MADNESS IN VEGAS

It’s more than watching college basketball and spirited drinking — guys who have been gathering every March in Nevada for a quarter century trace the arc of their lives.

by MICHAEL SHAPIRO Three do-or-die college basketball games are on movie-theater-size screens at the Red Rock Casino Resort in Las Vegas. Hundreds of people are standing on chairs, screaming at the top of their lungs whenever a big basket is made.

Cocktail servers are hustling to keep up with the demand for drinks, and when a last-second bucket gives an underdog a win over a heavy favorite, the cheers, high-fives and hugs reveal who bet on the upset.

The happy winners make their way to the sports book window to collect their cash and make more wagers, picking up coupons for free drinks. “It’s four days of nonstop action,” said Jason McCormick, the sportsbook director for Red Rock. “The energy makes it incredible; you can go absolutely bananas. It’s the highs and lows — there’s nothing else like it.”

It’s incomparable, inexplicable. And for a group of guys who will mark 25 years of gathering annually to watch the first weekend of the NCAA college basketball tournament, it’s absolutely indispensible.

Greg Devitt, now a 50-year-old California attorney, launched this tradition in 1997 when he was still single. For years the group convened at Caesars Palace on the Strip; about a decade ago they moved 12 miles west to the Red Rock.

“It was sort of a guys’ weekend before that was a thing,” he said, “just a great way to see college

basketball.” It soon became much more, as friends who hadn’t seen one another for ages were able to spend hours and hours catching up.

Over the years many of the guys have had children; some have lost parents, Devitt noted: “Now we’re starting to see the arc of each other’s lives.”

Long Island resident Doug Roberts, 46, who has been friends with Devitt since they were in their 20s, noted the irony of how “staring at TVs for four straight days” can enrich and deepen friendships.

“We happen to catch up,” he said, “while rooting for Texas A&M to cover.”

When Roberts was younger it didn’t seem as crucial to have a regular guys get-together, but “as you grow older, it becomes much more important to talk about the serious things that happen in life, the good and the bad,” Roberts said. “It’s an opportunity for us to let loose and act sillier than we’re able to in our normal lives, especially as responsibilities mount.”

One year, Roberts needed his buddies more than ever. In 2006, when he was in his early 30s, his wife died suddenly. The following March he showed up in Vegas and “for the first time, I just sat down and talked about that with these really good friends of mine.”

Matt Villano, who has known Roberts since they were kids on Long Island, joined this band of brothers in 2007. He’d asked me to come to Vegas with them, but I declined for years because I wasn’t sure how I’d fit with guys who’d known one another for decades.

Villano was persistent and finally convinced me: In 2017, I made the trip and had so much fun I came back yearly. It wasn’t just the mayhem in the sports book.

After a couple of days of staring at the Red Rock’s 18-foot-high and 96-foot-wide TV wall and drinking greyhounds, some of us went for an energizing hike at Red Rock Canyon. It’s a national conservation area with soaring vermillion walls and challenging trails that follow rocky gullies, 10 minutes drive from the Red Rock Resort.

One night we all had dinner at Red Rock’s steakhouse. Another night, we bet on how many Hall & Oates

songs the lounge singer would play: The over/under was 3.5. He hit the over.

The second year I joined, we went en masse to a Vegas Golden Knights hockey game, taking over a section of the Hyde Lounge, a sleek bar near the top of the T-Mobile Arena.

At the hotel, we played blackjack and craps. We went bowling and played bingo, cheering so exuberantly that some of the elder players shushed us. The management suggested we go back to the sportsbook.

“You can do what you want to do,” Devitt said. “If you want to go to the pool, knock yourself out; if you want to go for a hike, knock yourself out.” There are just a few unspoken rules: Show up for the steakhouse dinner, toss the free-drink tickets into the communal pile, tip generously and treat everyone who takes care of you with respect. Servers like Denise at the steakhouse have become part of the family and look forward to the guys’ annual reunion.

Devitt, who got the ball rolling 25 years ago, recalled: “When we first started going, I didn’t realize how much more important it would get in the next 10 or 15 years. We have genuine friendships, and there’s a genuine caring about this group.”

Roberts said he wouldn’t miss the upcoming March Madness festivities for anything. “It’s an opportunity for us to let loose and act sillier than we’re able to in our normal lives, especially as responsibilities mount.”

Contact your trusted travel advisor to start a new vacation tradition now.

