Continued from Part I

But today we had sun! GLORIOUS SUN! To the pool!

The pool is one big rectangle surrounded by the “VIP chairs”…which are padded and come with umbrellas, fluffy towels, pillows, tables, dedicated servers, and a bucket of bottled water. There are other rows of “normal” chairs on the outer bands of the pool where you will also find hot tubs and even further out and sort of oddly placed, cabanas.

One of the few remaining valuable MyVegas rewards is the VIP chair pack which includes two chairs and the list of perks. We used this reward today. Actual cost is $40. Granted, we didn’t really need a reserved space because as you can see, at 10 am on a Thursday after Labor Day weekend, no one was at the pool. Well, there was one skeezy 50-something guy who kept lathering himself in sunscreen using long porny strokes and making “I’m impressed with me” face. He was a nice burnt orange. Coarse. Tanned. Leather. …in a Speedo.

Luckily, we were far away from this dude. And our friendly attendant set us up with dressed chairs, a raised umbrella and bar menus. Settle in… server comes by and we order some beachy drinks. These pool drinks are a great deal. The 32 oz. souvenir cup drink is $12. The bucket o’ drink is also $12 and includes the recipe for the Malibu-based drink you order from the list of bucket drinks available. FUN! Yea booze-related souvenirs! We love booze-related souvenirs. We may have way too many similar drinking vessels that are booze-related souvenirs sitting on top of our fridge at home. YEA! FUN!

Oh and twisty slinky straws…who doesn’t love those? If you don’t, you’re no fun and need to find some joy in your life ASAP.

By the way folks, my drink is called the Citrus Fizz and it involves “champagne”…quotes because we all know it’s not REALLY Champagne like from France and all but it’s fizzy and it’s delicious in this beachy drink and nothing gets me drunker faster than a bubbly tropical drink. This drink is my favorite poolside drink ever ANYWHERE. Even better than Zeus Juice at the Caesars pool in Vegas. If I have two of these souvenir cups I am 85 thousand sheets to the wind.

BUT.

The rain…

Yep, we got in the pool, we had our drinks, and had commenced some good chatter. A few additional couples showed up including a European couple that had just paid for their reserved chairs. They left some clothes, a couple of books, and some cigarettes on their chairs and left.

And it started raining…with lightning. And that’s it. Lightning kills any outdoor party because lightning can indeed kill. So, tab is closed immediately and we are asked (TOLD) to leave the pool area immediately. SO MUCH LAME.

…we totally tried to save our drinks. I drank mine rain water and all damn it. I live in Houston. We have to deal with that brown ass Gulf water all the time, at least this sky water might have traveled from the Ozarks or some such nonsense (clearly, I am not Jim Cantore). I’m still alive. It was fine. But we only got a little over an hour of pool time. The Europeans got none…and they hadn’t returned during the rain episode…and no one really did anything about their stuff. Sorry, Europeans…you know, I actually have no idea whether or not they are actually from Europe but they sure acted like it.

So we are inside…wet…cold. Now what? No gambling. No pool. So we hit the Buffet. This buffet is not a good buffet. They try to make it a good buffet and there are noticable attempts every time but this is definitely one place where the Beau fails. Fortunately, as a Gold Mlife member you get 2 free breakfast or lunch buffets each month. My wife and I both have Gold cards (although she got hers through that clever Hyatt Platinum match) so that’s two free meals for us. Not that it’s awesome, again, because this buffet struggles…a bunch. The food is usually luke cool. The seasoning is non-existent and the textures are usually mismatched. Crunchy fried chicken breading? Nah, have some soggy. But we’ll make your baked talapia a bit more crunchy than expected. Here, have some of the yella. For free, though…totally worth it if only for carbs and an iced tea.

After lunch, I decide to try my luck at gambling again. Guess what?

