Vegas and Scooter Rally 2009

So Vegas was very fun! Thanks to Wendy and her Big Win right before we left on Mon., we came home up $60 (not counting hotel stay and food).

Crazy that she dreamt about the machine she wanted to play, and then hit big! For those curious, the machine is setup like this:

The "20"s on the side represent "lines" played.
Of the 2 rows of white buttons (5 each per row), the top row represents # of lines to play [1,2,5,7,or 9]
The bottom row represent # of credits (in this case 5¢ per credit) per line [1,2,5,10,or 20]

As you can see in this picture, she played 9 lines, at 20 credits ($1) per line! That's right... a max bet of $9 for that spin!!!

Anyway, she didn't know it was that much money when she did it. Furthermore, while she always played all 9 lines, she jumped around at the number of credits per line... thus it was God's good graces that she hit during a max bet scenario (9x20)!

In that picture, you can see that she hit 6 of the 9 possible lines (the blurry 20s are not the lines hit, but rather the other 6 are). Super cool! Here was the final outcome:




Wendy, being the very fun wife she is (I'm not being sarcastic here) let the machine count all the way up, instead of pressing the button to instantly view the winnings. It was way fun as it kept going and going and going.

Anyway, I'll let her tell you more on the story... that's the basics of the game.

The rally was very cool. Lots and lots of classic scoots; Lambretta's, Vespa's, Stella's, and others. There were a few new Vespa's like mine, but not many.

You can't see many in my pictures, but there are all sorts of interesting characters that associate themselves with this scene. It's really quite fun to be a part of, though those of you who know me can just imagine that my relatively "basic all-american" type of image didn't exactly blend. Luckily, I'm not one to feel uncomfortable, and so I had a very good time. It's not like anyone was actually paying attention to me "standing out" anyway.

One of my favorite parts of the "image" that you'll see around the scene are the girls. No, no, no.. you're misunderstanding me. I'm specifically talking about their image. Many of them have this 50's rockabilly style (Kirk will probably have more appropriate words to describe the specific image, but this is the best I have). It's super cool, and they don't go half-ass with it. Quite the contrary, they appear to spend a significant amount of time with their hair, make-up, and clothes. It's really fun, and makes the "classic feeling" of the scooter rally feel that much more genuine.

I couldn't count, but as you can see by the pictures, there were quite a few bikes there. Some acutally were really really well done, and it just gave me an itch to get my own classic to restore. There were big event rides Fri. Sat. and Sun, but Kirk and I didn't go on any of them. We missed Friday's, Sat. was not going to be a very interesting one, and Sun. was wayyyyyy too windy.



We did however get a small group of Kirk's friends from the Fresno region, and rode our scoots into Downtown Vegas (Fremont Street). Apparently they were having some sort of event or tribute to Knight Rider, because there were at least 20-30 Kit car replicas parked on the main Fremont walk!







It was very fun downtown, and was also my first "group ride". We got a bit of attention while on our ride, and on he way back, we drove down the middle of The Strip. So freaking cool, I can't even describe it! It's a very unique way to experience the strip.

A few more pictures... we ate at a BBQ place in the Rio, and they had this plate called "The Baron". They describe all the meats on it in the menu, but also say "Great for one, or a gang". Given the number of meats listed, we figured Kirk, Roger and I should share, and it would probably be enough. Boy, were we correct! It was WAYYYY more that we could handle. I'm not sure what kind of individual they think can handle this when they say "Great for one". I'd like to meet this type of person (or perhaps I wouldn't the more I think on it). We only finished maybe half the plate between the 3 of us... but it was mighty tasty. And, it was only $49.95!!! What a deal!




Kirk and I also went on Sat. to the Hoffbrau House. It's a german restaraunt/pub/beer garden place. Whatever it is classified as, its food is AMAZING!!!! So good in fact, that we went back again on Sun. with Roger! It was a very spacious building, with a german guy named Yohan who played tons of different instruments, and generally entertained everyone. At one point he whipped out that freakishly long horn thing you see in two of the pictures, and played the Star-Spangled-Banner. It was cool. We're definitely going to make this place a Vegas tradition.