Birding with a Camel

Las Vegas, NV

 

Donna walking Abraham while taking to Nancy

Clark County Wetlands Park

Today we met Donna's childhood friend, Nancy, at Clark County Wetlands Park for some birding.  Nancy said she was going to bring Abraham and it turns out Abram is a 1000lb Dromedary (Camel).  He is about 5.5 years old and still growing.  He is one of 2 camels that Nancy has on her ranch in Henderson.  Nancy runs Petting Zoo 2 U here in the valley, providing all kinds of exotic animals for all kinds of events.  She once took her camel Moses to Zappos for a hump day event, she provides animals for manger scenes during Christmas, and all kinds of other events.  The first time I met her, we had just seen La Rev at The Wynn.  She provided Doves for the show. 

 

Our walk started out with a great view of a Greater Roadrunner.  We were close enough to here it say, "Beep Beep!"

Soon we saw a truck and trailer pull up and we were in Vegas so we gambled that it was Nancy and her Camel.  The license plate said 2CAMELS so it was a safe bet.

Abraham wanted to get all the smells as they arrived.

Part of this walk is training for Abraham.  He is used to being with big brother Moses and taking cues from him.

Abraham got pets and pats from us as soon as he was offloaded.  He also met quite a few people in the parking lot.

Abraham likes snacking on all of the plants as he walks.  It would be kinda like us walking through a buffet and stopping to snack from time to time.

Nancy showed us how well trained Abraham is by having him sit and even kept him from rolling in the mud, which he likes to do.

Nancy wants Abraham to get used to all sorts of situations so she had Donna walk him.  It would be an understatement to say that Donna didn't mind.

There are a lot of things you can't do in the wetlands park...

but we never saw a sign saying No Camels so I think we were fine.

When Nancy saw a footbridge she saw a new challenge for Abraham.  He had never crossed a bridge before and the rushing water under the bridge made him a bit nervous. He did great.  Camels are less jumpy and skittish than horses.

You can't go very far with a camel in Las Vegas without getting requests for photos and pets.  Nancy is very accommodating and even finds moments to pass out her business card.  People happily take them and she says that quite a few of these interactions lead to new jobs.

After our walk it was time for snacks.  Abraham loves his snacks and Donna loves passing them out.

Some other lucky passerby got to give Abraham a snack too.

It was so much fun to walk and talk to people.  They just loved meeting Abraham and Nancy.  One of the people we met will be contacting Nancy for a bit of manure for his garden.

Tomorrow is packing day and on Thursday we head out.  We will be driving down to San Diego to see family and then heading up the coast camping along the way to our next destination, Portland Oregon!  We are looking forward to lots of great food, Willamette River views, and I am looking forward to tons of pinball tournaments!

That's it for today.  If you missed, Valley of Fire State Park, check it out.

Pinball Tournament at The Pinball Hall of Fame

 Las Vegas, NV

Not a selfie!

The Pinball Hall of Fame

Today I visited The Pinball Hall of Fame to play pinball and to play pinball in a tournament.  The Pinball Hall of Fame is a non profit museum and they have a TON of machines.  Sadly it takes a lot of work to keep these machines working and they are backlogged.  They are running volunteer days to repair machines, which would be fun if I know how to repair machines.  There are still a lot of machines that are working and I was able to play quite a few machines I have never played before.  

Is there any question as to what is goin on in this 25,000 Square Foot warehouse on Las Vegas Blvd?

They have two Stern Jaws (Pro) machines.  This game came out a couple of weeks ago.

It's a beautiful machine with tons of actual movie clips.

I arrived about an hour early to practice on machines that were going to be in the tournament.  The machines are all over the warehouse so I wasn't able to find them all, and there were too many to practice on.  At 12:30 I started looking for the tournament sign up.  I failed to find it so I asked a guy I recognized from other tournaments here and he pointed me to a very hidden place on the warehouse floor where signups were taking place.

Here is where you sign up.  No wonder they are having problems getting "walk ups" to enter the tournament.

After I signed up one of the guys that is prominent in the pinball community came over and talked to me.  I saw an opportunity and said, "I don't mean to be negative but the sign up area is VERY hidden.  I came to play in the tournament and couldn't find it myself."  He said he would tell them to make an announcement and they did but the place was packed and they still only got 15 players.

During the tournament I took photos of the place.

They had a big Stern area.  Stern Pinball Inc. is the leading pinball manufacturer at the moment.  Stern Pinball Inc. is different but related to Stern Electronics Inc.  Stern Electronics survived from 1977 to 1985 and Stern Pinball started as Data East in 1986 when the son of Stern Pinball Inc, bought Data East as well as Sega's Pinball division.  The name changed to Stern Pinball Inc. in 1999.

Computerized Sex Tester wasn't on the list of games in the tournament.  Probably good because I suffer from a very sexy learning disability called Sexlexia.

All of the dark machines are out of order.

