Happy 33 to me!
This post has taken forever to write & you will read why later on in the others.
Okay......on the road at 9:30 to head over to pick up KDP & begin the 3 hour drive down to AC. I got to her by 10 & she threw her stuff in the car & off we went. The drive was simple and smooth.....no incidents, traffic, or stops along the way. Except for Tom's River so that we could go to Build a Bear. Bearamy does not have a NJ shirt & needed one for his collection and KDP was dying to stuff the Lucky Clovers bear for St. Patrick's Day. The mall was located right off of the GSP and we jetted in for 20 minutes.
We got to AC at 1:30 and headed straight for the Tropicana. We were meeting my parents there, who wanted to go to AC for the day & would wander around with us until after dinner.
We parked in the first garage we found for the hotel and went inside. Hmmmm........we saw a beautiful atrium, a staircase & escalators, and restauratns & bars galore. But no Reception area to check in. We spun around for a few minutes and then just decided to walk through the mall that lay ahead. We passed stores galore and the into the casino. Still no Registration. And no parents.
We finally found it and them and checked in. I thought it would be dead, but I was so wrong. There had to be 15 groups/families checking in infront of us. And the line only got longer as we stood there. We didn't wait long, though, as they had plenty of people on staff to handle the crowd. But who in the world goes to AC on a Sunday in March? Apparently, everyone does.
We checked in, met my parents, and checked out the hotel a little bit. But it was soooooo nice outside that we thought it best to walk the Boardwalk while it was still light out & comfortable enough to without being bundled up.
We headed down to Trump's and Caesars (another Trump place) and the new Caesar's (very upscale) Mall. They have cleaned it up so nice! The last time I was there it was sticky, creepy, and trashy. Now it is a touch of Vegas here on the East Coast. We window-shopped for awhile and then decided it would be best to eat an early dinner, as mom & dad had to drive home that same evening.
We sat & chatted & they caught up with KDP about her niece, her new home, and her job with her 'babies'. She told such funny stories and had them laughing the entire time.
Close to 6:30 they were ready to head home. I love the fact that they came & had fun with us & were willing to drive all the way home that same night. My parents are troopers.
KDP & I went back to the mall to shop a bit. We wandered through the casino, too, and saw multitudes of men. And then we saw how dark it was & realized how far of a walk we had back....so by 8:30 we were going back to the Tropicana. We still had't taken our luggage out of the car & to the room so we had to walk the entire way through the hotel and the garage and now balance all that we had back to the room.
We crashed in our very nice.....very spacious room......for a half hour. Then it was time to get ready, drink in the room, and head out to the bars & casino floor.
We checked out a few bars & settled on a karoake bar that had a few people hanging out in there. I had a Hot Tub Martini, which consisted of chambord, champagne, and stoli vodka. It went down very easy. People sang anything in this animal print, chaos pattern room from "I Wanna Come Over" to "Tan Shoes with Pink Shoelaces". Sad to say, I knew them all & sang along from my stool. KDP thinks I am crazy, but I always point out that if I had as much knowledge stored in my head as I do nonsense, I'd be scary--mensa smart. Too bad it's 1960s lyrics.
Around midnight we hit the game floor. We wandered all around....seeing lots of cute....but very married......men. Lots of wedding rings all over the place. We gambled on the slots until 2. I broke even. Yippee! That's a lot better than losing....which I was until I found my all-time favorite machine. It helped me win back all I had (cough cough) invested.
We then headed over to this 24-hour shop in the hotel that had AMAZING desserts. I got a cup of tea and this chocolate raspberry pyramid. It was a chocolate shell with raspberry mousse inside. Oh I could have eaten a dozen, it was that good.
We finally went back to the room & crashed. I was beyond tired that I was awake again & watched 30 minutes of "8mm". I seriously hope that movie has a NC-17 rating. It was atrocious! I can not believe that they'd make such a movie. I know that it probably mirrors what people go through and deal with on a daily basis, but let's not have Hollywood expose a whole new crop to it that may never have known such sick material existed or what to do with it.
We ate a late breakfast & headed out to the outlets. There, KDP bought shoes & we burned off calories from the dessert the night before so we could have crepes for lunch. Cavo Crepe is in the middle of the outlet complex & has breakfast, lunch, and dessert crepes. I had a southwest chicken and cheese crepe that made me melt. It was so good and so filling that I didn't have room for a dessert one.
We jumped in the car at 2:30 and hit the road. With little traffic to slow us down, we made it to Garden City at 5:15. I dropped off KDP & raced home, making it there by 6:00pm. Not too bad!
I had a fun birthday dinner with my family and then...............get this.............this is how dedicated a professor I am to my students: I went in at 8:00 and taught until 10:45pm. Yes I did.
I went home and crashed. The 3's were pretty good to me this year.
