Cali Post Three: In Vegas, Baby

Who loves ya baby? The drive from San Diego to Vegas is a long one, but has plenty of scenery. We finally made it on Monday night. We stayed at the Mirage hotel and casino, and the rate was so stupid cheap that we kicked in a few extra bucks for a room with a "volcano view."

Monday night was absolutely freezing. Record lows. We hadn't packed enough warm clothes, but we were so psyched that we ran from casino to casino, checking everything out. We saw the Bellagio (but had to wait to see the fountains, they probably would have frozen mid-stream anyway), Ceasar's Palace (currently home to stores dedicated to both Elton John and Celine Dion. Seriously.), and the Flamingo, which may be a Vegas institution, but still smelled like pee.

Tuesday morning we headed to the Las Vegas Mall, where even at 10:00 am there was a guy outside handing out little slips of porn ads. Nice. We picked up some warm clothes and started working our way from casino to casino.

We weren't all that interested in gambling, actually, just playing the slots here and there and checking out the hotel lobbies. We hit Treasure Island, the pseudo-Italian Venetian, the endless Mandalay Bay, the geeked-out Excalibur, the art deco New York, New York, and the enormous and green MGM Grand. After awhile, they all started to seem the same. In fact, the casino areas of the finest hotels were damn near indistinguishable from the lesser ones, except the minimums at the blackjack tables.

We wanted to experience a Vegas show, but Pen and Teller were sold out and we never really got into Cirque du Soleil (which has three or four different shows), so we knew that with short notice we might not experience the best that Vegas has to offer.

Still, we were completely unprepared for what awaited us Tuesday night at the Tropicana's Folie Bergere. We were almost certainly the only people in the room under 65. There was some good singing by the female lead, though the producers need to fire the Richard Cheese-esque host and hire a black man forthwith. Basically, my high school's drama productions (which are better than most) rival the quality of this show, minus the topless showgirls. It was completely an excuse for ladies to think they were seeing quality entertainment while the gents salivate.

Wednesday morning, we had breakfast in Paris. Vegas is funny in that you come here to see reproductions of other towns. Why would I go to Vegas and buy a t-shirt for New York?

In Paris, we saw this sign warning us about the Norovirus, aka the "cruise ship" virus. We had already eaten several times in Vegas, and this, on our last day, was the first time we had seen this sign. Why? And more importantly, do we still want to eat here? Hmm. Well we did eat there, and it was pretty good. No vomiting ensued. But still. I'd like to see that sign in other places, like, say, the Flamingo where it actually struck, and where I wouldn't have eaten if you'd paid me.

After breakfast, we finally hit the blackjack tables for a bit. I lost $20, but had a lot of fun. And I can see how people get hooked. I was seated at a $5 table between a hearty guy from Virginia who was betting $25 per hand and a silent young Asian woman who politely pushed her chips onto the table.

Vegas has changed quite a bit in the ten years since I was last there. There's a lot more shopping, mostly upscale. Casinos are all now "megaresorts" with what seems like an entire mall inside. The "old Vegas" places are clearly starting to disappear.

Two-and-a-half days in Vegas was plenty for me. Our pockets a bit lighter, we were ready to make the Wednesday afternoon drive back to LA to round out our trip.