TRAVEL TALES

Young Chang

A team of Harbor View moms left behind 23 children with able fathers

and shimmied off to Las Vegas for three days last month.

They slept every night no earlier than 4 a.m. They laughed their way

through the Vegas Strip and gambled. They really appreciated that the

dads took care of things at home.

Elizabeth Martino, a resident of the Harbor View community who went on

the trip, said it was nice to have three days where she didn’t have to

pick up the kids from school, clean and fulfill other motherly duties.

“Just to know that you could have a wonderful dinner with best friends

and to know it was to continue for three days,” the 36-year-old said.

The women -- who numbered 10 -- know each other locally because

they’re all in a bunco group together. Bunco is a dice game.

“So every couple months, we kinda take bunco on the road,” said Jane

Owen. “We wanted something that was close and had a lot to do. A lot of

fun stuff like nightclubs and gambling and we could go out all night.”

The group stayed at the Rio and wore matching black tops that read

“Dicey Divas.”They spun stories about what they were doing there --

partly for fun, partly because they’d knew they’d never see the strangers

again -- and convinced one group of people that they were attending a

professional coach’s gambling convention.

“That we were here to teach people how to gamble,” said Owen, 42 and a

part-time teacher.

They had such a good time at the VooDoo Lounge that the musical act on

stage asked all 10 of them to join them in song. About half the group

went on stage and lived it up.

While hanging out at the Venetian Hotel, the ladies even experienced a

dose of fake jet lag. They were eating dinner at Wolfgang Pucks in the

hotel and staring out at what was actually a fake scene with clouds and a

blue sky.

“It’s like you’re jet lagged but your body is telling you it’s day,”

Martino said.

The group was surprised to learn, after dinner, that the hour was

close to midnight.

But the experience of absorbing Vegas left little chance to keep up

with time.

“There’s no sense of time there,” Martino said. “No clocks, no

windows.”

Owen said she didn’t feel exhausted from the trip until her second day

back home.

“I was still going when I got home,” she said. “I was still excited

from the trip. But the next day, after I started taking the kids to

school, I was thoroughly exhausted.”* Have you, or someone you know, gone

on an interesting vacation recently? Tell us your adventures. Drop us a

line to Travel Tales, 330 W. Bay St., Costa Mesa, CA 92627; e-mail

young.chang@latimes.com; or fax to (949) 646-4170.