Visiting Las Vegas

I have a Facebook success story.  The main reason that I joined the social network site,  Facebook  in 2007, was that  I wanted to make contact with friends and family that I had lost track of.  I have been able to find about 50 high school classmates, some I hear from daily.  It seems each year it gets easier to find someone because new people are logging on to Facebook everyday.  I have also been fortunate enough to find a lot of family members on line.  My father was from a big family which means I have a lot of cousins out there that I've never met.  I have managed to locate several on Facebook and have become good friends with them.  We share photos and stories often.  It's funny that even though I've never met some of them, we are a lot alike.  I look like some of them, I talk and think like some of them and we all have something in common.  I would have never known this if it wasn't for Facebook.  It's the big family reunion that I never had. 

Me enjoying Las Vegas

The problem with today's technology such as Facebook, email and texting is that the person reading your status, remarks, text is not sitting there with you and your remarks etc. may be taken wrong.  When you are actually having a conversation with someone, you can tell if they are angry because their voice gets louder and their facial expression changes, but if you are just reading something that person wrote, you have no way of knowing how they felt when they wrote it.  That's the one downfall that I have about today's communication. Now, for my success story:

 Last year my mother and her first cousin, Helen turned 85.  Momma's birthday is in March, Helen's is in May.  Their mother's were sisters.  They grew up together and stayed close all their lives.  Helen lived in Dayton, Ohio with her husband, Ray and their three daughters.  Momma and Daddy lived their lives here in Rockcastle Co.  Every summer Helen's family visited us or we visited them.  I can barely remember playing with my cousins, Anita, Cathie and Connie, but what I do remember about them was that I loved them a lot and was always so excited to have their company.  After we all were married with families of our own, we didn't see each other as much.  The sisters, my Granny and my Aunt Lois, talked all the time on the phone and made plans to visit.  A lot of times Helen and Ray would stop and spend a day or two while on their way home from a vacation in Tennessee or Florida.  When Granny died in 1982, it seemed like we just gradually stopped visiting.  Then Aunt Lois passed away and the times together almost stopped completely.  Momma and Helen always sent each other birthday cards and called ever so often to catch up, but I didn't see the cousins.  We were married, raising children, working jobs all the things people do in this life.  After Ray died, Helen traveled a lot.  She moved to Florida then back to Dayton.  Anita and her family scattered out all over the world.  She lived in Portugal for a time when her husband Walter's work took them there.  Cathie and her husband, Steve travel a lot to Arizona where they have a home.  Seems like there was just a lot going on there for awhile.  Momma kept track of where everybody was, but I didn't.  I would ask Momma about them often just so I'd know what they were up too.  I missed Granny, I missed Aunt Lois, I missed Helen and I missed my growing up years with my Ohio family, so when Momma got an invitation to Helen's birthday celebration last May, I was excited that Cathie had included her email address.  Now maybe I could re-connect with them.  

The Eiffel Tower

I emailed Cathie right away, first to tell them that we wouldn't be able to come to the birthday party because Momma couldn't make the trip and I stressed how glad I was to have contact with them.  I found all three of them and their extended families on Facebook.  I was so excited to look at their photos.  I saw their grandchildren and made sure they saw mine.  I kept up with Helen's health and they kept up with Mom's.  This whole last year we spent on Facebook playing catch up.  Then we started talking on the phone a few times until the next thing you knew was that I had invited myself to Dayton to visit them.  

Last August, Mike and I, armed with a map quest print out of how to get to Cathie's house, took off on a Friday afternoon to visit my Ohio cousins.  They were expecting us and between the three of them, they had planned a fun reunion for us.  We had never met Cathie's husband, Steve and hadn't saw Connie's daughter, Angel since she was a baby and she was now a mother to a beautiful daughter, Miranda.  We met Angel's husband, Dwayne.  We visited Helen and I was so glad to see how good she looked. We just barely scratched the surface on getting caught up.  It may take years before that happens.  

Awhile back, while I was suffering through the winter that would not end, Connie called me to invite me to go to Las Vegas with all of them.  I haven't been any farther west than Memphis, TN so I really appreciated my cousins giving me the chance to see Las Vegas.  Connie's birthday was April 28, mine was May 3 so that's when we went to Vegas.  I drove to Dayton by myself to meet up with Connie and Anita on Monday afternoon. Cathie and Steve were going to met us in Los Vegas on their way back from Arizona.  Connie and myself spent that night with Anita so we could all get up early on Tuesday morning because our flight was at 6:30 a.m.  I have flown several times and I love it, but I never know what I'm doing.  It's like I go into an "anti-plane" mode or something.  Airports are usually very crowded and everyone is moving really fast, especially Atlanta's airport.  If you survive that airport, you can survive anything.  It didn't take Connie and Anita very long to figure out that I needed a care taker.  It was too early in the morning for me to be very self-efficient.  Those two had to help me with everything, especially with my huge suitcase that I had dubbed my "Smart Car", because it was almost the size of one.  I had one carry on bag just for my shoes.  To say I over packed would be a an understatement.  We got our seats and settled in for the ride.  The time came for the snack cart to make it's rounds so I ordered a Sprite.  I had only taken a few sips when I spilled the whole thing in my lap.  The cousins tried to help by getting napkins and speaking words or encouragement like, "It's okay.  Don't worry about it. and I've done that before."  My pants were still wet when we disembarked in Denver, CO.   Besides having all my paperwork mixed up at the airport and poking along with my stuff, I also left my carry on bag in a restaurant at the airport in Denver.  I remembered it just in time.  It was still there when I went back for it.  The final leg of the trip, I started speaking a foreign language that even I didn't know.  My words were jumbled and I transposed them.  I know this sounds like I was on drugs or drank more than Sprite, but I promise that wasn't the case.  I'll just say what everyone else says when they act like an idiot, it's stress.

