The thing about Vegas is that even people who love Vegas find Vegas exhausting. When I told people we were going to go to Vegas for a week, they’d invariably remark, “Oh, that’s a long time to be in Vegas!” And they’re right. You really only need a long weekend in Vegas to fully get what it’s about. By the fourth day, you’ll be ready to go home (or at least get out of town), especially if you’re staying on the Strip. So Matt and I very deliberately chose our last full day in Vegas to, well, get the hell out of Vegas and explore the desert, and we were both grateful for the time away from the city.

Any of the main resorts on the Strip should have a car rental agency located within the facility, as it was with the Excalibur. And, if you’ve ever dealt with a car rental agency, you’ll know that they are all inexplicably poorly run, no matter what company. For example, we had reserved our car with Avis some weeks ago, and we showed up to the desk on time, but there were two parties ahead of us and only one person on staff, delaying us to check in a half hour late. And then, when we got to the desk, the staff told us that the car we wanted was not available and we’d have to take something else entirely. As Seinfeld famously observed: “I don’t think you do [know why you have reservations]. If you did, I’d have a car. So you know how to take the reservation; you just don’t know how to hold the reservation. And that’s really the most important part of the reservation.”

I wouldn’t normally fuss so much over not getting exactly the car we wanted if it weren’t for the fact that all they had left was a half-charged, fully electric Hyundai Ioniq5. Electric cars are totally fine, of course (indeed, they are necessary for the survival of humans on this roasting planet), but at least give us a fully charged car. While the Avis employee assured us that the half-charged vehicle would get us to everywhere we wanted to go, Matt and I had our doubts as we took the car.

Our first stop on our driving tour was at Mr. Mamas, a breakfast and lunch establishment located in Las Vegas’s southwest neighborhood, a recommendation come to us from a YouTube channel. Outwardly, the place is located in a generic strip mall, and inwardly, the ambiance isn’t anything to write home about: a black-and-white checkerboard floor; pale yellow walls adorned with art fit for a dentist’s; tables and chairs that wouldn’t look out of place in a suburban home. The food itself (huevos rancheros and cinnamon roll for me; French toast with a sausage and egg for Matt) was also fine. It served its purpose. It’s one of these places where I’m glad I went but probably won’t ever go back, so make what you will of that.

Our journey continued onwards towards Lake Mead along Interstate 11, deep into the desert. It had been some years since I’d properly been in a desert (I think the last time was probably nearly 30 years ago on a family driving trip to San Diego, which took us through Arizona), so I was really looking forward to this excursion. Our first stop was at the Lake Mead Visitor Center, not to visit the visitor center but rather to enjoy views of Lake Mead, the reservoir created by the Hoover Dam. It is a vast, sprawling oasis, deep blue waters consuming the dry, rocky, barren landscape around it. The skies the day of our trip were also similarly expansive and endless, a giant cerulean canvas beautifully and elegantly brushed with heavy clouds bursting with moisture, their brilliant white appearance counterpointed with dark undersides ready to release a torrent. As we viewed the gorgeous landscape, it was immediately obvious how much water the lake had lost since it was created: whole islands once mostly submerged now visible as plain as day, evidenced by perfect lines in the rockface tracing exactly parallel to the water several yards below, demarking dark rocks above from beige rocks below, a visual reminder of the water shortage crisis the area must navigate.

The next leg of the journey took us along Highway 93 towards Hoover Dam. Hoover Dam is one of those places to see where I always hesitate with a shrug and remark despondently, “Well, I guess we should go see Hoover Dam while we’re here.” But then once you see it, you realize what a marvel it is and then feel completely grateful for making the trip.

Hoover Dam really is something else. I recommend you first view the, er, damn thing from the Mike O’Callaghan-Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge, an impressive piece of engineering in itself, a bridge that soars 890 feet above the Colorado River, a giant concrete arch emerging from the sharp cliff face, elegantly spanning hundreds of feet to support the 1900 feet of roadway above, suspending tons and tons of steel and concrete in ways that seem to defy the laws of physics. If, like me, you’re terrified of heights, you’ll find the walk across the lookout a tad challenging, especially as giant semis rush by, shaking the entire structure just enough that you hope that really smart people who know how to do math can assure us that the bridge is all working to plan.

