Travelogue: Trish’s Week in Las Vegas or My Dreams Have Come True

By Trish White

Hi everyone I hope this post finds you all healthy, happy and enjoying lots of femme time. The week I spent in Vegas at Diva Las Vegas was a dream come true for this girl. I’m pretty sure I’ve told most of you that I love being a Canuck and wouldn’t live anywhere else but being a crossdresser in Canada definitely has it’s down side. The biggest one being, if you’re not living in eastern Canada near either Montreal or Toronto, there is no city west of there that has CD events of any size. I have always dreamed of going to a CD gathering and meeting other girls face to face rather than on line and have been so jealous chatting with girl friends on line and listening to their adventures at the various CD events they attend and how much fun they had. I had resigned myself to accepting the fact that I would never have this experience.

I know, if you read my other posts, you’ll be saying to yourself “well she seems to be having her share of getting out an enjoying time with her girl friends in Canada” and that is a valid comment. I do count my blessings that I have an accepting wife who allows me this time away, and found two Trans social groups in Vancouver and one in Kelowna that have accepted me with open arms. Going to Kelowna is nice because it’s only a 2 hour drive, so is going to Vancouver except it’s a 4 1/2 hour drive with usually an overnight stay. But at the end of the day the large CD gatherings that go on in the States is totally different as far as what venues they have access to, what is available for the participants to do each day and the sheer number of participants. I believe the count for Diva Las Vegas was around 160.

I must say right off the bat that Diva Las Vegas was everything I dreamed of and then some. I told every body who would listen that I was so excited to finally meet a lot of my on line girlfriends face to face and there were quite a few of my girlfriends that I have become very close to over the years that were going to be there. I knew it was going to be an emotional time for me. In the weeks leading up to Diva Las Vegas one of my close girls friends and I were emailing back and and forth almost daily. We were like a couple of kids, only six weeks left, only 21 more sleeps, do I look ok in this dress, are you going to bring a bathing suit and on and on. She told me that she wanted us to be roomies together and could I do it, or had I already made plans. I know how this sounds and it was exactly that way.

To explain this all further she was one of the first girls that I helped get over her fear of going out in public dressed. We had talked back and forth for months, she wanted to know what I did to look as good as I did so I filled her in on what I had to do to minimize facial blemishes or certain wrinkles and what I did to contour with make up to make my face more feminine. She took it all in and used some of my ideas and would let me know what worked and what didn’t and I would give her other things to try. She was like a sponge just soaking in everything we’d discussed. 

In the later part of 2022 another girl friend I became very close to decided she wanted to start a group of “Big Sisters” that would be willing to help other girls like my roomie. So she did exactly that, based the group in Las Vegas, and called it Confident U. In the mean time my girl friends in Kelowna and Vancouver put together “The Girls Weekend” in Kelowna, something the two groups had been doing for several years. When I first joined the Vancouver group they filled me in on some of the things they did together and when I heard about the Girls Weekend in Kelowna I said to them, “this is something I’m not going to miss”. Being a short 2 hour drive and being able to leave home as Trish, spend the weekend as Trish and then drive back home as Trish was going to be amazing. So I booked my hotel room. Then to my dismay I was talking to my girl friend that I had been helping and she told me she had decided to go to Confident U in Vegas the week before the weekend in Kelowna. Well to say I was devastated is an understatement. There was no way I could make it to Vegas in time for my dear friends first time going out in public with out missing Kelowna totally. I was just so upset that I wouldn’t be there for her and I felt terrible about it. 

So going back to my girl friend and I discussing the up coming Diva Las Vegas trip, I found out just how excited she was both for this conference but also that I was going to be there with her. She told me she had already booked our room and had booked three make overs for us as well as a manicure and pedicure and she wanted to pay for it all. So that prompted me to tell her that was not needed and there was no way that it was going to happen.

She just said Trish what you have done for me these past many months is something that I will never forget and something that I could never repay for all the time you spend with me since we met. I want this to be a very special week for you and make sure it is something you’ll always remember. I want to do it and you can’t say no. I was in tears when I read her email. I never thought for minute that what I was doing for her and other girls would mean as much to them as apparently it did.  That in itself made the week end in Vegas something very special to me and indeed a weekend I will never forget. As Kandi has said on numerous occasions…we’re just giving back to the community that has helped us become who we are. That is why we do what we do.

As I said earlier one of the things I was most excited for was meeting my long time on line girl friends as well as meeting new friends and I did. I met so many girls from all over the U.S. and Canada Well another high point of the week was meeting Dee in person. I knew she was going to be there and told her that I wanted to get at least a selfie of us if we ran into each other. It was day three and the evening was the meet and greet at the Bahama Breeze and as I had yet to see Dee I decided to wander around the restaurant in the hopes of finding her.

So I did but to no avail, I couldn’t see her anywhere. I went back to our table and was talking to some girls when Dee walked up and sat down right across the table from me. I’m sure I just stared with my mouth open for a while before I finally said anything to her. So we talked for quite a while and I got my picture together with Dee. She is very nice and much prettier in person than her pictures here on Kandi’s Land or maybe it was just me basking in her glow. But either way our meeting was the icing on the cake for this girl.

Some funny parts of the week in Vegas was just between us girls from Confident U. Paulette had booked a suit to be the party room/meeting room and this one afternoon Paulette and I had taken off our afternoon clothes and make up and were both in drab just relaxing and having some wine before getting ready for the coming evening’s events. There were a quite a few girls there and one of them was Gina, a girl we’d met earlier in the week that had joined us. She was dressed and sitting right across from Paulette and me and she kept looking at me but saying nothing. I knew she didn’t have clue who I was and I left it that way for quite a while until finally I just waved at her and said hi Gina….it’s Trish. She just sat there looking at me with her mouth slowly dropping open, it was hilarious. Then another night Paulette and I  were sitting waiting for an Uber van to show up and Paulette started talking to some younger Cis girls that were by us and I just caught the part where Paulette told them that she was 75. They looked at Paulette shocked and said REALLY! Then they looked at me and I just couldn’t resist so I said yes and she’s my Mom. Again they both said “REALLY”. it was a fun way to start our evening out and everyone had a good laugh.

I found out a lot of things about Vegas that I didn’t know, having never been there before and the first thing I discovered was you’ve got to be prepared for walking….a lot which means bring some flats which I didn’t do. I had one pair of booties with a 2″ heel and the rest were either 3 or 4″. I thought with all my physio after my accident that I had the walking down pretty well. But I can tell you that there were several nights I was hobbling big time before the evening was over. The other eye opener was was the cost. Everything was crazy expensive. I also found out that if I went to Las Vegas again I would stay in or near the old Las Vegas strip on Fremont Street. It has a ton of character that was totally missing in the new Las Vegas area. There it was just a bunch of huge hotels jammed together. Although the promenade was kind of cool but still didn’t hold a candle to Fremont Street. So all in all my dream came true in spades. The only sad part was leaving for home on Friday but I will carry with me so many wonderful memories of what we did where we went and all the wonderful girls I was able to meet and talk to.

PS: Trish sent the following additional photos after I set this post up for publication (and I am happy to see them!).

Think she’s happy?