Vegas Baby

We're back from our Vegas adventure. Things went well for the most part and we got a taste of what traveling with Milo really is like.

I played with Tyrell at the Golden Nugget over the weekend. Considering the relatively short drive and free hotel Carrie and I figured it would be a good trip for her and Milo to come on before she starts flying with him all over the country. The trip out on Wednesday went pretty smoothly; the trip usually takes 4.5 hrs. but it took up more than 6 since we had to stop and feed the little guy a couple of times.

The Golden Nugget is downtown in old Vegas. I really like it down there. If you stay on the Vegas Strip it's really hard to get around. Every sidewalk runs up to each casino and sometimes it's really confusing to find your way to the street (they don't want you to leave). Downtown is a little more chilled out and the casinos are closer together. If you recall the dialouge from Swingers about casinos on the strip then you feel me.

As you can imagine Milo didn't really take advantage of everything Vegas had to offer. He spent most of his time doing what he always does; eating, sleeping, pooping, crying. He did meet some new people who of course gushed over how adorable he is and he accompanied mommy and daddy to dinner a few times. Here's a pic of Milo enjoying the video/light show at the Fremont Street Experience:



I got to catch up with some old friends of mine who I hadn't seen in nearly a decade since my Ball State days. Friday night I went to see my old bass studio-mate Doug play with his blues band at a neighborhood bar. I took Blue Lou from Tyrell's band and everyone went nuts when he picked up his horn and sat in. The band was great and it was a really fun night. Saturday Doug and I had lunch and caught up with each other. That night I went to see another old BSU friend play saxophone at a burlesque show at the Forty Deuce at Mandalay Bay. While the actual burlesque show was too short for me (yowza!) it was great to see my buddy playing alongside of the dancers, he really sounded great.

I even got three poker sessions in and left up about $140. Not too shabby!

Carrie unfortunately had her second bout with mastitis over the weekend so Milo got his first bottle of formula on Saturday. Now, I'd heard the stories about how much worse formula poo smells than breast milk poo but I really wasn't prepared for exactly how bad it would be. Do you remember that scene in Shawshank Redemption when Andy is crawling through the tiny pipe flowing with raw sewage and the smell is so foul he has to stop and vomit every few feet?

I think I would've preferred crawling through the Shawshank sewage line for a couple of miles than smelling that first diaper full of formula poo. Damn that was rank!

The drive home was the roughest part of the trip. Sunday started out well as we had lunch with another old friend of mine Eliot who used to play piano in Tyrell's band. The food was fantastic and it was really great seeing Eliot again. Then as we hit the road I noticed something wrong with how the car felt as I was driving it. As soon as I started to think it might be something with the steering the tire blew out. I pulled over to the side of the road and jacked up the car and began to change the tire but things looked worse to me. I got the tire off and it seemed like the shock had fallen down too far in to the wheel well and looked bent. I thought we might be stranded in Vegas. We called a tow truck and we called Eliot to come get Carrie and Milo. While we were waiting someone from the Freeway Service Patrol stopped and checked the car out. He looked at the shocks and the struts and thought everything looked fine. I put the spare on and drove the car a short way and soon realized that I was being overly cautious, the shocks were fine and I could drive home with the spare.

But that was only the beginning of the trip. Traffic was bad, Milo was fussy, rain was coming down, the bathroom breaks/feeding breaks/food breaks/bathroom breaks didn't match up ... we first left Vegas at 3 and we didn't get home until 11:30.

But we're home now and looking forward to the next leg of the tour.