Rumbling bridges aside, the views of Hoover Dam from this vantage are simply remarkable. Absolutely remarkable. It’s easy to lose track of your sense of scale how vast the dam is until you notice the microscopic toy trucks below you—parked upon a concrete embankment rising from the river—to help you comprehend the size of it all, 6.6 million tons of concrete rising starkly out of the rocky earth, a behemoth sentinel halting a colossal deluge.

While viewing the dam from the lookout bridge may provide enough to satiate your interest, I still recommend taking a moment to park your car in the Hoover Dam Parking House by the visitor center to take a stroll along the entire span of the dam itself. Not only does this allow you close-up views of the structure, but to the southwest you’ll get to enjoy incredible views of the O’Callaghan-Tillman Bridge you just traversed. While towards the northeast, you’ll be able to view four giant intake towers, rising tall above the river on account of how low the water now flows compared to years past. The design of the whole dam is also clearly of its 1930s era, art deco facades and geometric lines emerging gracefully from the rocky, jagged landscape surrounding it.

As we were worried about our car having enough charge to bring us full circle on our trip, we elected to stop by the nearby Hoover Dam Lodge and Casino where we could charge the car for a bit. While we waited, we went inside where it was a chore to find any bartender who knew what an old fashioned was. By the time we went to the third bar, the bartender, flustered, said, “Oh! I can make that but I don’t have… what are they called?” “Bitters?” I asked. “Yes.” “I’ll just have a vodka tonic instead, then.” Feeling dejected, we quickly finished our drinks and decided to hit the road again only to discover that the slow-charge station added mere miles to our trip.

We elected to forge on ahead regardless along Highway 167 towards Valley of Fire State Park, and this drive was absolutely stunning and beautiful, the road winding through an arid, austere world of brown and beige rocks and coarse sand, olive green bushes dotting the panorama and somehow inexplicably managing to find any ounce of moisture to survive. And in the distance, jagged mountains rising above the distant horizon, painted in shades of blues and greys, while above that a brilliant blue sky replete with giant, fluffy clouds.

We eventually arrived at Valley of Fire State Park, where the landscape seemed to instantly transform to a world of burnt orange rocks and vibrantly red sand. The rock formations were jagged and majestic, rising great and tall from the sandy ground beneath. Our ride took us along Valley of Fire Highway, which meanders through the southern edge of the park, taking us past formations like Elephant Rock, Seven Sisters, and Windstone Arch, a distance of only about 11 miles or about 25 minutes of driving, off which are hiking trails, spurs that take adventurers deeper into the gorgeous landscape.

However, on account of our half-charged vehicle, we became anxious that our rapidly depleting miles weren’t sufficient to take us all the way back to the Luxor. Indeed, when we punched in our final destination, the car’s internal mapping system told us we didn’t have enough charge to return to Vegas. Oh how I would have loved to have hiked any one of these trails we passed, but we felt it was more important to arrive back safely. Fortunately the Ioniq5’s mapping system was smart enough to bring us to the nearest charging station, but how frustrated I was that we had to leave Valley of Fire as soon as we encountered it.

Against our will, we made our way to a charging station right on the northeast edge of town off of Interstate 15, a drab, giant gas station. As we waited for the car to charge—thankfully a faster charging station than the one at Hoover Dam Lodge—we bought some beers from the station’s mini mart and drank them while sitting behind a giant junction box next to a Motel 6. I remarked that I felt like I was behaving like a naughty kid in high school, but what else were we to do?

After about 45 minutes of charging, however, we were surprised to discover that we were now surplus in miles, so we took this chance to visit Sam’s Town, a hotel and casino located off of Highway 582 on Las Vegas’s southeast edge of town, an establishment we wanted to visit on account of the album by the Killers, a musical artist who actually appeals to both Matt and me. As with the casinos on the Las Vegas Strip, Sam’s Town is also a sprawling behemoth, and by this point in our travels we were well accustomed to these ridiculous spaces, gambling devices overpopulating warehouse-sized rooms, incessant electronic arpeggiations polluting our ears, garish colors spinning and whirling on brightly lit screens, a visual and audio vortex of misfortune and bad decisions. So, of course I ordered an old fashioned (the bartender didn’t even blink when I asked for it here, unlike earlier at Hoover Dam Lodge), allowed a machine to consume five dollars from my wallet, and then it graciously returned eleven after a handful of pulls on the machine’s giant lever.

