Santa Rampage in Las Vegas

As we know, Santarchy or Santacon is an annual event all over the world. The Vegas Version happens to be called Santa Rampage. This year the location selected was Fremont Street, the old downtown heart of Las Vegas, now a covered pedestrian walk.

MyLarry and I dressed up early Friday evening, intending to eat supper, take a picture with Father Christmas at the Excalibur, then say hi at Coyote Ugly and take the shuttle to Fremont Street. MyLarry have a traditional red suit from Target and carried a Santa Sack full of candy canes. I was wearing my full length red velvet dress and cape I had sewn, with a white wig and a poinsettia crown, also made by hand. The crown, not the wig! I put on the wig and WOW! I look like Mom.

Dinner first, at the Sherwood Forest Cafe, because we were saddled with dining coupons for that restaurant. We had calamari, MyLarry had a grilled chicken cesaer salad, I had a bleu cheese with apples and walnuts salad. The chunks of bleu cheese were as big as my fist, the entire salad was huge enough to feed three people! The best part of the meal was when a Dad walked a tiny little boy over to say hello. He was the cutest kid ever! One of the cardinal rules of Santa Rampaging is never, ever mess with kids. He was delighted when I gave him a candy cane and told him that all the Santa helpers were having a party tonight because we’d all be busy for Christmas.

After supper, we went over and had our picture taken with Santa. Hilarious! we left the picture there to pick up the next day, I need bifocals but don’t wear them, and on the proof I didn’t notice my eyes were closed. Still, a nice holiday portrait. We crossed the skywalk over to New York, New York, couldn’t take two steps without being stopped to take pictures. Signed up with Tahitian Village timeshare to get tickets for Zumanity … more about that in a different blog. The reps were taking tons of pictures too! We finally got on the shuttle, and again, many, many pictures were taken.

Fremont Street, we got there just as Santa was moving away from the big Christmas tree into a casino for drinks. I quickly lost track of which casino or bar we went into, but it was a mad mob scene and so much fun! I got to see so many of our Vegas burner buds, most excellent. Now and then we’d stop to watch the overhead light show, very amazing. We wore Santa nametags, MyLarry was Larry Santa, I was Anti Santa (from Anti M). Security would nervously grab their comms when we entered, but then would relax when they saw we weren’t being destructive or too rude. We’d walk down the street chanting, “Santa wants a drink! Santa wants a drink!” Now and then you’d hear “Santa wants a lapdance!” Again, I had my picture taken many times, I must have looked more approachable than the Sexy Santas. That, and I’m slow on my short little legs, always at the back of the pack.

We had a Snowflake, and Elf, a Backwards Santa, a Jewish Santa, Little Red Riding Santa, a Dark Santa, a Mexican Wrestling Santa, an Insanity Claus, A Pirate Santa, a RollerGirl Santa, a Pimp Santa … and well, lots of Santas! Forty or fifty and we picked up one or two others along the way. The street preacher yelled at us and followed with his homophobic signs, I turned and took his picture. He looked startled. At the bar where the girls were dancing behind the stage, we also danced a lot, but got asked to leave when Santa wanted to dance with the girls. Next place, we had cheap shrimp cocktails and the bartenders loved us … Bennions? At Glitter Gulch, they wanted $20 a head to come in, “Oh NO! Santa got to go!” And so, down to Hogs and Heifers, where all the Mrs. Santas and the Elf danced on the bar. This Mrs. Santa was a big hit, although I had to struggle to get up there. Plenty of helping hands! There are neon signs from Old Vegas on the street as sculptures for the Neon Museum, way cool. Back to Fremont, I got everyone to chant, “Hot Monkey Santa Sex! Hot Monkey Santa Sex!” Then a tropical bar with live music, where again, many, many pictures were taken. The Rampage went on, we caught the shuttle back to the casino.

The night was youngish, only two a.m., so we dropped in at Coyote Ugly. MyLarry knows all the security guys, and all the girls by name. He’s there so often he’s a mascot of sorts. Mrs. Santa was Very Naughty, dancing on the bar, getting shots poured down her throat, and finally, doing a mini strip-tease which showed no flesh but resulted in her vivid red bra hanging from the airplane in the rafters. I got that sucker up there with one throw! And the girls were laughing and saying how they were permanently on the Naughty List now. We closed the place down! I paid for all this merriment heavily for two or three days, my muscles were so sore from sexy dancing I could scarcely walk. Apparently I can still move it, I had a handsome, well-dressed young man in a suit and overcoat approach me to compliment my dance moves. Sure thing, honey! I was flattered, but freaked out!

Oh, we have so got to do this next year too! Oh, about those many, many pictures, look in About Me for my Tribe album, that’s where they are.

Mighty Loads of Steel

MyLarry picked me up at the Perry Port of Entry on Thursday morning. They rolled the big trucks through the scale; he was freaking out because he had been the lead truck and now had fallen behind. I told him to relax, that he would catch up. He did. There were four Central semis carrying oversized loads of steel. The beams were monstrous assemblies; mylarry’s gross weight was 140,000 and he was 16 foot 6 inches wide. That’s big. Four trucks and eight pilot cars. The whole pilot car thing was interesting; the car up front would call back on the CB to let the drivers know about guardrails and narrow spots and whatnot. We did not head down I-15 through Salt Lake; instead we detoured west to Wendover, then south through Ely, NV to Vegas. The construction in the Virgin River Gorge had reduced the traffic lanes to fourteen feet, no way would the big beams fit through.

I did not like the woman pilot in charge, she was bad-mouthing mylarry to the other drivers. The other drivers weren’t too pleased, they’re his friends. We had stopped for fuel for us and the trucks and I was buying sandwiches inside with the others while mylarry fueled the semi. “Lynette” was going on about mylarry “talks like he’s a rocket scientist, and he’s no smarter than the bottom of my shoe.” I gave her the Look of Death, but she didn’t know who I was. The other drivers jumped in to defend him, telling her he was ex-Navy, the senior driver, and he did know a lot of things. The next day at another stop we were introduced. She had the good sense to look a little sheepish. The pilots were talking on the Cb about the time zone change, and mylarry nearly got on to say, “It’s a time zone, it isn’t rocket science.” I wouldn’t let him. I should have!

We had to spend the night in a truckstop at Ely; oversize loads cannot be moved at night. Brrr! Cold little dump of a town. Snowy up on White Pine Pass; but once the trucks were rolling there was no place to stop or turn around. Scary and slidy! Larry was so wide the edge of the steel beam was over the guardrails; he took out one milemarker and two orange barrels. This is a two lane highway, not an interstate so there was traffic coming toward us. The lead pilot would call, “four back” or “eighteen back.” That’s a car or a semi. Number of wheels, yes? She would also call ahead, “Big truck, there’s four seventeen foot wide trucks coming at you.” They’d give us all the room they could, riding on the rumble strip. Once we got back onto I-15 heading into Vegas, each truck straddled a white line and took up two lanes. The pilots guided us into the SME staging area which is a coned off portion of Frank Sinatra Blvd., then they took off. The construction guys came and got the trucks one at a time. They blocked traffic, traffic which was detoured in the first place, so the street is confusing. Mylarry was so wide he had to go down the southbound lanes heading north. Cars followed him onto the wrong lanes! What a mess with flaggers only on the north end. When the time came to deliver, the construction site had to use the giant crane to lift the loads instead of the usual giant forklifts.