posted by:

The City of Lost Wages:The San Gennaro Italian Food Festival

Las Vegas Travel Blog › entry 1 of 4 › view all entries

I'm back in lost wages for another great meet-up. A sponteneous and last minute decision after a disoriented moment. Adrian (acowboy) and Louise (1morespicy) are celebrating birthdays and Sal (sincity traveler) is the host of a lovely BBQ and Greek Festival.

View All Photos

RSS Feed

Report spam

World › North America › United States › Nevada › Las Vegas

Next Entry: The Journey »

The City of Lost Wages:The San Gennaro Italian Food Festival

September 18, 2009

Me with a backdrop of the farris wheel

It all began with a telephone call to Adrian confirm his attendance of the forth coming Phoenix Travbuddy Meet-up scheduled for the weekend of October 23. He then told me he was off to Las Vegas to spend some quiet time with Sal for his birthday and also mentioned in passing that Louise (www.travbuddy.com/1morespicy) would be joining in. I was scheduled to go to Lake Havasu this weekend, but the idea of a meet-up sounded much more fun than a lone drive all the way to Lake Havasu.

Ryan, Adrian, Myra, Sal, Andrew, Harriet, Wendy, Sven, Melanie and Louise

I immediately changed my mind and Adrian said I could drive to Vegas with him, we agreed on a time for Friday morning (9:00 am departure out of Phoenix) and I would leave Tucson at 6:00 am arriving in Phoenix a few minutes to 9:00 am. Everything worked like clockwork on my side until I got too Phoenix to find Adrian was still asleep. Nevertheless he responded to my two text messages telling me he had stayed out late and would go ahead and get started, he would call me when he is done having a shower. Well the shower took almost 40 minutes but he did call me to let me know his car will not make the trip, could we use mine? Well mine would not make it either since the back of my car is messed up from an accident I was involved in last year. We decided we would check with car rental companies for a good deal, Adrian called the different car companies: Avis, Budget, Alamo, Hertz, and Enterprise.

Sven (Svenman99) and Melanie (Mellemel8)

all companies came with similar quote of $120 for two days, I was absolutely blown away considering for $100 I rent a car for one whole week in Tucson. Adrian decided to take his car to the car shop for a check up and information on whether or not the car cold make the distance since it had a hard time starting up, he was told the battery needed to be replaced ($100 it would cost). But as luck might have it, the car battery was on recall and so the battery was changed at no cost. All this took a total of 4 hours and poor I was sitting at this Deli at the Radissons hotel tapping into Hampton hotel's unsecured wifi and chatting away on travbuddy. It was 1:30 before we left Phoenix and headed out on the 110 towards Las Vegas . . . Our journey was to take another 4.5 hours with traffic unestimated: thankfully the highways were not busy and Adrian kept a steady speed. We made two stops along the way for coffee and bathroom break respectively and arrived in Las Vegas at a little after 6:00 pm.

Louise (1morespicy) and Ryan (Fearlesstraveler82)

Sal was already home when we got to is casa, with him were Sven, Louise and Ryan. We did the introductions and chatting for a while before Sal decided to take us to the festival: not the Greek Festival as originally planned but rather the Itaian Food Festival popularly called the San Gennaro. Sal had printed coupons for each of us to use, entry fee was $6.00 a head, the crown was large by the time we arrived and the lights glowed in variation of colours. In attendance were me (www.travbddy.com/africancrab), Sal (www.travbddy.com/sincitytraveler), Ryan (www.travbddy.com/fearlesstraveler82), Adrian (www.travbddy.com/acowboy) and his girlfriend Myra, Andrew (www.travbddy.com/UNLV), Sven (www.travbddy.com/Svenman99), Louise (www.

Myra, Sal and Andrew

travbuddy.com/1morespicy), Melanie (www.travbuddy.com/mellemel8) and Wendy (www.travbddy.com/travelngirl ). Las Vegas the city of all sins, also referred to as the City of Lost Wages: indeed many take their wages to Vegas only to lose it to the luck machines, hmmm how lucky are these machines? and what are the odd when one's wages are squandered away? . . . I guess we now know that what happens in Vegas does eventually come out in the open. But the pleasure of the moment can be irresistible. We managed successfully not to enter the casinos, let alone gamble any pennies . . . the place to be was Stoneys where even the cowboys enjoy Rock n Roll. The music mix was exciting indeed, riding the bull added thrill to it all.

10 comments

8 smiles

Africancrab says:

You should dear, don't miss out too many because you may regret them later. I hope you and the little one are doing ok

Posted on: Oct 01, 2009

Alexaleon says:

ooh Harriet, that sounds so much fun!! I have to keep checking in so I don't miss the next one..

Posted on: Oct 01, 2009

Africancrab says:

We did have fun I wish you had made it indeed. I now look forward to the Phoenix gathering it should be fun. The Vegas team is looking into joining us, that should add to the fun.

Posted on: Sep 22, 2009

See all 10 comments

Create a free TravBuddy account or login to leave comments, meet travelers, and share experiences with the TravBuddy travel community.