Sam’s Town itself, however, does celebrate a pretty neat feature, which was fun to explore: a large central courtyard with a gleaming glass roof and at its perimeter a facade of buildings resembling New York walk-up apartments, while at its heart, a winding stone path wandering through abundant trees and fountains all lit by elegant lanterns and lamp posts. All in all, visiting Sam’s Town was a lovely capstone to our driving adventure.

We eventually made our way back to Vegas, leaving our car behind. But we once again found ourselves ill prepared for dinner, something I’ll remark upon more fully in the concluding post. So, we elected to go to Buca di Beppo simply because it was convenient, but remarked that we wished the place would introduce a couples menu, as even one serving of whatever family-sized portion was too much food for two people.

Our evening concluded with one more nighttime walk along the Las Vegas Strip in all its excess and illusions, allowing us a final view of Las Vegas Boulevard and Harmon Avenue, that intersection we previously marveled on our first night in town, crazy traffic zooming through so many lanes of traffic, the start and end to our confused sense of scale in this ridiculous town all coming full circle. We found a quiet little section of the Strip next to Bliss Dance, a 40-foot sculpture by Marco Cochrane in collaboration with model Deja Solis, a beautiful artwork of a dancing woman constructed of geodesic struts and covered in a stainless steel mesh, lit internally with sparkling LED lights that shifted ever so slowly in various colors. Because of the sculpture’s rather curvy accentuations of an elegant human body, Matt was inspired to remark that the sculpture looked like a lady pooping her pants.

And with that, our final night in Vegas came to a close, and I think we both were feeling pretty ready to head home to poop in our own toilet.

Stray observations:

1. While I’ll continue to distrust all car rental companies everywhere for the rest of time, I must say that the Ioniq5 that we drove was a real treat. Its smart technology helped us plan how far we could drive and where to find charging stations, while its steering and braking systems auto-corrected my driving as if it had a mind of its own.
2. You’ll find lots of performers on the strip working for cash. One such performer was a young man playing cello on an overpass. It was a rather windy night, and a few stray dollars blew from his case. I quickly snatched them up for him, returned them, and gave him three more.

I’ve previously written at length about the difference between vacationing and traveling, but to quickly recap: Matt is a vacationer and I am a traveler. But each of us brings something out of the other in this contradiction. Vacationing involves pampering: visiting spas, reclining in the sun on a cruise ship, decompressing with cocktails on a balcony, indulging in a slower pace. Traveling involves adventure: throwing yourself into the local culture, using the wrong verbs, exploring places tourists don’t, staying in a New York walk-up apartment rather than a 5-star hotel. Matt and I seem to find a good balance between both experiences when we travel: Matt gave me our Fremont Street day, for example, and today I’m giving Matt his vacationing day. And, the process, we learn brand new different ways to enjoy life. And that’s very special.

We decided to have breakfast in the Luxor at Blizz, a frozen yogurt and crepes establishment, the kind of place you might find in a food court in a mall, walking up to a counter to place your order. And it was fine. I got a crepe called the Versailles (bananas, strawberries, caramel) and Matt got one called the Benedict (basically eggs benedict on top of a crepe), both served on a “super fancy” black plastic plates. Again, it was fine. Don’t go out of your way to visit Blizz. I’ll talk more at length in my last post about things Matt and I learned about how to properly experience Vegas (praising all the hits while lamenting all the misses and how to avoid them), as we both agree our food experiences were largely disappointing.

We next spent an ample amount of time at the pool at the Excalibur. The atmosphere was much unchanged from our previous visit (they were still playing terrible music, there were still a few too many people about), but the weather was absolutely perfect: sunny and bright, warm but temperate, and the skies were free of any trace of clouds—a solid, deep, vibrant blue above our heads, expansive and infinite. We first tried to enter the members only section to get away from the crowds (as we did previously), but we were quickly found out (as we weren’t previously) as a very kind staff member asked us politely to leave. So, we did. And fair enough. We still regardless enjoyed our time reclining in the sun, sipping on a giant piña colada, dipping ourselves in the cool water of the pool, resting half submerged on the stair step entrances, gazing upon all the people.

Following our pool time, we spent some time decompressing back in our hotel room, sipping on whiskey. And before we knew it, it was lunchtime, so we headed to Hussong’s Cantina in Mandalay Bay. We had passed by this Mexican restaurant during our earlier adventures, and I had marked it down as a place I wanted to make a point to get to. Sadly, as with our crepes from Blizz in the morning, it was fine. I would have expected a Mexican restaurant closer to the border than any Minnesotan counterpart to be at least marginally better than anything we have in the north, but it just wasn’t the case. I could write more about how much I don’t remember much about our visit to Hussong’s, but no words are coming to describe how indescribable and immemorable the whole experience was, so let’s just move on. And if you should walk past Hussong’s, you should just keep walking past and spend your money elsewhere.

