vegas: freaky friday night.

So, we get into town about noon on Friday, it was hot and a bit humid. Hot in Vegas during the summer should never come as a shock, it is the middle of the desert. I've seen it reach 120 degrees during the day and won't cool off 'til about 3-4am to a nice 80something. The humidity is a bit different. There's usually a couple weeks during the summer where rain and thunderstorms are likely to happen, where it gets a bit humid and before you know it, it can go from just sun and hot... to black sky torrential downpour, flash flooding rain.

That's basically what happened this weekend. There were a few clouds in the sky but nothing really looked all that threatening. This was taken on the way to dinner at Serendipity 3.


And here's where it turned. We had gotten there right about when the dinner rush starts. It was a 30 minute wait to sit inside but immediate sitting outside... we chose to sit outside. The weather was a bit warm, kind of humid but we figured we wanted to eat and get on with the night. There were clouds in the sky but nothing too bad. We ordered our food and just waited, chatting, wind picked up a bit. So we get our food and we started getting weather warnings on our phones *severe thunderstorm, winds could reach 70 MPH* didn't really think anything of it, continued on, thought about dessert but we passed on it. It's a good thing we did. The weather took an insane turn. As soon as he signs the check just straight downpour, the wind was crazy. They had to usher us and the other outside diners through the kitchen to get inside. This was taken right about when the storm hit our area.


While we were waiting inside for the wind and rain to let up, the roof started leaking and the power flicked. We saw people passing by the doors completely drenched, looking like they decided to shower with their clothes on. After about 20 minutes, we decided to make a break for it, the distance between Serendipity and Ceasar's was maybe about 40 yards and had a couple inches pooling in the walkway. There were people standing outside, some taking pics, some just watching in awe of the weather. Got inside, dried off and carried on with what we wanted to do. When it was time to leave... we were in for a doozy.

We went to the valet stand, handed over the ticket and went to the waiting area. We had been waiting for maybe about 20 minutes, no car and no one telling us why it was taking so long. Finally, saw an attendant and asked him where the car was. Boy, did he have some bad news for us.

While in that torrential downpour, there was a flash flood, the Forum Shops valet is kind of underground and where they park is on the down slope. Our car was submerged. At first he was preparing us for the worst, telling us that where they park had taken on water so fast there wasn't much they could do, that they didn't want to start the car just in case there water could get in the engine, that we were welcome to try and get the car out but we would be on our own after they surrendered the keys, etc. Well, we didn't want to get the car out so we waited. They said that what we could do is file an insurance claim and it's them claiming insurance against themselves. He showed us where the car was and at first, I was looking on the wrong side, I thought our car was completely submerged up over the engine bay and just done for. That wasn't the case, noticed that from the windshield and up was wrong so I looked on the other side and there it was, up to the wheels sitting in water. They didn't know how high the water was before it was safe enough to check so they didn't want to turn the engine on. After about two hours, they finally got the paperwork started with us, told us that the car had started up just fine but there was some water damage to the carpet. We got out pretty lucky. While we were waiting there was a guy who had gone against their advice and tried to start his vehicle and the motor seized and needed to be towed out. If I remember correctly, they said that a total of 6 cars, including our's, were affected by the valet area's flash flood. A couple of those guys were very nice and extremely apologetic. The others were the type that if you could punch them and get away with it, you would have.

So after all that, completely emotionally and physically spent, we left and just wanted to head back to the room. We drove by a few places that were completely flooded, there were cars stranded, uprooted trees, broken branches... everything you would expect after a gnarly thunderstorm like that. After all that, we get close to where we were staying, picked up a quick snack and if you looked up towards the sky you wouldn't have thought that just a few hours ago a damage causing storm had blown in and blown out just as quickly.

*I, kind of, wish I had taken pics of this whole car fiasco but my head just wasn't in it. So, just imagine a down slope with about 6 cars, one white one on the left and one broke down mini van in the middle and 4 other cars submerged on the right. Two cars, at least, submerged over the engine bay, one was a Porsche.