The Dos Flamingos Road Trip begins tomorrow!

We’re off to visit Reno (NV), Las Vegas (NV), Scottsdale (AZ), the Grand Canyon (AZ), Surprise (AZ), Los Angeles (CA), the 35th Annual Rocky Horror Convention in LA, the Winchester Mystery House (CA), San Francisco (CA), San Rafael (CA), Portland (OR), Tacoma (WA), and back home to Seattle (WA).

Oh, yeah, the pinball spots we’re visiting will be The Las Vegas Pinball Museum (155), Castles and Coasters in Scottsdale (30), Pins & Needles in LA (8), Family Amusement Corporation in LA (12), the Pacific Pinball Expo (250), Ground Kontrol in Portland (25), Slabtown in Portland (10), Dorky’s in Tacoma (6), Hell’s Kitchen in Tacoma (5), and probably say hello to the gang at Shorty’s (17) before we get home. That should be enough pinball for a while. A week, tops.

Doubtless there will be others we encounter on the way, and if I do, I will put them up on my Pinball Maps.

We’re also bringing a lot of homebrew with us. There will be lots of pictures of people playing pinball and enjoying our beer.

Are you on our route? Contact me!

Steve

The Las Vegas Pinball Hall Of Fame was EVERYTHING that was promised and more! I counted at least 150 pinball machines, I ran out of film trying to get pictures of them all. Plus there's a sizable Retrocade including Space Invaders II!
Lots of old wood-rail games, plenty of EMs and ALL the new DMDs are there. No admission, lots of games are set to 5-ball play, they even have The Williams Pinball Circus (yes, that one!) and Q-Bert's Quest! Ultra-rare stuff, that!
I met up with a Facebook friend who was here in Vegas playing in a checkers championship and we had a New York vs. Seattle competition. New York beat Seattle, 10 games to 6.
I think I played more than 100 games yesterday. Which was great, as up until yesterday afternoon I hadn't got a single game in.

Tim Arnold is a great guy who really loves pinball machines. We had a very nice chat. He's definitely one of those pinball repair wizards like what you may have heard about in that article recently.

Everyone should visit this place! And when you do, prepare to spend the entire day there. And it's far enough off the Strip that you won't have to deal with the mindless tourist sheeple!

The Las Vegas Pinball Hall Of Fame
1610 S. Tropicana
Las Vegas, NV 89119

Dude! How about some Volcano action? And some homebrew?

I've got a Scotch Ale and a Sacred Cow IPA. Someshould be left by the time we reach PPE. It was only kegged last week so should still be very fresh.

Fantastic! I'll see a bunch of you at PPE then! You will know us by our tie-dyes!

So we've put in for a couple of days stopover in Los Angeles to attend the 35th Rocky Horror Anniversary Convention! People from all over the world! I did the Time Warp on stage in front of hundreds of people! Lots of scantily-clad young people, too! Barry Bostwick, Little Nell, and Patricia Quinn were there! So was Lou Adler, the guy responsible for bringing Rocky Horror to this side of the pond! Yesterday was Shock Treatment, and Jessica Lange and Cliff DeYoung were both there!
The IPA is now down by about half. So I think it'll be Scotch Ale for those of you attending the Pacific Pinball Expo this year...

Quite a bit of the Scotch Ale was happily drunk by the people at Tuesday's Pins & Needles competition. I got eliminated after the fourth game. Not much of either beer left.
Yesterday was my 48th birthday, and my resourceful wife managed to wrangle an invitation to the Magic Castle in Hollywood for dinner and a show from the Haunted Hollywood tour guides we met Monday. It pays to party with your tour guides, donchathink?
Today we head North for the Pacific Pinball Exposition by way of Gilroy (we need more garlic, dammit!) and the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose. We'll put in for the evening at the Embassy Suites in San Rafael, and hopefully meet up with some of our old friends from Seattle and some of our new friends from Los Angeles.
And then, we'll have our choice from over 350 games.
That tops the 500 mark, I think...

We did!
So here we are at PPE. We're at the Embassy Suites across the the street! Give me a call at 206.380.9430 if you're interested in hooking up on Friday! Seattle is in the house and we're out to kick everyone's butt!