We next made our way to Park MGM where I once again tried my luck with the gambling devices, starting with $10 at a good old fashioned slot machine. At one point I was up $20 but then lost $10.25 and decided to cash out, taking away a whopping $9.75 in earnings. Matt and I remarked over and over again that gambling just doesn’t feed that pleasure center of the brain in the way it does others. Later on in the evening, I queued up to the cashier, but I couldn’t help but ask someone else in line, showing him my paper receipt with my earnings, “I’m sorry, is there where I turn this into money?” and with a puzzled look, he responded, “Er, yes.”

Following our brief visit to the casino, Matt and I made our way to something I never thought I would ever find myself attending: a, er, Mariah Carey concert, in this case her Celebration of Mimi performance at the Dolby Live right inside Park MGM. (Mimi, by the way, is her nickname, apparently.)

If you could indulge me for a moment, let’s back up for a bit so I can tell you about my limited knowledge of Mariah Carey, which takes us to the very second date Matt and I ever had (I promise this will go somewhere, and we’ll get back to Mariah Carey in a moment). Matt invited me over to his place for a dinner of pasta carbonara (it was quite yummy, I recall). And when I arrived, he had his YouTube on and it was playing a performance by a woman who I honestly didn’t recognize. “Oh! Who’s that?” I asked. And, with all the fortitude in the world, Matt politely responded, “Er, that’s Mariah Carey.” And then if I didn’t damage my prospects enough for a third date, I next asked, “Is this new?” and Matt continued to politely explain—without heftily sighing in disbelief, “Who is this guy?”—that the performance was from the mid-90s when she was on a world tour, this particular video a performance at the Tokyo Dome.

Keep in mind: it’s not that I never heard of Mariah Carey; I just never found her music or her persona particularly interesting, so I never really made a point to memorize her features or listen to her music beyond what I might’ve accidentally encountered in the mall (and, even then, I probably didn’t even know I was listening to Mariah Carey at all).

My ignorance of certain things popular isn’t new, mind you. For example, until about 2008 or so, I honestly thought Jay-Z was a woman until I heard him speak during an interview on Wisconsin Public Radio. But more recently, I had to ask Matt who was featured in a video that played before the opening ceremonies of the Paris Olympics (“That’s Beyonce,” he explained). For whatever reason, pop culture just doesn’t turn me on, and I tend to not remember things that I don’t find particularly memorable. But don’t we all choose to not remember things we find immemorable? That is the meaning of the word, after all. But also—and I want to stress this very clearly—I’m not suggesting in any way that pop culture is bad or dumb; it’s just not for me. And that is totally fine.

So! Back to Mariah Carey. I would best describe her performance as unlike any performance I’ve ever yet witnessed; that is to say, a performance totally unfamiliar and alien to me. I expressed this confusion to Matt who helped explain that Carey wasn’t necessarily performing music but rather was putting on a show in a similar way that a drag performer might put on a show. Indeed, he described Carey as “all dragged up” in her various costumes throughout the night. Her music, then, just happened to be happening while our eyes consumed all the glitzy, gaudy, garish imagery. And, it really was a show of visual illusions, and what better place to put on a show of illusions than in a city of illusions. That said, sometimes Carey’s illusions weren’t particularly good at tricking the senses (more on that later).

As Carey started to perform, I was immediately struck by how awkward her stage presence was. She stiffly moved around the stage, one tiny step at a time, a gate more like one not belonging to a pop diva but rather belonging to a paranoid Barbie doll afraid of falling at any moment. And then, within a handful of minutes after performing a couple of songs, she flounderingly walked off towards stage left as if looking for the bathroom, her eyes wide open and dazed like some kind of helpless forest animal mesmerized by a flashlight. Meanwhile, her backup singers, her band, and a troupe of dancers would perform a musical number while Carey got changed, and by the half-hour mark, she was already dolled up in her third costume.

