I’m back from Las Vegas. It was a work trip; a reward with a group of coworkers – and I did have fun, although it’s not the kind of trip I’d ever plan on my own dime, and it was very nice to be invited along as appreciation for hard work.
But wow, Las Vegas is just the most improbable place. For the trip, about 20 of us were flown to Sin City, given some pocket money, and put up in a five-star hotel, all quite nice. Of course, I’m one of those weirdos who goes to Las Vegas and never gambles a dime – sorry, just has zero interest for me – and who generally doesn’t like to drink to excess.
So there I was, in a city whose founders appear to have thought, “Hey, if we build a big city here in the middle of nowhere, and loudly promise everyone that if they come, we will take their money and send them home with a hangover, do you think they’ll line up for the privilege?” The answer is of course an enthusiastic yes.
So the next morning, I woke with a headache (red wine should not be followed by mojitos), and pondered what to do with a relentlessly sunny, 11o-degree day ahead of me. I showered and wandered out to find coffee and poked my head out the door of the hotel to find carefully landscaped gardens complete with piped in techno music emanating from the shrubbery and a million tourists randomly snapping photos of things because, OMG, it’s all so “beautiful.”
Vegas is a lot of things, but beautiful? I heard that a lot. The resort/hotel was certainly ostentatious and obviously everything was expensive, from the 24/7 high power AC to the marble floors and the food and drink flowing all the time. But the city is basically a giant shopping mall plopped down on a scar on the earth in the middle of lifeless desolation. Fascinating as a monument to chutzpah but…
I located a Starbucks across the street and decided their outdoor patio was a good place to drink coffee, read, and clear my head (& headache) while the temperatures were only in the 90s. The patio was, however, located under a gigantic electronic billboard that was playing an iPad commercial. And not much else. So by the time I downed two coffees I’d heard that commercial about, oh, 734 times (and if I ever heard the phrase “It’s magical!” again I may hurl).
(There was, in fact, nowhere other that my room where I wasn’t bombarded by really loud music or ads the entire time I was there. Not an elevator, not a restroom on the lobby level, not an outdoor spot – it’s stimulation, all the time.)
There wasn’t really enough time before the evening events (cocktail hour followed by a Garth Brooks concert) to do something more my speed – I briefly considered renting a car and driving to Hoover Dam, but logistically it just wouldn’t have worked), so I was left to the diversions in walking distance.
There was shopping – in the hotel, a Maserati dealership, a Rolex store, and other similar retail. Hmm. There was also the pool, but by the time I thought of that, it was really, really hot out. There was the “beach club,” which cost $40 to enter and another $25 if you wanted a seat to enjoy your $15 beverage. No thanks. And there was a “European pool,” not really described in the hotel brochures – but a coworker had a look at that. His description: “It was three chicks without tops and eight-five guys watching them… I said, ‘Guys, let them breathe!’”
Breasts are a big theme in Las Vegas, but mostly, the kind that you special order, not the kinds that grow in nature. By night the casino and corridors of the hotel filled with alien barbie dolls with vacant stares, lining up for clubs, spilling drinks, and in one case falling down on the marble floor until their friends could help them regain balance on their improbably high heels. The Las Vegas standard of beauty involves a lot of makeup, a lot of teetering around on dainty heels, and a lot of alcohol.
As I sat at the airport yesterday, looking at Miss Teen United States (who was on my flight and wore her sash for the trip), and a crowd of raggedy-looking people playing Star Wars themed slot machines twenty feet from the gate, I thought, “My god. The glamour.”
It’s good to be back in Houston, where there are trees, moisture, and people unafraid to admit they have sweat glands.
Pleasant surprise of the trip: the Garth Brooks concert. I am neither a fan nor a hater; I went expecting a marginally entertaining Vegas spectacle of Brooks belting out all the hits, kind of like a country Celine Dion. Instead, it was him with an acoustic guitar sitting on a mostly bare stage talking about and playing the music that shaped his youth, from country to 1970s rock and roll. He’s a natural on stage, with lots of banter and humor and it was actually pretty good. And really amazingly non-Vegas-y.
The other pleasant surprise of the trip: Southwest’s boarding process, combined with free luggage check, makes getting on and off a plane a million times more pleasant than what Continental’s like these days. Fast, efficient, and unmarred by people trying to defy physics and get their steamer trunks into overhead luggage compartments. I hadn’t flown Southwest in years, and it was probably the most comfortable and stress-free airplane experience I’ve had in the last two years.
Now I am home, enjoying Teddy, my own house, and Sunday. My eyes have almost adjusted to the lack of flashing lights.
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