Friday, April 13th, we headed down to Las Vegas with Natalie and Tashina. They were both soloing at the Scottish Festival down there, and Natalie needed a snare to play with her :) Matt was going to solo, but didn't have a piper. (No, I don't really play anymore. Also, his tunes are hard and I don't have music for them. Nor do I have a reed for my chanter....) We had been tentatively planning on going down anyway, so the days-off request was already in at work :)
We left Friday afternoon. It was rather uneventful, except for about 20 minutes when Natalie successfully got TWO tickets :) Apparently Millard county is really cracking down on speeding. Sad day for Nat. We took a break in St. George to drop Natalie's mom off for the weekend and grab some dinner at Cafe Rio. Then we were off again.
Thanks to Natalie's relation/friend? I don't know... we got a lovely discount at the hotel. We stayed at the Howard Johnson right next to Nellis AFB. It was only about 30 minutes away from the games, so that was nice.
Saturday, we went to the games. Natalie and Tashina both soloed. Nat took 2nd, and Tashina took a 3rd and a 4th. LA Scots were there, so we got to see Andrew. That was fun :) Desert Skye was there, as were the Cameron Highlanders, so we got to also see Andy Fusco and Aaron Mars (former Coyne members). AND Utah Pipe Band went down, so we had somewhere to stash our stuff. It's fun going to these things and getting to chat with people you don't usually see :)
The weather sucked, though. It was pretty much what was happening here in Utah - rain and cold. Although, the sun did come out sometimes. But other times, I was frozen. After solos, we grabbed breakfast at the games (well, my second breakfast :)) They had a crepe vendor, and I got a tasty apple crepe. We watched opening ceremonies (actually, Tashina played in them with Fort Collins) and then we hauled gear back to the car and let everyone change. Interesting was to have the Marine band play with LA Scots. I took some video of that too because it was kinda nifty.
Mostly Matt and I hung out in our chairs, freezing, chatting with some friends from Utah and watching bands compete. When I got hungry enough, we ventured to find lunch. Matt was so happy - he has a love of fish and chips, but only gets them at Scottish Festivals.... I found a VERY tasty chicken pot pie. Oh! And better hot chocolate. (The hot chocolate from the crepe place was depressingly bad.) Then we watched more bands. We aren't very exciting people, are we? Oh! And Glenn Kvidahl was walking behind us and was like, "Done already, Matt?" We had a wee bit of a chat with him as we were walking back to the bands. It was cool because a) we didn't know Glenn knew Matt b) that he'd recognize him from behind when Matt was in civilian clothes. Matt hopes to maybe play with LA (Glenn is lead for the grade 1 band) after grad school.
At the end of the day, we wandered the vendors and purchased nothing. There were a couple of things I considered, but nothing cute enough to spend money on - and definitely not THAT much money :) We left before closing massed bands, so we didn't get results.
On the way home, we stopped at Natalie and Tashina's favorite pet store, Exotic Pets. Mostly they had reptiles and amphibians (perfect for them), but they also had cute bunnies and some rodents and birds. One of their poor budgies didn't look to be doing too well, though :( Then we had to stop at Trader Joe's for Natalie's mom. None of us had been there before, so we didn't know what it was. However, while shopping for our groceries, we found some tasty-looking dried mangos, and so we bought a package :) They also had tasty-looking three-cheese marinara sauce, which we almost bought, but then put back. However, they had samples of chicken parmesan with the tasty sauce, which I sampled, and then I picked a bottle back up. Now I have to make dinner Saturday :)
That night, we were trying to decide where to go for dinner while we were watching TV. We googled what was nearby, but didn't find anything impressive.... Well, we're all nerds, so we were Animal Planet. A new season of Tanked was starting, so they were doing a Tanked marathon with old episodes. (Tanked is a show about this family company that makes aquariums...) They aired an episode where they made a juke box tank for a '50s diner there in Vegas, so we googled it and decided to go there.
We got to Shari's Diner, but didn't see the tank. We told the waitress we were nerds and were watching Tanked...and she was all, "You're wondering where the tank is, aren't you?" hahaha apparently they haven't had it for over a year. Later (because we were like the last people there when they were closing) she told us the story.... Apparently that was their pilot episode, and they actually approached the diner about doing this tank. They said alright, and ta-da, you get the episode. However, they neglected to acclimatize the fish before putting them in the tank.... so within about four days, the fish started dying. They would also come to clean the tank while they had customers there eating.... so eventually, the diner told them to just take it back. She got tipped well for telling us the story :) Still, it was fun to do something spontaneous, like going to a diner you just watched a show about....
Us at Shari's Diner
I did take video of the solos, but this is the only picture I took all weekend... well, the waitress took it :)
Afterward, even though we'd missed 1916 (a celtic rock band), the others decided they wanted to watch the kitchen piping contest held over at the Golden Nugget on Fremont Street. Ugh, Fremont Street is so icky! Anyway, we watched some Finnegan's Wake for a bit, then headed down to the Golden Nugget.
We finally found the right lounge for the competition, and got in line. Behind us, who should show up but world champion Jason Paguio? We're Facebook friends... so we knew who he was... pretty sure he doesn't know us though. Anyway, so we turn around and I'm like, "Hey, Jason." He did pretty well pretending he knew who the crap we were :) He was like, "Hey!" and gave me a hug. lol Yeah, that was the highlight of my night :) He shook Matt's hand and then we proceeded to chat about the games that day and stuff while we stood in line to get in the bar. We stayed for a little while and watched a few competitors. Fortunately, there was much less smoke in Gold Diggers. We saw Glenn and Andrew and said hey, but mostly we wall-flowered it. Really, it is awkward to go to a bar and not drink. Or a night club out of state (like when we went to Queen Mary that one year hahahaha) After our adventures, we headed back to the hotel and watched some more TV before finally going to sleep.
Sunday was the day we came home. The beds were so HARD that I couldn't sleep, so I woke up early and showered and went downstairs for some breakfast. Eventually everyone else was getting up and ready, and we packed up. The rest didn't take advantage of our lovely continental breakfast either day....sillies. However, there was an IHOP next door, and we got a discount for staying at our hotel, so we went to IHOP before leaving town. I had the BEST french toast in the history of french toast - Cinn-a-stix I think they called it. Basically, french toast with cinnamon bun filling and frosting topped with whipped cream. OMG SO GOOD! I can't remember what Matt had. Tashina actually had something breakfast-y, and Natalie got red velvet pancakes. lol
The drive home was much less exciting. First, we went to Hurricane so Tashina could see her new niece. We hung out there for about an hour before heading back to St. George to pick up Natalie's mom. Then we drove home. No tickets. Happy day. We got to our place about 7pm. We unpacked some and then went to Matt's parents' house to pick up our puppy - and we also had their leftovers :) Thanks for taking care of the animals for us!
Like I said, it was a short trip, but it was nice to get away :)