A half hour of singing while awkwardly walking from one end of the stage to the next (perhaps a total of an eighth of a mile in steps) was apparently all that Carey could manage in exercise for the evening, so she reclined lazily on a pink couch situated atop some stairs in the middle of the stage. It was at this point where I thought of Mick Jagger, an old man 25 years Carey’s senior, who would only have just begun to have run circles around a stage ten times as large in a stadium holding tens of thousands of more fans. But, recline on a couch Carey did, and I was once again confused about what happened next. As she performed, I asked Matt, “Is she only performing parts of tunes?” And he responded in the affirmative that she was, indeed, only singing 30 second snippets of a handful of tunes. “How strange,” I thought. Matt would explain that we live in a TikTok world where people don’t have a lot of time for anything longer than 22 seconds.

After a tad too long on the couch, it was time for Carey to get changed again, so she was awkwardly led off stage, gingerly stepping down some stairs as a gentleman weirdly helped her move at a glacial pace. But we were treated to another mini performance by her backup singers, her band, and her virtuoso pianist, Daniel Moore. I generally found the moments that Carey wasn’t on stage far more entertaining than when she was on stage. The music during these sections was real, and it was classic and entertaining in the way R&B music used to be as it was in the 1970s, legends like Marvin Gaye, Gladys Knight, and Al Green creating sublime music to outlive the ages. Moore’s performance on the piano in particular was glorious and energetic, his fingers dancing up and down the keys with graceful, effortless elegance.

Eventually, however, Carey did return to the stage, but her illusory attempts to confound the senses were noticeably flawed as she started to sign autographs while “singing.” I put singing in quotes because as she signed autographs, she clearly had a hard time doing more than one thing at once, focused intently on signing her name while forgetting to move her lips convincingly to the lyrics while her voice continued to still be audible on the recording. “Oh my god,” I thought, “She’s lip syncing. What else has she not been singing this whole time?” I wondered.

As the show trundled on, by the 90-minute mark it appeared that Carey was done. She didn’t even try for an encore, and she started walking off stage, her back to the audience, before the curtains even finished closing. The lights also came up really quickly, and audience members started leaving before the clapping even stopped. I’m generally used to seeing Bruce Springsteen or Queen or the Rolling Stones put on frenetic performances lasting two and a half hours or more, the audience cheering loudly to the very end, begging the musicians to perform forever and ever, but Carey seemed to only manage 90 minutes (and 30 minutes of that was spent fussing backstage to change into her next costume), while some of her fans seemed equally flaccid in their adoration.

If my experience at this show couldn’t have been made worse, Matt and I were sat next to some young women who insisted on chatting with us throughout the show. “What’s your favorite song?” the young lady immediately next to me asked at high volume directly into my ear. “I’m not a Mariah Carey fan! I’m only here for my boyfriend!” I yelled back. “Oh, that’s so sweet of you to come! At least he likes Mariah Carey and not something else like modern art!” I could’ve responded that I kinda like modern art, but I didn’t. There were also moments during the show that she tried to dance with me, but I refused. “Lighten up!” she exclaimed in exasperation. When the show was over, I wanted to get away from them as soon as we could, so we quickly made our exit.

And so, that was my experience at a Mariah Carey concert. What things we do for those we love. I do feel so happy that I was able to share this moment with Matt, as he had a really good time, and Carey’s music is really important and meaningful to him on so many levels. But, her music just isn’t for me. And believe me, it’s not for a lack of trying, as I’ve listened to more Carey in the past two years than I have in the previous two decades.

But the memories I have of this concert will be with me forever and ever, and it’s a story I really like to tell. I also have a broader understanding of the spectrum of the human condition, appreciating other ways we humans may enjoy life. And I really admire that Matt has such an encyclopedic knowledge about Carey, and he’s so passionate about her work and her life and her music. And that’s really special. And no one gets to take that way.

Stray observations:

1. Our server at Hussong’s, while friendly and nice, concluded our visit by giving us a card with a QR code to scan to rate our experience. But she rather imploringly pleaded with us to fill it out, “so she could keep her job,” she explained. Matt and I both thought that was a rather strange way to request feedback.
2. I realize I didn’t actually talk much about Carey’s actual music, focusing more on her awkward performance. But I don’t really know what else to say beyond the fact that her music just doesn’t turn me on. I find her vocal timbre strident and her melodies overly complex and unlistenable because of how she excessively ornaments the base melodic lines, creating melodies that lack any semblance of an elegant and graceful structure. But when you take away her voice and her melodies, the music underneath is repetitively and vapidly uncreative and leaves so much more to be desired, so there isn’t much within Carey’s soundscape that speaks to me in ways that I find interesting even though her music is so interesting to others. All this said, she clearly has struck some kind of chord with lots of people, and she is a powerhouse to be reckoned with. She has changed the world of modern popular music (albeit with lots of help from others), and she will enjoy more than just a solitary footnote in the history books.