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Real Traveler Stories

Q THE PATAGONIA TREK

We were total rookies in the wrong shoes but we had a blast by ERIKA HARKINS

“Oh no,” I said, staring out over the teal lake at the base of Mirador los Cuernos, the starting point for our trek into Chile’s Torres del Paine national park. Jake turned to see my panic-stricken face. “No, no, no, no,” I repeated as my eyes welled up with tears.

“Erika, what is it?” he said, now deeply concerned, as I began frantically searching my pack, only to realize that my prized Sportivas were back at the hotel, two hours away. Of course. On the most epic adventure my husband and I had ever attempted, I made the gravest mistake an ultrarunner could make. Now, I had to accept that I would be doing this 10-day trek without my running shoes. L o v e T r i p s Lo v e t r i p s H O N E Y M O O N

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Catching up on Love

Laughter is the best medicine for newlyweds Sarah & Travis Kerr

Sarah’s heart was bursting with glee as she stood on the platform of the 2,600-foot Dragon’s Breath flight line. If you want to go fast on a zip line, weight can be an advantage. Sarah wanted to go fast. But the petite model and hairstylist needed a little help to make that happen.

Enter Travis, Sarah’s new husband, who worked the crowd to gather bottles of water. Soon, Sarah had bottles in her backpack, her pockets, and tucked inside her shirt. Aquagirl wasn’t her usual Bohemian-glam look, but it did the trick. Finally, she let go. And for the first time in many years, she felt absolutely free.

Hailing from Chicago, Sarah didn’t get to enjoy her teens as her school mates did. She spent those years caring for her mother, who lost a hard-fought battle with cancer when Sarah was just 21. To break free of the grief, she flew to Florida for a fresh start.

There, she met and fell madly in love with Travis, a commercial architect with a hipster beard, a dazzling smile, and a heartache from a recent divorce. Together, Sarah and Travis craved a joy-filled, freespirited life that would make up for lost time. After a sunset wedding on a tranquil beach, they boarded a Caribbean cruise and left their worries behind.

At a wine tasting, a huge bottle of Caymus brought a rush of memories—the Cab Sav was the first wine the couple had shared when they first met. In Labadee, Haiti, they zipped and played. At Paradise Beach, in Cozumel, bartender Ricardo kept the party rolling. “Whenever he passed us he would yell, ‘Mojito?!’ And we would cheer, ‘Mojitoooo!!’ A few minutes later, more mango mojitos would arrive.”

On board, they started each day with balcony breakfasts. “We would sit there and enjoy the quiet before we got off at the ports. It was very romantic,” Sarah recalls. One evening, they joined a group of revelers at a private party in the Rising Tide Bar. “It floated up above the whole crowd!” Since then, they’ve cruised together several times.

“We made lifelong friends on our honeymoon cruise.” How cool is that?! Amateurs, Escargot & a Tanzanite Ring

by CHARLEE TOM AKA @travelcharlee

“I want to sail with your family!” said my friend Debi when I told her about our upcoming New Year’s Eve cruise. Then she upped the ante with, “We can share a cabin!” That’s where I drew the line. “NO WAY!” I said, without hesitation. If 18 of us were traveling together, I was going to need my own space.

I make my Texas family sound so highmaintenance, but they really aren’t at all. Born on New Year’s Eve and what my father called “amateur night,” my Mother loves when we are all together for family celebrations, like her birthday. That year, we were chilly as we set sail from Galveston for the Western Caribbean, but the further south we went, the more we warmed up ... in more ways than one.

In Belize, I joined my nieces and nephews for spooky cave tubing and shared their joy as they ziplined for the first time. That afternoon, we were all chaos and giggles trying to sit still for a family portrait. In Roatan, my brother’s family swam with dolphins while the rest of us took a catamaran excursion ... with boozing all the way back, of course!

Each evening, we met for sunset cocktails, then made our way to two large tables for boisterous family dinners. One night, one of my family members got overly enthusiastic about ordering escargot and asked for 10 orders “to share.” Riiiiight. Can you say mortified? Kudos to the wait staff who put up with us that night and every night of the cruise. They definitely deserved a raise after that week.

A few days later, in a jewelry shop in Cozumel, Mother picked out a BIG beautiful tanzanite ring as my father waited outside, poised to come in and “make the deal.” He was a true Texas rancher who drove a hard bargain on every occasion. One time, on a cruise in Alaska, he tried to trade a bull for a diamond. This time, to our relief, he offered a credit card for payment.

And Mother does love that ring. Not long ago she pulled me aside and said, “My darling daughter, do you like this ring? Because, when I’m gone, it will be yours.” I was astonished, and I do love the ring … but I love my sweet mother even more.

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