Lepcon rocked! Totally, completely and to quote a favorite Lep “brilliantly!” It was three days full of meeting friends for the first time (Debbie, Connie, Steph, Patti, Nancy, Noelle, Laura, Jason, Karen, Devinee, Anna plus the rest of the Back In Your face gang), seeing old friends (Lisa and Michelle), talking Lep non-stop and listening to the best music on the planet! So sit back, grab soft drink (thanks Phil) or a beer because I am known to be a long winded! LOL
I used to be a bad flyer. An arm rest gripping, prayer reciting big baby. But somewhere along the line, I got used to it and can now kick back and relax. Relax that is unless we hit a bad pocket of turbulence and then the Lord’s Prayer starts running through my head. However, none of that was needed during the first leg of my flight from Providence to Atlanta. The only problem I incurred was the fact that this damn leg wasn’t ready to walk as much as I needed to. Call me Gimpy!
Thank God for this wonderful woman in Atlanta who mad me get into her electric cart and carted me off in the direction of the trams, so I could get to the right concourse where I was meeting Connie and Debbie. Boy did I feel important as people parted the proverbial sea to let us through! Then I caught up with another driver once I made it to the right concourse, but his cart was facing the wrong way, so off we go to turn around. All of a sudden I hear, “Lori, your going the wrong way!” There was Debbie Miller who had just flown in from Minnesota! So we scooped her up too and we arrived at the gate like royalty!
Shortly Michelle (Yayluckyme) and Steph (Smargie75) arrived from Florida. It was great to see Michelle again and wonderful to meet Steph. Before long it was time to board the “Party Flight to Vegas!” Several things happened on this flight. First, the four hours flew by. Then, just as it was beverage service time (we were a pitiful bunch with our money clutched in our hands ready for more booze!) we hit turbulence over Louisiana. That pushed the beverage service back and it was only after two hours of flying did we get drinks! The funniest thing was the entire plane was drinking! So much they ran out of beer! But, it was a fun flight full of stories, laughter, friendship and I even broke out my Candy to share with the gals. Now they know they are special!
We finally get to Las Vegas and the landscape is incredible. We walked (some of us hobbled) to baggage claim and after forever, we all found our bags and headed to find the shuttle that would take us to the rental cars. There Debbie and met up with Lisa and Patti (Soban8217). It was awesome to see Lisa again after almost a year and finally I met Patti who has supplied us with so many great photos from the Last DL Vegas show.
After a few trips circling the airport (via car), we got our bearings and headed for the hotel. After a quick change the four roomies (Debbie, Lisa, Patti and me) headed to the Bellagio for the Buffet. Oh lordy, that was heavenly! Steph, Michelle and Connie joined us too. Then we all headed back to our room to hang out, drink and look at photos.
Woke up late (the only night I really got any sleep) and Lisa, Debbie and I headed across the street to the Hard Rock Hotel for lunch. Do you believe they had me limping across five lanes of traffic? Anyway, we thought the hard Rock Café was in the hotel, but it was actually in front of it. So after looking around the hotel/casino for a bit and dragging Lisa from a Aerosmith display that had a vid with a practically nakedD Steven Tyler in it, we went over to the HRC. Great Cobb salads and even better Waboritas. That became the drink of the day for us (after Lisa and Debbie finished some Alabama Slammers). Margaritas made with Sammy’s Cabo Wabo Tequila and they were blue! Yummy!!
We goofed off and relaxed for the rest of the afternoon and at 6pm headed back to the HRC for the Meet and Greet with Rick Allen which started at 7pm. There we met up with Jason (Bigdigs) and I finally got to meet the poor guy who puts up with all these females in the weekly chats!
It was a few minutes before 7pm when Rick drove up and we all gave him a round of applause. It took him a little over 90 minutes to meet everyone in line. Rick spent as much time with each person as they needed and never rushed anyone. There was a wonderful girl from Raven Drum that took everyone’s cameras and took pics for us. Thank you! I have a great shot of me and Rick because of her.
Then at the end of the M&G Debbie had asked Rick if we could have a group shot with him with all of the members of her group Back In Your Face. The first photo ended up having a bunch of people that jumped in for it, but the next one was just the group. It was awfully nice of Rick to do that for us! He is such a sweet and generous person.
Then we took a taxi and headed off to the Palace Station where Lisa had a table of 20 held for our party. It was such a success that we had to add 2 more tables and at one time there was close to 30 people there. It was simply a blast! We all had so much fun. I met Nancy (Peach) there, Noelle and her sister, Laura, Connie from Ohio, plus our regular crew of Steph, Michelle and Connie and a bunch of others from the BIYF group.
Did I forget to mention that Lisa was propositioned twice?
On to Saturday and Lepcon…
We didn’t do much before Lepcon except to have lunch at the Harley Davidson Café compliments of Debbie and her slot winnings from the night before. It was either 3 or 4 pm when we registered at the sign in table and got cool laminate, DL pins and a Lepcon booklet. After a quick and cheap dinner, it was time to head into Lepcon! The night was tons of fun. There were t-shirts to buy (Lepcon and Pyromania), raffle tickets to buy and a silent auction to bid on. The first couple hours was spent socializing, drinking and watching others win the raffles. I think I have won a raffle once in my life and that was 20 years ago.
Then we heard the winners of the silent auction and after having someone try and bid past the stop time, Lisa won this cool drum for her son. By this time, everyone was having a fantastic time. The beer and white zin (Right Connie?) flowed freely and we all were taking a ton of photos of each other.
Finally Pyromania hit the stage and they really rocked. Honestly, they did a great job with the DL songs and even played older songs like Wasted and Rock Brigade. Too bad they kept having trouble with their PA. Anyway, I thoroughly enjoyed the show, especially when Debbie bet Steph that they wouldn’t play anything post Hysteria and all of a sudden the opening notes to “Promises” started and Steph came running back to Debbie laughing and pointing because she won!
It was a great event, with awesome people how all share the love of Def Leppard. Thanks to everyone who put this event together and I can’t wait to do it again next year.
A special day on Sunday…..
Lepcon was over but we still had two more days left in Vegas. What were we going to do? Gamble? Nah. See a show? Too expensive. What do four women do? They throw out idea and head to California, that’s what they do!
California was a dream come true for me. Debbie made a special phone call and we were off to hit Hollywood, but only after we met up with a very special person first. And that person was Phil Collen. Yes, I met, talked to, got hugs from Phil Collen and believe it or not…I wasn’t nervous at all! He is the nicest guy in the world! He met us for coffee and while he sat there and talked with us about his family, the local beach, the new album and the band, I was silently thinking “Oh my God! This is Phil! This is Phil from Def Leppard!” I felt entirely privileged that he would spend an hour with us and even took the time for photos. We teased him when he called a shopping cart a “trolley” and he was astounded that in 15 years no one ever told him that we call them that. He hugged us all good-bye and when he left I was like “Sav who?” Sigh.