After a pretty exciting and full day yesterday, we decided to allow ourselves a somewhat slower pace during our fourth day in town. We started out by revisiting the Pyramid Cafe in the Luxor, Matt opting for the chicken and waffles this time. He persuaded me to not get it again (even though I thought it was really good last time), so I had eggs benedict and a pancake instead. I also decided to have bottomless bloody marys, which is always a delight. While the cafe’s pancakes are, indeed, quite good, I’d overall describe the Pyramid Cafe’s fare as reliable but not necessarily something to write home about.

As we enjoyed our breakfast, however, we couldn’t help but observe an old, white, nondescript, straight couple sitting at a table near to us and who presumably were going to vote for a convicted felon for president, apparently in spite of a book that has a thing or two to say about lying and stealing and committing adultery. Their delusions and hypocrisy aside, something clearly set them off about their dining experience, as they were visibly unhappy as they angrily ate their food. At a certain point, I heard one of them tell the waiter—their hands held up in the air with frustration—that the pancakes were cold. Clearly, however, it wasn’t so bad, as they continued to eat this apparently terrible food clean off their plates, every last crumb. Eventually, however, the woman became so visibly upset after finishing eating that she exclaimed in exasperation, “I’ll figure it out! I should just go to the front desk!” and stormed from the table and out of sight, leaving her husband sitting in exasperated silence. She eventually came back, defeated, but managed to castigate the server one more time when they returned, “Our check please! We need to go!” She stormed off again and left the man to pack up their things and pay.

It all just seemed such an unnecessary waste of energy; I have no idea what this kind of behavior is meant to help solve. Hopefully, however, they’ll be dead soon and incapable of casting anymore votes for people who don’t even represent their best interests. All this said, Matt and I couldn’t help but chuckle, watching their frayed nerves unravel.

Following breakfast, we went back to our room to have what we termed a morningcap as opposed to a nightcap. Wondering if such a thing is a thing, we discovered that the closest we have to a morningcap are gin slings from the 17th and 18th centuries; however, when I try to re-verify this research, I can’t find a smidge of evidence, so I have no idea where we thought we learned this.

Next we made our way to the pool, a staple of a lot of these giant resort hotels on the Strip. While the pool wasn’t necessarily packed—there were still plenty of chairs available to recline upon, and the Excalbur’s three pools, sectioned off from one another, offered some little space for a dip—the area was still overpopulated just enough that I would’ve preferred some pool-goers to disappear. Additionally and frustratingly so, the pool areas pipe in terrible club music at an unnecessary volume, incessant drum beats unchanging and unimaginative, a hellish soundscape to induce headaches. (“It’s to prevent others from overhearing conversations,” Matt explained. “Can’t we all just speak quietly, then?” I wondered.)

Matt and I eventually decided to check out the pool reserved for guests with a special membership, and we managed to spend some time reclining in the sun and later dipping our feet in the refreshingly cool water. None of the staff told us to leave while we were in this forbidden area of the pool, but that will all change when we try the same trick tomorrow.

Following our pool time, we elected to check out the very northern part of the Strip, so we made use of the Las Vegas Monorail, a 4-mile long rail system with seven stations, the route tracing Las Vegas Boulevard. We boarded the monorail at the southern terminus, the MGM Grand station—a brief walk from the Excalibur—and Matt and I were immediately so impressed with how clean everything was, a far cry from Minneapolis’s own lightrail system, a cesspool of urine, smoke, drugs, and fist fights. While the Vegas trains came rather infrequently every eight minutes or so, the monorail is still a very handy, inexpensive resource to have if you need to limit some time off your feet exploring the Strip. It also is a lovely way to enjoy some views of the city as you travel from one end to the next, catching glimpses of not only the Strip itself, but also of swimming pools from an elevated height to see what other resorts have to offer. It also provides a pretty impressive view of the Sphere, one of Vegas’s newest additions, an impressive structure, a giant glowing orb displaying various colorful images, sometimes ads for ice cream, sometimes a giant eyeball, sometimes fantastical landscapes.