This was my tournament score on Buccaneer.  It was good for 2nd place.  On these single player machines your group of four play one at a time for obvious reasons.  You take a photo of your score so you can compare scores at the end of the round to see who won.

This was the pinball meeting area where players waited for the next round to be announced.  Some players just played other machines while we waited. I did a bit of both.

An errant fuse on the ground.  That's the first thing you check when something isn't working on your machine.  It's the easiest fix.

This is Gottleib's  Play Mates.

And this is Gottleib's Grand Domino.  Only 500 Play Mates were made for the US Market but 4000 Gran Dominos were made for Italy and the rest of the world.

This is an out of order Mario Andretti.  They should call it Michael Andretti when it isn't working.

I got to play Jaws a couple of times today.  I don't know the ruleset but I had a good time and even started a Multiball

I also got to play This is Spinal Tap.  I didn't even know it existed.  It's made by HomePin and appears to be pretty rare.  It was fun but some of the mechanics seemed flakey.  It didn't feel solid like a Stern machine.

The Pinball Hall of Fame is right on Las Vegas Blvd. and you have to head North when exiting the parking lot so that meant I got to sit in Saturday Super Bowl traffic.  It was slow going for the first half mile or so until I could get off The Strip.  In other news the Luxor is now a giant Doritos ad.  Seems like something out of Idiocracy.

As for the tournament, it won't go down as a top 15.  I didn't play poorly but also didn't place well.  I ended up 12th out of 15.  I did have a terrible game on Godzilla so there is that.

My practice and non tournament games

My tournament games.

It was a fun tournament and I got to play on machines I had never seen before.  It's kind of fun trying to figure them out on the fly.  I would have liked to get a couple 1st places and fewer 4ths but oh well.

That's it for today.  If you missed, Pinball and a Punk Rock Tiki Bar, check it out.

Pinball and a Punk Rock Tiki Bar

 Las Vegas, NV

Player One Video Game Bar

Player One Video Game Bar is a really great arcade bar a few miles away.  It's a great arcade bar with tons of free play arcade games and video game consoles as well as a handful of pinball machines that you have to feed quarters into.  You pay a flat price for all day play and you can go in and out, which is great for us.  We decided to head over today and check it out.

Player One is in a strip mall with plenty of parking

It's 21 and over.  We arrived and went in and had our ID checked and logged so we could go in and out until they closed at 5am!

It's a great space with cool retro game decorations and merch for sale.

They have events during the week too like cosplay night.  I will be playing in a tournament here on Monday.

My kinda place!

The bar has cool ads and video game stuff set in Lucite or some other clear surface.

The pinball machines were well serviced.  Donna noted a broken flipper and we told the operator and it was fixed half an hour later.

They also had cool stations for many of the consoles.

The plan was to play some pinball and then walk over to a "Tiki" bar we wanted to visit and then walk back and play more pinball so that is what we did.  We had some good games and then did the .3 mile walk to Red Dwarf.

Red Dwarf

Red Dwarf is what I would consider a Tiki Bar.  Some would call it Tiki adjacent.  It's a cocktail and beer bar with pizza and punk rock shows in the evenings.  There isn't much punk rock gong on at 2:30pm on a Friday, which suited our needs.  

It doesn't look like much from the outside.

Inside is a mix of Tiki, Punk Rock, Records, Beer Bar, and Dive Bar.  The beer selection was the best I have seen for a "Tiki" Bar.

When I sat down, and already tipsy guy, gave me a nerf 20 sided die and said, "Send It!"  I rolled it on the bar and he said, "NO!  SEND IT!" so I threw it across the bar and hit the back wall.  This is him checking to see what number it settled on.  It was 7 so he got Beer #7 on the list and a shot of Jameson.  He liked the beer the die chose so he gave me a fist pump.

Both Donna and I chose beers because we weren't sure about the quality of the cocktails and a beer sounded good.

This guy was staring down at me the whole time.

We had a nice time drinking our beer and talking to the group next to us which included the "Send It" guy.  He asked what we do and I said we were retired.  He said that's what he wanted to do and we talked about retirement strategies we employ.  It seemed he was a spender and his newish partner was more of a saver.  We may have given her some ammo to help her partner save more but maybe not, who knows?

Back to Player One

After our beer at the bar we walked back to Player One for some more pinball.  We could have stayed for another 14 hours if we wanted to stay up until tomorrow morning.

We got to play Pinball Champ which is a rare Italian made pinball machine.  The backglass makes me believe pinball players are more popular with the women in Italy.

I don't know what a "normal" good score is but this felt pretty good.  Maybe I will find out during the tournament on Monday.

I had some pretty good games on the machines I know.  I need to do some research on Judge Dredd, Tales from the Crypt, and Twilight Zone to prepare for Monday.

Anytime I can play pinball, go to a tike bar, and get a craft beer is a good day.  Today was a good day.  If you missed, Paramount Mountain, check it out.  We sat in a Star Trek captains chair.