When we got to Las Vegas I thought I was going to die just on the way to the taxi.  Pulling that "Smart Car" along with my purse and carry on bag had me breathless.  I warned the cab driver that my suitcase was heavy.  He acted all macho and said, "I'll get it." but I couldn't help but laugh when he first picked it up.  Anita swore that she was repacking my stuff before the return trip and she did.  She will have the job of packing for me from now on. 

We were staying at the Bellagio, the hotel with the "dancing" fountains out front.  I have been to casinos in Atlantic City, Ontario, and Indiana so I thought I knew what to expect, but the Bellagio was beautiful.  It was decorated for spring with flowers and butterflies everywhere.  There was marble that was so shiny it looked wet.  I caught myself tip-toeing over it like walking on my momma's just- mopped floors.  Our room looked out over several pools and courtyards.  After resting for a minute, Anita and Connie took me to the casino.  They knew what they were doing, but it took me awhile to catch on.  I didn't have money to loose so I told myself I would only play $20.00 a day.  My goal was just to win enough to buy myself a real Coach purse.  One that didn't look like it came from the flea market.  I was on my own for awhile so I used that time to get my bearings.  The place was huge.  There were restaurants, shops, and lounges everywhere.  I watched the hi-rollers playing Black Jack, Poker etc. for awhile.  I sat down at a slot machine that I thought I could stumble my way through and didn't waste no time in losing my $20.00.  Somewhere in the massive room people were winning though.  You could hear their squeals of delight every now and then.  

The meals we ate were great.  I probably gained 10 pounds in the 4 days I was there.  People used to say meals were cheap in Las Vegas.  I don't know what part of Vegas they were in, but it wasn't the part I was in.  Cathie had rented a car, so one day we rode around so my cousins could show me the sights.  The weather was perfect, 82 degrees and sunny.  Happy people were everywhere.  Strange looking people were everywhere too.  I saw Elvis so many times that I hardly paid him any attention. I had been warned by my nephew not to take any of the brochures that were handed out on every corner, so I avoided them. One lady, about 75 years old, was walking around with a pink wig cut in a mullet style.  She danced all over Vegas.  One man with a beard was dressed up like a bride including a sign around his neck that read, "Bride to Be."  These characters were mostly in the "old" part of Vegas.

We went back to the casino where I got out my allotted $20.00.  I stumbled upon a machine that gave you two ways to win.  One was by matching sevens, bars, like the usual slot machines, and then you could win a chance to spin a wheel where you could land on 20, 40, 100, 200 and 1000.  I sat beside a really nice lady named Betty.  We shared life stories while my money was going down the drain.  Betty had several chances to spin the wheel, but she never got anything higher than 200.  I also had several spins and just won enough to stay ahead.  I was busy talking and never even noticed that my spin had landed me on 1000.  Betty was more excited than me.  Bells were ringing all over the place.  I had spent $40.00 in two days and won 279.00.  I cashed out, found Connie and Anita to tell them about my good luck and went to the room.  I made arrangements with Cathie for her to take me to the Coach store the next day and she did.  She even stopped at the famous "Welcome to Las Vegas" sign and took my picture.  That night, we took a taxi to Fremont Street, which is the older part of Vegas.  I loved the atmosphere there.  Connie and I zip-lined over the street.  That was so much fun, but didn't last long enough.  I reminded myself of Momma riding the Beast at Kings Island.  She loved to ride it with me, but she said she was afraid to scream because she was afraid she might loose her false teeth.  I don't have false teeth and they made me take my glasses off, but I didn't see any reason to scream so I didn't.  We paid as much for a picture of us on the zip line as we paid to ride the zip line, but I knew no one would believe me if I didn't have a picture. 

We hated to leave Las Vegas, but the time had come.  I still needed my care takers on the flights home.  There was just too much stuff for me to keep up with.  Our plane that was to take us from Denver to Dayton, had a flat tire so we had to sit about 30 minutes while it was being fixed, but other than that, things went fine.  It was 12:30 a.m. when we got back to Dayton.  I spent the night with Connie and headed back home the next day, which was my 56th. birthday and also Derby Day.  It was cold and rainy on the drive home.  I kept remembering the place I had just left the day before.  The memory of the sunshine, the warm breeze, the sound of the fountains, and the happy people stayed in my mind all the way home.  

Cathie, Connie, Me and Anita

Me and my sister/cousins as we had started to call each other, made plans to get together again soon.  They also said they were willing to go back to Vegas with me next year.  Never once did they complain or even laugh at me when I acted like an uneducated redneck.  I felt like they really enjoyed being with me as much as I enjoyed being with them.  It was like we just picked up where we left off sometime in the 1960's.  I am now looking forward to my sister/cousins visiting me soon.  Since this Facebook encounter has turned out so good,  I'm going to re-connect with 3 more cousins that I was close too.  They live in Ohio also, but I am the older one this time.  So Kelly Bell, Teresa Sparks and little sister, Amy, look out because Myrna is going to re-enter your lives like never before.