We eventually disembarked from the Westgate station, the closest stop to allow us access to Fontainebleau (albeit still a 20 minute walk farther, on account of the Vegas Strip’s exaggerated sense of scale). Fontainebleau is another one of the Strip’s newer additions (if measured by the date it opened but not built), and a resort with a long, storied past. The Wikipedia article does a pretty good job of summarizing the resort’s difficult and arduous process from groundbreaking to grand opening. The short story, however, is that the project was announced in 2005, construction began in 2007, and when the structure was topped off in 2008, it became the tallest building in Nevada. Unfortunately, it would be still over a decade before the resort would finish construction: financial difficulties, bankruptcy, lawsuits, changes in ownership, and—eventually—a little thing called COVID delayed the grand opening until December 13, 2023.

Outwardly, Fontainebleau is a magnificent structure, a shining example of minimalist design, a giant, thick arc of shimmering reflections. Inwardly, the resort is welcoming and brilliant, exquisite lines of soft, white light tracing elegant ovals and circles terraced into the tall ceilings, great, white columns adorned with unadorned vertical lines of simple gold. This resort also had a calming atmosphere compared to the locale’s located more centrally and south, perhaps on account of the time of day or the noticeably smaller crowds or both. I found myself really enjoying a moment sitting at a table on an upper mezzanine, gazing at the resort’s casino. I wanted to get a drink while we marveled at the beauty of Fontainebleau, but Matt suggested getting a drink at our next stop, Circus Circus, on account of the hopefully cheaper prices. That, I’m afraid, was enough to persuade me to leave, but in retrospect I wish we would’ve stayed a bit longer, as I really enjoyed Fontainebleau quite a bit, and I would be quite inclined to stay there on a future visit.

Circus Circus, located just kitty corner from Fontainebleau and weirdly only a 4 minute walk away, is—as you would expect—a circus-themed resort, and gaudily so, making no apologies for what it is. It also felt more like we were back in downtown Vegas, its appearance mesmerizingly shabby and real, a character reveling in its imperfections. The resort also features its own Midway with carnival booths and their owners pushing various, traditional games to win things no one needs: giant panda bears, that sort of thing. However, no one was really playing or enjoying the Midway, sad booths from a bygone era empty of excitement. And while the drinks were, indeed, cheaper at Circus Circus, the overall disuse of the place left me feeling a bit depressed and wishing we would’ve stayed longer at Fontainebleau.

Much of the rest of our afternoon was spent lollygagging from resort to resort, and I must say that after a while, all the resorts started to bleed into each other, no matter how magnificent and individual their fakery. The Wynn and Encore, for example, were particularly egregious in their indulgence in appearing to be nothing more than a generic theme that (at my kindest) I would describe as giant shopping mall, lacking in any distinguishable character that Circus Circus, the Excalibur, or New York New York have in spades. That said, Matt and I did enjoy a fun moment outside Bar Parasol in the Wynn, a whimsical establishment accessible via a grand staircase, a giant open ceiling above, adorned with huge, elegant, magical parasols that slowly floated up and delicately descended softly down, flummoxing the senses into thinking that it wasn’t the parasols moving, but, indeed, the entire platform we were standing on to gaze upon the mischievous illusion.

Where the Wynn and Encore left much to be desired, the Venetian and its sister the Palazzo offered a return to that Vegas fakery that—I must guiltily admit—I started to fall in love with. The Venetian, for me, is probably the resort I think of when I think of the Vegas Strip. And I’ve already told Matt a couple times that when we go back to Vegas, I want to stay at the Venetian. I think what makes the Venetian memorable and exciting in a way that, say, the Excalibur doesn’t (recall that I previously wrote that the Excalibur doesn’t event almost succeed at suggesting you’re in a medieval castle), is that the Venetian is so consistent and perfect in its design. It’s absolutely a fake Venice, of course, but it indulges in and doesn’t apologize for the fakery: it’s a superbly polished Venice, angular canals with deep, crystal clear, blue water zigzagging through Gothic building facades with grand, stone, pointed arches, gracefully romantic balconies, classically ornamental balustrades, elegant split pane windows lit from behind with a soft, yellow glow, a ceiling of blue skies visited by silky, feathery clouds. There’s also a whole section of the Venetian meant to look like St. Mark’s Square, and we’ll indeed spend some more time there on our last day.

