like 10:30 PM, almost 11 PM. Um, and, and I, it was, it was like his, it was like his soul had left his body. He was like, it was like, it was like walking next to an automaton. It was like, it was like, I was like, I had a golem with me and I was, and, and the, the, you know, he was just clay and kind of moving along. And I was just like, I was like, I was like, do you want to go back to the room? And, and he didn't answer it first. He didn't. Cause I think he was a little bit embarrassed.
Vic00:59:19It was in my age, people get embarrassed by these things, but it was definitely, it was,
Sonny00:59:24it was definitely like, I can't. I can't leave Vic out here. I can't, I can't send him back on his own.
JVL00:59:29Did he have his life alert bracelet?
Sonny00:59:30I didn't. That's why. So I took, I took him by the elbow, I took him by the elbow and I was like, all right.
Vic00:59:37He placed me in one of those little scooters.
Sonny00:59:39He put me in one of the little scooters. Let's go back to the, let's go back to the, let's go back to the hotel room. We'll get you all tucked in.
JVL00:59:45Is anybody concerned that you were committing elder abuse?
Sonny00:59:47I was, I was afraid I was going to get, you know, somebody was gonna, gonna tap, tap me on the shoulder. Be like, sir, where are you taking your grandfather?
Vic00:59:55And it's such a shame because I have all this energy.
JVL00:59:57So Vic, you and I basically had the same experience.
Vic00:59:59Yeah. Basically. Yo. Yes. Yes. We're, we're exhausted. We're tired. And I will, and I will say, and I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll end on this note, which is, I didn't tell this to Sonny, but like in the middle of the night, like I wake up, right. He's, he's sleeping in one. I'm in the other bed. I wake up and I, and this thing is just, you know, in my bed, it's just, you know, poking out through the sheets and it's red, hot and throbbing. My big toe. I had a little bit of a gout flare up. I did. I did. It was sore. It was sore. And I do. I, I, it, you know, it might be because I mix drinks. That's what I think. I don't think it's the oysters Rockefeller or the seafood. I think I should just.
Sonny01:00:37No, not the seafood tower, not the oysters Rockefeller.
Vic01:00:39The second night with the Bernays, not the oysters with bacon, spinach, and Bernays sauce.
Sonny01:00:43It can't possibly be that it was probably getting that it was probably getting that vodka martini after the four old fashions, I think that's what caused it. Yeah. In addition to the glass of wine at one point you were done. You were double fisting that first night.
Vic01:00:56Well, they keep, the waiter keep over, he's like, can I, are you done with this? And I'm like, I'm sure it's fine.
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