Tuesday, December 5, 2000, contd
We went to get in line for the gondola, and took turns going into the Godiva store, and tried some hot chocolate. We decided we had to stop there before we left. The first gondolier we saw, he was from St. Louis! The classic line in St. Louis is "where did you go to high school", so of course he asked me that. Don't remember his name, but he went to Parkway Central, I think.
Our gondolier was Rafael, very cute too! He asked us our names, where we were from, what we did. We think he was quite impressed that we all had college educations: Jen the Medical Technologist, Amy the CPA, Maggie the Vet, and Cheryl studying to be a sign language interpreter. He said he had gone to acting school, was 31, but wanted to do something different. He wanted to go to Chiropractic school. He asked why we were there, and if we were having fun. We took lots of pictures. He sang "That's Amore" to us, and tried to get us to sing along.... Maggie tried a little. Well worth the $10! We bought the picture they took of all of us.
After the ride, we went in the Godiva store, and Bought hot chocolate, chocolates. Then we took a cab back to the hotel. The cab drive had actually heard of Plano, IL, and had lived around there.
While Maggie and Amy went to get the car, I went up to the room with Cheryl to get her bags. They picked us up out front, and they had run into Tim and his girlfriend Brenda. They said they are very cute together, and perfect for each other. They couldn't get away. They told them about our stalker, and Tim was scared by that. And told them some of the stuff we did, and stuff Tim needed to take Brenda to do.
We dropped Cheryl off at the airport, and went back to the hotel. We got all dressed up, did our makeup and hair. We were actually ready on time. We were out front a little before 6:30, when the limo from Manhattan of Las Vegas was supposed to pick us up. Well, we waited, and waited. Who comes walking along? Tim and Brenda. I waved, Tim waved, and gave us a thumbs up. We got complimented by a lady walking by, something about us being so dressed up makes the rest of them look bad. About 6:50, still no limo, I went inside to call. I had no change, so I put a dollar into a 25 cent slot machine, played two quarters, and cashed out the other two. Now I had change for the phone. Well, they didn't have the reservation down! The guy was very apologetic. Even offered to buy me a drink. They could still take us, but the limo couldn't get us until 7:45. He said that, or if we could get there, we could have the limo bring us back. So I said ok.
Well, the $10 cab ride..... I didn't car about that after the wonderful meal, service, and ambiance. I learned that even if I get a confirmation from a reservation made over the Internet, to still call and confirm. The place was beautiful. The entrance had a Christmas tree, and a stained-glass ivy pattern ceiling. The decor was wonderful, done in shades of reds and mauves, I think. Lots of flowers and Christmas decorations, and New York memorabilia. We were seated at a booth, and they brought a basket of wonderful seasoned bread, with a dish of butter for each of us. All three of us got the Streak Florentine. It was wonderful! It was streak with lemon juice, garlic, and olive oil. It came with small portions of carrots, zucchini, green beans, and mashed potatoes. We skipped dessert. We were too full from the meal. The bill was $101. Made tipping easy! The limo was waiting, and the limo driver opened the front door for us. The door to the limowas already open. He refilled the mint dish. It was a white stretch limo, with leather seats, neon lighted trim along the underside of the seat, and along the bar. There was a phone, TV, and skylight..... but we didn't play with them, we acted like we had been in a limo before, even though we hadn't. The driver was very cute. He took our hands to help us out.
Then we went up to the room, and freshened up, got some gum, our cameras and stuff. We went down to the Riobamba lounge, and got seats on the right side of the bar. Maggie and I got amaretto sours, and pooled some money together to play video poker. We hit 50 coins, and later 9, and kept those separate. We had put in $8, and ended up with $15, so we came out ahead that time. Jr came over to get a drink, and we talked to him for awhile. He took a picture of the three of us for us.
Jr told us a story about a friend of his in the business, that has a son. When he asked him what the cow says, he said "Moo", etc. When asked what Mommy says, he said "NoNoNo", when he asked what Daddy says, he said "ByeByeBye". How sad!!! We talked about TNN, and their trip to Japan and Korea. Jr didn't keep a journal like Shann, but videotaped everything.
shaming someone in the crowd
Between shows, we got stuff signed. Tim said he loved my shirt. (I had on satin shirt). We decided Tim loves shiny things. We got several compliments from Eddie that night that we looked nice. We didn't get a group picture.