It was soon time for dinner, and I was determined to visit In-n-Out Burger, a fast food staple out West and in Texas. There’s one location on Las Vegas Boulevard, south of the Venetian, in a small, outdoor shopping strip. It was bizarre walking through this area as everything was sized normally rather than extravagantly, and I found my senses feeling bewildered at how small everything looked: building facades, fountains, the cobblestone, the palm trees. Meanwhile, In-n-Out Burger itself is a no-nonsense place (black-and-white checkerboard floor, walls of simple white, square tiles) and the fast food joint comes with a very simple menu to match its very simple decor. The key, however, is to know a secret that only insiders will know: order everything animal style, which means that a burger will be dressed with extra thousand island dressing, mustard grilled patties, and extra pickles while fries will be dressed with cheese, spread, and grilled onions. I really enjoyed my burger and fries at In-n-Out, and I highly recommend you visit one whenever you go out West. My only regret is that I didn’t get a milkshake as well! Next time, I suppose.

Soon we found ourselves wandering farther south, stopping by the Flamingo where we saw actual pink flamingos in the resort’s Wildlife Habitat, a four acre garden with fake streams, fake ponds, and fake waterfalls (but real flowers and trees and other plants). As we marveled at the flamingos (how often do you see them in a lifetime, anyway?) I exclaimed, “Look at those flamingos’ legs! They’re such sticks you could just break them in half!” And Matt calmly observed, “I imagine a flamingo being out of water is like a human being in water.” We also spent some time looking at the koi in the ponds where I wondered, “What do koi do all day?” to which Matt blithely responded, “I dunno. Suck on a rock and spit it out?”

We decided to hop back on the monorail at the station near the Flamingo and took it all the way back south to MGM Grand. After we got off the train, we headed to the Tropicana, but we arrived in Vegas mere days after the resort closed for good on April 2. It had a good long run, however, opening on April 4, 1957. But times are changing, and the building is being demolished to make way for a yucky sports stadium. Outwardly, the Tropicana’s design is actually somewhat unremarkable: a kind of soft brutalism, a tall structure unafraid to reveal its concrete. Despite the looming demolition and chainlink fence keeping people like us out, we were able to get relatively close to the dying building, catching glimpses of the main entrance.

It was at this point in our adventures that—I must admit—we both began to feel some fatigue with the Strip. Three days of exploring this ridiculous extravaganza is quite enough, as eventually some of the resorts (especially the ones that just look like big, uninspired, generic shopping malls) start to become immemorable. The rest of our evening displayed our fatigue as we spent some time to decompress back in our room at the Excalibur, and then later we took cheap, canned cocktails to the Brooklyn Bridge outside New York New York and sat underneath the nightly desert sky. While the evening sky was calming, the Strip itself  is just so inundated with incessant energy of glitzy lights, twelve lanes of traffic, and herds of human cattle that it all becomes a bit much.

Our last two full days, however, will break up the monotony from our time on the Strip, and I can’t wait to tell you about it.

Stray observations:

1. It’s best to buy your tickets to the Monorail online using your phone, as you’ll receive a modest discount.
2. At the south entrance of Fontainebleau stands a magnificent, 46-foot tall sculpture called Lovers #3 by Urs Fischer. Constructed of aluminum, stainless steel, and gold leaf, its long, whirling shapes reminded me of a shining colossal tempest, a rushing surge of golden sea water, as if a mythological beast could emerge from a torrent of liquid metal at any moment. Conversely, it also felt like the sculpture could’ve actually been some microscopic fragment of ore but viewed as if magnified through a brilliant lens.
3. Following our visit to the Venetian, we also walked through the Linq, apparently, and—speaking of big, uninspired, generic shopping malls—I have no visual memory of the Linq, and I merely wrote “modern generic” in my notes to help me remember anything about it. Sure. Okay. That helps. So maybe skip the Linq, as it clearly left a huge impression on me.

Of all the days we spent in Vegas, this day was probably my favorite, as we left behind the Strip and all its illusions and explored downtown Vegas, a section of town that exudes unfiltered character, shabby realness, and genuine imperfections, warts and all. We also had quite a few things planned, requiring us to arrive at a few special events on time. When I travel, I love having at least one day when I get to do lots of things… and this day delivered in diamonds and spades, as it were.

Quickly getting coffees from the Roasted Bean at the base of our tower in the Excalibur (it was fine; much too expensive for the quality), we grabbed a Lyft to take us to the infamous Fremont Street in downtown Vegas. The route took us north along Interstate 15, and to our east we could view the tall, ridiculous resorts of the Las Vegas Strip. