Viva Las Vegas Y'all!

I just got back from Las Vegas!

Man oh man, it was my first visit ever, and let me tell y\'all,
if there was ever a town I fell in love with at first glance,
it\'s Las Vegas! It has The Brotherhood\'s name written all over
it, in fact, if there ever was ever a town that I\'ll need to
visit regularly for the rest of my life after only one visit,
it\'s Las Vegas!

I went out there for a speaking engagement related to some of my
writing activities. Even though I spoke for only twenty minutes
in a tiny conference room in one of the big strip hotels, I can
now say, for all eternity, that \I\'ve played Vegas!\ I was out
there for all of two days, which now makes me a certified Vegas
authority. And because I\'m now so knowledgeable, here\'s some
unique things y\'all can expect to see if you ever make a trip
out there:

1. Some huge hotels - I thought I had seen some large hotels in
places like New York City and Chicago, but nothing compares to
these big mamas out in Vegas. You have the Luxor, which
literally looks like a pyramid with a light shining out of the
top. You have Mandalay Bay, well, actually there are two
Mandalay Bays now, and they both have copper colored windows in
their rooms. They also have eleven acres of swimming pools and a
huge shark aquarium. The owner of Mandalay Bay obviously likes
fish, and probably also likes having a little something on the
property to help keep the guests in line. Let\'s also not forget
Caesar\'s Palace, which is huge, and the Venetian, which is even
larger. There\'s one place called Excaliber that looks like a
castle because one actually sits right at the entrance to it,
Paris Las Vegas has a replica of the Eiffel Tower standing right
next to it, one called the Stratosphere has an 1100 foot tower
built close by (get this, there\'s a roller coaster on top of
it), and the grandest Vegas hotel of them all is the Bellagio.
Collectively, these have to be the most unique hotels in the
world.

2. More gambling than you could ever imagine - every big motel
has a casino, and you can\'t get to anything without going
through the casino first. I\'m serious, if you want to go to your
room, you\'ve gotta go through the casino, if you want to eat at
a motel restaurant, you\'ve gotta go through the casino, and
remember this - if you need to go to the bathroom, don\'t wait
til it\'s leg quivering time to go, because you\'ll have to go
through the casino to get to it as well. Something tells me that
those Vegas motel security people won\'t like guests who whiz all
over their carpets or slot machines.

3. Women, women, and women! There\'s something unusual goin\' on
in Vegas, something I can\'t quite explain but still want to tell
y\'all about. The women in Vegas must be extra friendly, and the
reason I know that is that they actually have people standing
out on the streets handing out cards with their names and
telephone numbers on them. Isn\'t that the friendliest thing
you\'ve ever heard of? Where else could you go and experience
hospitality like this? How Vegas has managed to get so many
friendly women all in one place is something I\'ll never figure
out...

4. The shows! I saw Little Richard in the Orleans Motel and
Casino Showroom, and man was he was great! Also performing on
the strip were Gladys Knight, Celine Dion, a whole bunch of
Elvis impersonators, and many, many more top flight
entertainers. There were also some topless reviews, as they like
to get naked at some of these Vegas clubs, but being the highly
conservative type person that I am I didn\'t dare visit any of
them. Topless women, the nerve!

Folks, I\'m already at the end of this column and I\'m still just
getting started, I haven\'t even mentioned the great food, the
thrill rides, the sightseeing, and a whole lot more. Because of
that, I\'m already in close consultation with Brothers Pippin and
Foskey regarding the planning for our first ever Brotherhood
visit to Las Vegas. Right now we\'re envisioning this as a yearly
type ritual, but that\'s always up for negotiation, to do the
proper research we may need several trips out there every year.
Can y\'all imagine Hugh, the Pip, and I all together out on the
Vegas strip? Out in the middle of Sin City? I sure can!