Still losing. I told you this happened. Why would you expect something else? I lost the entire time. I even walked next door, in the rain, to the Hard Rock. This casino is neat. I enjoy playing here. But I lost there too. And I had the added joy of carrying around my wife’s bright yellow umbrella from Banana Republic that has an inspirational quote about life in a girly script on it. So here I am with my bright yellow umbrella communicating to the world that they should “live life in the clouds” or “love each human with the touch of an angel’s embrace” or whatever it is…Still. Losing.

I came back and took a nap as we listened to the thunderstorms outside. At around 4 pm the pool staff called and said we could return to the pool. Thanks but we’ll just stay dry and showered. That evening we went to the Italian restaurant, Stalla. All of their restaurants (NOT THE BUFFET) are very good. Stalla was not an exception to this rule.

We both decided to get the MyVegas reward for an appetizer with entrée purchase and not only did this cut $30 off our bill, we had two great apps. My wife enjoyed their lasagna and I had spaghetti and meatballs. Their pre-app bread basket was also very good. And, they draw the oil they use to mix with their herb seasoning for the bread from a large Genie-like lamp in the middle of the room. It’s actually quite pretty. Our server was PHENOMENAL.

We previously dined at Jia, the Asian concept, and while the food was good, the service was not nearly as good as it was tonight. Strongly recommend this restaurant if you enjoy Italian.

Friday was pretty uneventful. I gambled and lost some more. A host called to check in and I went for some sympathy points with all the losses and she took the Italian dinner off the tab. She also offered tickets to Larry the Cable Guy that night…git’er dun! Umm, no. I see all the country folks I need to see back home in Texas. We did visit with a friend of ours who lives across the bay in Ocean Springs, MS. This town also has one of the best BBQ joints we’ve ever been to…The Shed. If you visit Biloxi and have a car, make time for this place. It looks like an old junk yard and you might actually have to park on a creek bank, but the food is on point.

I had $200 in shopping money for one of those pick-your-prize events. The stuff for men was really for Southern bros. I don’t need a rifle case or a new golf sack or a camo shirt with a back flap with the Ole Miss logo embroidered on it. So my wife was able to instead get a Michael Kors wallet for a purse she’d bought recently and a pair of Ray Ban sunglasses. WINNER!

Anywho, as we left the event I decided to take one more kick in the ass and gamble a bit more. Lost and lost and lost…saw a lady win $9000-ish on a Walking Dead slot (really? Those win???). Played a bit near the casino bar to listen to the one-man band. Played a bit near the casino lounge to listen to the talented singer they have performing there all the time, Dian (no ‘e’) something or other. She can have no one in that lounge and still puts on quite a show. I love live musicians as I once was one so I have to give a shout out whenever possible. I vow now to attempt to be better at remembering full names…

Went to bed after that last round of losing, got up the next morning…had coffee on the patio in cool perfectly dry weather (*%$#!) and soon boarded the bus back to the airport. Checked in around noon, pulling back around 1 pm…and then a waspy-like bee thing flew straight down the aisle toward the front of the cabin. And then it flew back down the aisle…and then it flew over people’s heads…and then there were screams and swats…and then the flight attendants all had paper towels (???) and were standing on arm rests and chairs swatting at the thing. And finally, one of our exit row 30-somethings took off his camo Beau Rivage ball cap (Southern bro…) and swatted at the waspy bee. …and it was gone. So we took off and were in the air to Houston, personally about $1000 lighter. But we had some swag and some good times so we were happy. And then…the waspy bee flew up from row 11 in front of us…and a spry septuagenarian stood up, took her copy of Better Homes and Gardens and smashed the waspy bee against the cabin wall. CHEERS! Hell, uproarious applause… the evil witch was dead. Or this poor little waspy bee had met its demise somewhere over I’d say Houma, Louisiana. And then we were soon home…rained on, gambled out, and content.

Next gambling trip will be back through the South as I make my way through Lake Charles, Louisiana (Golden Nugget and L’Auberge du Lac) to Harrah’s New Orleans to pick up a Movado watch and play some serious Free Play, and back to the Beau for hopefully one more pool day before the South experiences the season of non-Summer we get for a few months each year. ‘Til then…