There is much to say about my recent vacay. I’m home now, having elected not to write about it while on the trip, and I’m completely wrung out.
On Wednesday morning, my friend Joe and I boarded a direct flight from Wichita to the shiny city of Las Vegas, Nevada. While I had lived in a desert for a while a few years back, I knew that life in the San Luis Valley at around 7,000 feet would do nothing to prepare me for suddenly disembarking into the dry Vegas heat. I wore a hat. Despite suspicious looks from TSA agents, it was a good plan.
Day One began as an exploration of our immediate environs. The purpose of our journey was to spend an evening with Penn & Teller – a new experience for us both! But more about that later. The show was slated for the following evening, so we had all of Wednesday to soak up a little bit of Vegas. While Joe had visited the city a few time with his family when he was younger, I got the impression this was his first time as an independent adult with money to burn. And this was my very first sojourn to Sin City. I wanted to experience it a little.
I’ve often thought about how easy it is to be jaded by travel in the 21st century. My generation grew up with huge colorful representation of nearly every nook and cranny of our planet shoveled our way through screens at the cinema, on television, and so on and so forth – particularly cities that function as characters of their own in a lot of places. While I’ve had precious little opportunity to visit any major metropolitan culture centers more than a few hours from home over the course of my life, I’ve spent hours and hours of my life in New York, LA, Miama, Boston, Paris, Tokyo, London, Chicago, Washington D.C,. Seattle, New Orleans, San Francisco – and yes, Las Vegas! Fighting crime, setting the record straight, pulling off clever heists, saving the day, falling in love, winning one for the underdogs, getting rich, making poor real estate decisions, avenging loved ones… so many of these stories are drenched with life on the streets of a distant city, often interspersed with aerial shots of familiar skylines.
But if you travel a lot, you probably get it… being there, boots on the ground, breathing the air, hearing the sounds of the city, really experiencing it is a whole different thing. And it’s a powerful reminder that what we have experienced through media, while pretty freaking amazing, is not the same experience. I’m a sensate at heart – knowing our world requires us to live in it, to be part of it.
And yes, I’m aware that the same argument exists for everything outside of the city, and believe it or not I feel largely the same way about everything else. But for now, we’re talking about Vegas.
We checked in at the Rio (because that’s the hotel P&T have called their home for more than 20 years), and then we hit the strip. But not like you’d think. We decided to hoof it over to the strip, which was nearly a mile from the hotel. Everything looks bigger in Vegas, by the way, so be aware of distances before you head anywhere on foot. We figured out the illusion during the Uber ride from the airport, but we still wanted to try the hike over and see what we could see. Also, I’d asked our driver for a lunch recommendation, so we had kind of a destination in mind.
We trotted around the south end of Caesar’s Palace and headed north on Las Vegas Blvd. Every twist and turn on our path yielded yet another eye-catching wonder, and I was absolutely drawn in. I tried not to shout that I was a tourist by taking pictures every seven or eight steps, but I got quite a few. And to be honest, I don’t think I recognized a single thing I saw all weekend from TV… not that I could remember, anyway. There were a few places I wanted to see in person and didn’t – like the fountains at the Bellagio – but I wasn’t too torn up about it since that wasn’t the point of the excursion.
Our lunch destination was the Grand Lux Cafe at the Canal Shoppes at the Venetian, a charming stroll through an old world shopping center complete with bridges, balconies, and gondola rides. Lunch was lovely; I had a roast turkey and brie on a hard roll with cranberries, arugula, and a dressing I don’t quite recall the name of.
After lunch, we caught a Lyft back to the hotel and took a breather, after which we hit the casino. This was only the second time in my life I’ve actually set foot in a casino, and the first, of course, in Las Vegas. The games at the Rio stretch throughout much the length of the hotel, where you will also find numerous shops, eateries, bars, and theaters. While I did not win big, I did fly back with a little house money in my pocket, and my compatriot for the weekend more than doubled his money (and pretty much paid for his half of the trip, I daresay). I watched him play craps for a while, winning other people ridiculous chunks of change with his rolls (thus adding to his own winnings when they tossed him $100 chips to stay in and keep rolling). Not having that kind of money to blow, I stuck to slot machines.
I learned something there. I had never actually had an interest in slot machines, and often mused at the weird obsession I’ve witnessed in folks who do. Last December, I had my first abbreviated casino experience when my brother took me to the one in Dodge City for dinner, and I was mesmerized by the energy of the place. The lights, the mild cacophony, and just the vibe of it was kind of thrilling. It didn’t make me want to feed cash into the machines around me or anything, but it definitely reoriented some of my perspective on the phenomenon. So now, hanging out in Vegas with time to kill and at least a little money I could afford to lose, it seemed almost irresponsible not to try it out.
Um. Now I get it.
I didn’t feel particularly brainwashed or anything, but I suddenly understood how the experience could be compelling. How sitting down at a machine, feeding $20 into the slot, and hitting a button for 20 minutes full of small wins and losses is just, well… fun. In a way I hadn’t anticipated, it really wasn’t a waste of my time or money because I was enjoying all the little dopamine hits from the way the machine responds and strings you along. Later that evening, after we’d grabbed some authentic cheesesteak sandwiches (complete with cheese whiz – and wow! who’d have expected that to be so good!?), Joe sat next to me and lost $20 of his own. But he wasn’t exactly hurtin’ at this point, yo?
It wasn’t even hard to fall asleep that night, which isn’t always easy on a hotel bed.
