If you somehow landed on this post and would like to start at the beginning of this ancient Las Vegas trip report, you can go HERE.

Good morning from Palace Station! Despite crawling to bed at 6:30 AM, I am awake at 8:30 AM.  I head downstairs for breakfast at the buffet, and return for a long nap.  I am up at 4:00 PM.

I go down to the casino and play and Uncle Sam slot machine, cashing out with $50. I decide to go up to the room, shower and pick up where I left off on last night’s Strip casino crawl.

Well although last night went on forever, tonight only lasted an hour.

I started off at the Venetian, lost and lost. Casino Royale, lost and lost. Mirage!  Lost and lost and called it quits.

This simply isn’t fun when you are walking these long distances between casinos and not getting anything for your efforts so I decided to stay put.

I gambled at Mirage for quite some time, never hitting anything worth documenting.  Then over to Treasure Island where I played until I was broke.

I took a cab back to Palace Station and fell asleep watching some television show named “Vegas.”  2022 me wants to know what the fuck television show I was watching named “Vegas” in June of 2003, and even Google doesn’t know.

Since this day was incredibly short, I’ll just keep going into tomorrow.

I am up at 8:30 AM.  Today is supposed to be a sleep in day. Oh well, I will sleep when I am dead.

Breakfast is at the buffet again. After eating, I play and lose on slots. I go outside and take pictures of the hotel. Come back, shower and check out.

I take a cab to Paris for my fourth and final hotel of this trip.  Hotel reception looks exactly the same then as it does now!

I am given room 422.  My Paris room was sooooooooooo nice. I fell in love instantly. Instead of a table and chairs, they have a sofa. They have a separate shower stall and separate tub. The room was a great size. I loved it.

I go down to the casino to take some photos.  I walk in the heat to buy souvenirs. Eventually I end up at the Bellagio, dumping my money into both a Cops and Donuts slot machine and a Red, White & Blue slot machine. I win nothing.

I head back to Paris, have lunch at JJ’s Boulangerie. It was pretty good. I walked around and looked at the shops and buy myself a pair of Paris themed pajamas. This is the beginning. The first time I have ever bought any hotel souvenir in all my Vegas trips. And now of course I have decided I want to start getting pajamas from EVERY hotel. This is not a good thing.

Up to the room to nap. This lasts maybe 30 minutes before the girls in the room next to me pile on in (it sounded like there were about five of them ‑ each one drunker and louder than the last.) After about an hour they either all pass out or leave. I remained in bed this entire time. Once they were gone, I watched some television. I think heat exhaustion was getting to me.

I wake up and go back out around 10:00 PM.  I walk to Walgreens for some more cheap, crappy souvenirs. I stopped at Aladdin, lose. Back to Paris – find a Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous slot machine.  These games look really cool, they even have a cup holder built in. I got the bonus three times. Hint ‑ if you get the bonus ‑ you get three tries to change it. ALWAYS take the tries. If on your first one, you mess up and pick a lower amount, it WILL let you go back and pick the one you had originally picked.

Over to Ballys. I sat down at an I Love Lucy slot machine.  I have played this before but never on a machine that lets out chocolate aroma when you get the chocolate bonus. I didn’t get it, but the man next to me did. Lo and behold, the air was filled with the smell of chocolate!  How fucking cool is that?!

2022 called – it wants you to know that I am posting the next couple of paragraphs as they were written in 2003.  What a naïve sucker I was to not recognize a scam!

When the man who got the chocolate scented bonus initially sat down next to me, he started talking to me about how he saw “I Love Lucy” on television. He continues on to tell me that his mother gave him $100 to gamble and he needs to break the big bill into $20s. He keeps showing me his money. I told him that he shouldn’t flash his money around. He replied “my mother gave me $100.” I didn’t know what to do here, on the one hand I was worried for him, but on the other, he is not MY responsibility. Once I lost, I cashed out, wished him luck, and hoped his mother would come back for him before someone took advantage of his showing strangers his money.

I am so confused as I am typing this out 19 years later as to how I did not realize he was probably trying to pawn off a fake $100 bill to me?

I am in bed by 1:00 AM.

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