MAGIC         PORK

I took a trip to Las Vegas this last weekend and met up with some buddies from college. We’re all strewn across the country now - Virginia, Georgia, Arizona, and of course I’m representing the ol’ RIT turf. Fun was had by all, but you know the Las Vegas slogan: “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.” Nevertheless, I’ll share some stuff with you.

My flight arrived around 11 PM, which for me was 2 AM. By the time I waited to get off the plane, waited to catch a tram over to the baggage claim, waited for my bag, waited for a taxi, and rode to the hotel, it was past midnight by the time I got there. That taxi line was absolutely unbelievable. I don’t even know how to estimate how many people there were. I’d guess 500. It moved pretty quickly though, so it took about half an hour.

I’ve visited Las Vegas twice before, but it was back in 1999 & 2000. Flying into Vegas at night is a sight to behold. There’s nothing but blackness beneath you because you’re over the desert, then out of nowhere there’s a humonguous flat expanse of lights. Then as you get closer, you can see the Strip and the tall buildings jutting up out of this sea of lights. Then closer still, you can make out the individual casinos.

Leaving Las Vegas (I can’t say that without the Sheryl Crow song coming to mind, and I don’t even care for that song), it’s also impressive because I left during the day so that time I saw the beautiful mountains. Dry and dead looking, but beautiful.

On the flight from Atlanta (my stopover) to Las Vegas, I decided to have an alcoholic drink. I see now why people drink on airplanes. It was very relaxing. I thought the price was reasonable: $5 for a gin & tonic and there’s a decent amount of gin in those little bottles. I could have made two drinks from those small cups if they had given me more tonic, but instead I just had a nice strong drink. Plus it wasn’t some no-name gin, it was Tanqueray. I don’t fall asleep easily on airplanes, but that helped me at least relax a bit more. I get sick if I read on planes, so the iPod was my friend (plus Mr. Tanqueray).

I have to give credit to someone I know that’s a fan of gin and posted about it on his blog. That got me thinking about a gin & tonic, which I’ll occassionally have but not that often. That was a nice, light feeling drink so I stuck with it all weekend and it treated me well. I know, I’m making it sound like I’m a lush - but remember, it was Vegas! Drinks are free while gambling (well, I’d tip $1 to the waitress), I wasn’t driving, and I was on vacation, so yes I took advantage of that. I also had a Tanqueray & tonic on the flight back to Atlanta and was going to just have the one, but the two 40-something ladies next to me were ordering their second vodka & tonics so they and the flight attendant convinced me to go for a second one. They joked “come on, everyone’s doing it!” Maybe I should go back to elementary school and watch those videos about peer pressure!

OK, enough about drinking. Weather during the day was around 90 degrees, and it goes without saying, clear and sunny. Even at night it was still around 80 degrees or high 70’s. I thought it was going to be cooler because I think the other times I went the temperate dropped more than that at night. So walking the Strip during the day was pretty brutal but pleasant at night. We took taxi’s pretty often. Buildings can look deceptively close when they’re quite far away. Also, at least on the southern end, you can’t usually walk a direct line, you have to zig zag around, crossing the streets where there are foot bridges.

Speaking of taxi’s… I love cabbie stories. (See my Cleveland cabbie post.) Thursday night, the night I arrived, we were at Caesar’s Palace (I think) and took a cab back to Luxor where we were staying. It was around 2:30 AM in Las Vegas, which for my Virginia friends & me was 5:30 AM. So I was pretty tired to say the least. The five of us get in the minivan taxi and without saying a word, the driver starts BLASTING Metallica. I’m talkin’ old school Metallica. He was a middle-aged white guy, wearing sunglasses. At night. He had it on CD and would jump between tracks. I have to admit, it was pretty cool. But there was something very surreal about cruising down the Strip with Metallica blaring at what was, for me, 5:30 AM. I think what made it especially funny was he didn’t give an explanation. He just started playing it like it was the most normal thing in the world. I don’t know, maybe you had to be there but it was very funny. When he dropped us off he said that they don’t make music like that any more. They sure don’t, friend. I don’t think they make cab drivers like you any more either.

I saw Blue Man Group while I was there. I saw them the first time I went to Vegas, and the show was mostly the same, but it had been so long that I forgot much of it and thoroughly enjoyed it.

There’s two questions everyone asks when you return from Vegas so I’ll answer them now:

1. Did you eat $2.99 buffets? No. Yes there are cheap buffets, but you have to seek them out. They aren’t at the nicer casinos on the Strip that we were gambling at and just weren’t worth the inconvenience for me.
2. Did you win money? No. I lost money, but it was within the budget I had set for myself.

This post is getting pretty long so I’ll cut it off here. In my next post, I’ll discuss the gambling.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 3rd, 2006 at 10:58 pm and is filed under general. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.