11. It wasn’t a bird, it wasn’t a plane. It wasn’t a box, it wasn’t a bag…

They soon discovered why their package couldn’t be at the front desk, or FedEx. 

Toos loves surprises, and even Kodi was happy with this one.

The bellman took his tip and wished them a happy birthday.  Toos said that since she was needing nourishment, it was time to eat her wee birthday cake and munch on some chocolate strawberries.  The fridge definitely came in handy, because there was a LOT of fruit in that bucket.

They unpacked a few necessities,  and  then decided to go searching for ‘real’ food to join the dessert they’d just enjoyed.

The last task of placing the valuables in the safe, and locking it up failed miserably.  The safe wasn’t working. Would they end up having to change rooms after all?  Luckily, the phone did work, so a call to the front desk had an engineer at the door 20 minutes later. He checked it out,  saying he dealt with about a dozen of these a week, and  replaced the battery, so they were soon ready to go out. 

The Habitat elevators well located for some things, as are all of the various elevator locations in this hotel, (after the many expansions of the hotel over the years).  It was very handy to the exit to the Linq corridor, and directly across from the doorway out to the garden area.

Kodi wasn’t familiar with all of the Linq restaurants since Covid closures, but knew there would probably be a variety. She was surprised and impressed at how many existed.  It was “Earlybird” eating time, so they figured it wouldn’t be too busy.  She could smell beautifully charred meat as they stepped outside.  She envisioned a big juicy hunk of meat, and wanted to eat wherever that was being cooked, LOL…   They wandered up. They wandered down. They were tired of wandering that day, so upon checking out the menu outside the Yard House, they decided to see if they could be seated immediately.  They were told about 10 minutes, and that worked for them.  

The  food was excellent, though the meal took quite a while to appear .  About 15 minutes after they ordered, their waitress came by frequently to give them status reports…ranging from ‘not too long now’, to ‘a few more minutes’, to “I apologize,  but the kitchen is really behind”. Luckily, they’d had the little cakes and some fruit, LOL.  The restaurant was not even half full, so there must have been big problems back of the house.  It seemed that others were not as forgiving.  Another server passed them on the way from the kitchen, with two full dinner plates.  After 4 or 5 minutes of looking around , he returned, going past them again, and re-entered the kitchen, still carrying them.

Toos had honey garlic chicken wings, and Kodi ordered the BBQ bacon cheeseburger, which came with fries.   

As mentioned, they were tasty, and Kodi would eat there again.  By the time they finished the food,  the space was really filling up and was pretty noisy…so early bird dining had worked well.  They  walked around a little outside…trying to find some place that might appeal to them for breakfast, then entered the Flamingo under the watchful eyes of the giant pink birds.  

They browsed in the gift shop, and Toos spotted a cute little fuzzy Flamingo, that wasn’t an outrageous price. She decided she’d probably take one home for her great granddaughter, but would get it later.  

From Kodi’s own experiences ( even at craft shows and bake sales) she figured that plan was doomed to fail.  ( And yes, it did…as Kodi pointed out to Toos on the way back to the airport.)  Anyway, Toos chose to ignore her advice about getting it right then and putting it in the room, since they weren’t far from the elevators.

They made plans to meet up in the room ‘sometime’ and went their separate ways, after Kodi reminded Toos that if she got turned around in the casino and wasn’t sure how to get back to their ‘out of the way’ elevators later, just to ask an employee where Bugsy and Meyers Steakhouse was.

Kodi tried various areas in the casino, and various games in every area.   No luck with big wins, but she got some playing time, so stayed busy for a few hours. She finished up, by putting her last few dollars in that day’s envelope into a video poker machine at the bar next to the lobby, and around the corner from the Players Desk.  

She enjoyed a Harvey Wallbanger, while moving up and down, and entertaining herself for a while.  

The bartender on duty wasn’t particularly hospitable.  A lady came up and asked for a glass of water with ice, and he told her it would be $2.50, and she should go to the gift store to get a bottle.  Kodi was under the impression that no one could be denied water in Las Vegas, but perhaps it was the ice he was going to charge her for…who knows. Anyway, she paid him and left, rather glumly.   About 20 minutes later, a man rushed up, and asked the bartender to please call security for him, right away.  The bartender pointed to the front desk, and told him to ask them to do it.  Considering that it might have been any kind of emergency, Kodi decided that this bartender was in the ‘A’  category.  No, not admirable, but asshole.

She didn’t have to deal with him any further though, so she stayed put, mainly because it was nearly 11 p.m. and she was too weary to move.  As she got down to her last few dollars, she decided to use the $40 free play that had come with her 3 night comped offer.  They were actually paying for this night, as they were there for 4 nights , but then would just owe the ‘resort fees and tax ‘ for the next 3.  She tried a few times but was unable to load the free play.  It wasn’t showing up.  By now she was too tired to find another kind of machine, but would try it in the morning.  The Players desk was closed now as well, but perhaps the free play wouldn’t kick in until the first comped night, even though the wording had been “$40 in both September and October.”

She dragged herself across the casino towards Bugsy and Meyers, and the elevator lobby right next to the restaurant, then headed ‘home’, where Toos was sawing logs, and hopefully dreaming about the big jackpot win she’d had that night.