We went up to the room to change. I kept my satin shirt on, but put on jeans and boots instead of dress pants and heels. We ran into Heath on the way, he was going to his room for more medicine. He walks to fast, so he was long gone by the time we got to the elevators. We did get hugs though.
We went back to our seats, and I got an amaretto and coke.
After the first verse of "He Left a Lot to Be Desired", if they don't get applause, Heath usually says "This is where we usually get a big round of applause"..... well, we'd either forget, or be too late, or one of us would remember, and the others wouldn't. Maggie even made us a sign last night to help..... well, tonight, at the second show, we remembered without any cues...... we clapped and screamed as loud as we could. We got a big laugh out of Eddie. We were going to buy them all drinks, but since they already had 3 bottles of Jack Daniels on stage, we just bought Heath a Hot Tottie. We put a note with it that said "from the Internet gang". He said it was from his Internet friends. Yes, we fed his bad habit!
We hung around after the show. We went and sat up by Matt, chatted with him a few minutes until he cleaned up his stuff and left. We caught Eddie, and he came over to chat. Amy had pictures from Milton and No Place for the guys to look at. So Eddie looked through them and picked out a few he wanted copies of. He gave us hugs goodbye. Maggie managed to call Heath over for a minute before he took off. We saw Brenda, and she came over and picked out pictures she wanted. We agree with Brenda, Tim, tuck in your shirt! LOL We asked her if they have been able to get many pictures of the two of them, and offered to take one of them. She said sure. When Tim came over, he rubbed my arm and said he loved my shirt again. I took a couple pictures of them on my camera, and they couldn't decide which they liked more, so I told them I'd get copies them both. We told Tim he needed to take Brenda on a gondola ride. I formally introduced myself to Brenda. We all gave each other hugs goodbye. I also got a kiss from Tim.
We waited around until we could catch Shannon. He looked through the pics, and asked if the No Place ones were the ones on the web. I told him some might be, but I had mine on there. The first day or two we were there, he told me I had great pics from that show on the net. He told us his wife and Dad were coming there in the next couple days. We got some great hugs goodbye.
As we were walking through the casino, we ran into Jr. He looked at some of the pics, and said he wanted pictures of him with each of us. I asked him what our names are. He changed the subject again, and asked if we knew his real name. Amy said Dewayne, and he asked if we knew his middle name. We didn't. He gave us a hint, but I won't say what. When Maggie made her guess, he didn't say anything, just smiled.
We went up to the room and packed. I started to write in my journal more, while they went to sleep. Maggie had set the alarm for 6:30am. I finally couldn't stand it, and fell asleep for a little while. I guess I got about an hour of sleep.
We made sure we had everything. I did the Express checkout. All I had to do was fill out a card, and drop it and the keys in the drop box.
We lugged all our gear to the valet pick-up. Dropping off the van took less time than we thought, so we had a lot of time. I made a comment about taxis, saying "that's a long line of taxis". Maggie thought I said "it's a long drive to Texas!". We found Amy and Maggie's gate, and sat down. We started to write down notes about some of the things that happened. They saw a line start to form, so we parted ways to get our boarding passes. We all got in the first boarding groups. I went back down to their gate, and chatted for a few minutes. They told me about The Scale: Limo Driver-> Rafael-> The Fireman. Mine is reversed, because I didn't see the fireman! Oh, and if the guy is off the scale, he is better than a wax statue! We said goodbye, and I went to my gate. My flight had a stop in Phoenix before going to St. Louis. I slept off and on the whole way. My mom and Dad were there to pick me up. It had snowed the day before. That night, I got a call from Maggie and Amy. They were in Sam's getting pictures developed. Big surprise there! LOL Over the 3 nights we were there, we got a total of about 11-12 hours of sleep.
Maggie, Amy, and Cheryl, I had a BLAST! I hope we can do it again nect year, like we talked about.
Eddie, yes, if only there were 30 hours in a day! To all the Ricochet guys and crew, thanks for being part of our wonderful vacation! To those friends that couldn't make it, we had plenty of fun for you! Wish you could have been there.
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