Howl at the Boobies! (Friday Pre Meet Festivities)

After getting checked in and meeting Eric (Yockeh) and Yadi (Yaditta), Melanie and I ran upstairs to finish getting ready as we had less than an hour to be ready before our 2pm meeting time.  Eeeek!  This is the fastest I’ve probably ever gotten ready in my life and we even made it with two minutes to spare! Whew! 

 

We went downstairs in the lobby and hung out with everyone, taking a few photos like always! HA HA.

Welcome to the Raglan and my dream bar! LOL

  We ended up riding over to the Power and Light District with Sal and realized we had the Vegas crew back together in the car!! Well, minus Melanie anyways, as she rode with James.  I knew it was going to be an interesting day as we sat there waiting for James to pull out of the garage but the next thing I see is Eric running full speed out of the garage and back into the hotel.  Apparently James left something by the couches in the lobby while we were taking ten thousand photos.  HA HA. 

 

We head towards the Power and Light District so we can have a quick drink at Raglan’s Irish Pub.  We walked in and I instantly spotted the Smithwick’s on tap so I was set.  A couple of us were hungry (ok, more like starving) and still had a few hours before dinner, so I opted to get a little something to tide me over.

Yeah...Mel's babysitter....LOL

  I ended up ordering just the Potato Leek soup, which was excellent.  RJ’s Shepherd’s Pie and Sal's steak sandwich both looked very tasty as well. 

 

Of course we had to hang out and take a bunch of photos and act silly.  Would you expect anything less? Mark did something different at this pre meet which was great since only a few of us actually knew each other this time around.  He had each of us tell a funny story about ourselves as an ice breaker.  Everyone pretty much stuck to funny stories of international travel and there were definitely some great ones. 

 

Once we finished lunch at the Irish pub, we went across the street to the College Basketball Experience.

  This was an interesting idea and for those who were into basketball, it was heaven!  We tried to take a bunch of pics of the group as they practiced slam dunking and three point shots.  After about an hour or so, RJ and James were pretty sweaty.  Ewwwwwwwww! LOL.  James decided he had enough and wanted to go outside to smoke and I ended up following him out.  We chatted out front for awhile when we thought we should go hold the tables at Howl at the Moon early.  In other words, it was drink time again!! HA HA. 

 

James and I wandered across the street and found out nothing really opens until 5pm (which was our time to meet), even the open courtyard area.

  We opted to have a quick drink at the Irish pub again as they had an outside patio area that you could order drinks at.  Now, what I learned is the venues don’t necessarily care about you bringing drinks into each place which was pretty cool.  We got upstairs right at 5pm and they still had not opened the doors at Howl at the Moon so it was more picture time as we melted in the sun.  It felt almost like Vegas but with humdity.  By this time, Shawn (geerbox) had shown up and it was now time to go on in. 

 

Talk about great happy hour specials - margaritas on the rocks were $2 a piece.  SWEET!  There was also a free little Mexican buffet which was not bad for just bar munchies.

  Howl at the Moon is apparently known for their dueling pianos and that started somewhat right away after our arrival.  We were all dancing around and having fun and then someone picked Melanie up and well, it was flasher alert! Wasn’t her fault but as her head went back and her legs went in the air, gravity took hold and well, yeah…..LOL. We got her put back in right away fortunately and only a couple of us saw it. 

 

More dancing, eating and drinking, and the piano people announce there is a message option you can do and they will post them up on the mirrors in front of the pianos.  The first message was free and Tim instantly grabs a paper and comes up with his message.  I have no idea what he's up to as he flashes this devious grin.  It says, “Melanie flashed her tits first.”  OMG, he goes up and puts it in the box and I let people around us know it’s time to pull the cameras out.

  As soon as the word “Melanie” went up, everyone in our group was already laughing.  Ironically, I was initially blamed for the reveal to the bar but Melanie didn’t see it coming from innocent, sweet, Tim! HA HA HA. 

 

After Melanie was “outed” to the bar, the next message went up and it said “Cameron wants to meet Melanie” LOL.  With that, the girl on the piano asked both Mel and Cameron to the stage.  With that came the supreme embarrassment.  They had them basically fake an orgasm together! HA HA.  A couple of us got video and will have to upload to You Tube but it was absolutely hilarious.  You could tel Mel was pretty embarrassed but she rolled with it well.  Poor Mel and Cameron, his friends basically did to him what we did to Melanie so it was all good! 

 

We partied for a bit more, danced quite a bit, and had a few more drinks.

With the happy hour prices hard to beat, this was a great place to hang for the night and get plastered if you weren't careful!  And I think someone may have talked our server into joining TB as well! HA HA HA. 

 

It was time now for our dinner reservations downstairs but I am not completely sure of the restaurant name (something with a V and a B).  I saw the most important things on the menu - a good wine selection by the glass and gnocchi pasta on the menu!  Whoo Hoo.  It was during dinner that a couple members of our group realized they enjoyed Howl at the Moon a little too much.  I went on double duty babysitting with both James and Melanie and poor and Will ended up playing chauffeur back to the hotel.  We all know Will doesn’t really drink and I think he only had two or three Sprites so he was still good!! HA HA.

 There was quite a delay in poor Will being able to find the car in the structure and I recruited Sal and RJ to help babysit and take turns with James outside and Mel inside. LOL.   Eric had discussed maybe hanging in the room later so we opted to have Will take James and Mel back to our room which was next door to James anyways. 

 

After dinner, we tried to find a place to go dancing but everything was packed so we ended up back at the Irish pub that had a live band and Irish dancers. We were told earlier in the day their band would play contemporary music as well so it was worth checking out at least.  We sat back in our same cubbie area and proceeded to dance around, be silly, and of course, take a ton of photos!  Tried to go dancing with Eric but had a minor wardrobe malfunction so I was back on the bench! HA HA.  One thing I learned is that we had Michael Flatley in our group.  Good grief, RJ, was quite the dancer.

  I feel special to say I’ve traveled with Flatley’s understudy!! HA HA HA  There were other people in the pub who commented on how good RJ was as well so it's not just a biased opinion!! LOL. 

 

We danced a bit in the main courtyard and decided it was too crowded so we would head back and have a little time together in Eric and James’ hotel room. 

 

At this point, since we lost one vehicle and not enough people…we had too many people to get in the remaining vehicles.  We hopped back in with Sal with a couple new additions….two people had the misfortune to find themselves as our “trunk monkeys” and sitting in the back of the SUV for the ride home! It wasn’t bad (probably because I wasn’t stuck back there) but RJ and Shawn seemed like they were having a good time, so it’s all good!!

 

Time to change into pjs now and all meet in James / Eric’s room to chill.

  Fun times - everyone was very laid back and in comfy clothes so it was just like a slumber party.  People started slowly leaving and I thought I should go check on the wounded in my room.  Neither of them had moved since I saw them last when I came back to change - James was curled up in the fetal position clutching a down pillow and Melanie, well, she was on her stomach spread out diagonally, basically hogging the whole bed.  I opted to crawl into bed for a couple hours of sleep before the 8 am wake up call came for James who had accidentally left his hanging clothes at his prior hotel.  Poor James - he was having a rough time!