Sin City

Early the next morning, from the unlikely location of a trucker's breakfast buffet, Tom conducted an impromptu Skype meeting with a client. Feedback from a current job noted down, we immediately hit the highway again, eager to eat up the remaining miles to Vegas. Once again the scenery, previously hidden by night, revealed itself and we found ourselves surrounded by a vast desert. Every now and again, an oasis of activity would appear next to  the interstate in the form of a collection of casinos and hotels that were piggy-backing off the success of Vegas.

These outposts steadily grew in size until, emerging over the crest of a hill, we saw the real deal, stretched out in the desert before us...the unmistakable skyline of Las Vegas. Above the casinos, a stream of distantly glinting South West Airline jets became visible, injecting the city with a constant supply of gamblers. As we drew nearer, staring up at the gaudy hotel exteriors and billboards advertising adult entertainment, it felt like driving into a giant adult theme park. It was genuinely exciting...this was going to be fun!

 A Starbuck's was our first port of call, where we could use the free internet connection to plan our next steps. Cashbook had reached the point of exhaustion, having attempted in vain to try and curb our spending through threats of violence. We were now in the most hazardous location in the States to our funds - cashbook was now desperate. He frantically pleaded with us to check our account bala...Before he finished his sentence he was locked in our Gentleman's Purse. 

Advanced accounting records

We drove over to Circus Circus, a casino/hotel and strutted into the big-top tent construction (Note: "Circus Circus" is "circus" themed) and full indoor theme park. We booked up a couple of nights in the expansive hotel, set off to our room, and within seconds of entering the labyrinth of corridors in the multi-thousand room behemoth we were lost. With the help of a Mexican cleaning lady, we found our way to our room.

Freshened up, it was time to hit the casinos! With echoes of Cashbook's incomplete warnings barely audible through the aggressive beeping of the Las Vegas slot machines, we marched over to the nearest ATM, excited by all the cash we were doubtlessly going to win in the next few hours. Tom whipped out the interest-free Fair FX card, the shared credit card that we had been pumping funds into for quick and cheap withdrawals across the States.

As Tom punched in the PIN code, we discussed pre-ordering the celebratory champagne in preparation for our winning! The fountain of thousand dollar chips would surely be flowing before any of the Casino's hot waitresses had a chance to pop our corks (a euphemism? you decide)

We were shocked out of our daydreaming within seconds; a beep that was clearly discernible from the optimistic sounds of the slot machines burst out of the ATM: "Insufficient Funds".

A mistake? Surely! Confident of a technical issue, we went to the nearest bar for a drink, and decided to review Cashbook, mainly for fun. We pulled him out of the bag. With a knowing grin on his face, he opened up to reveal our account balance.

Shit.

We had let our fund management slip, drastically. Although not quite bankrupt, we were left with absolutely no instantly available cash flow, and worse still, the realisation that our average spending had been slipping over our targets.

We got ourselves cheap bottles of beer, using the scraps of change in our pockets and struck out into the fluorescent glory of the Strip. We hopped from bar to bar, strolling in and out of casinos and soaking up the constant barrage of high-voltage flashing inputs around us for what seemed like minutes, but was in fact hours. Casinos don't have clocks for a reason... they want you to lose track of time and gamble.

At the next drinking establishment, a very pleasant trainee nurse working the bar to pay her tuition fees told us about Town Square: a cheaper, more local-orientated area to the south of the strip. We noted it down and, with sexy nurses working to pay off their college fees still on our minds, headed to the nearest strip club. 

On our way we chanced upon a like-minded traveler, Etienne: a French Canadian vagabond whose intentions to travel the States had stalled upon visiting Vegas and discovering poker. Recognising us as fellow van enthusiasts, he invited us back to his 70s camper for a whiskey, before taking us to the world's largest strip club.

Superficially better, spiritually inferior (to Spot)

It was a short visit: We came to the realisation that razor sharp wit and banter, unless paired with a wallet bulging with cash, don't get great results with Vegas showgirls. We left.

We returned to our shitty hotel room and realised that Vegas was probably not a place designed with (now) budget-focussed travellers in mind.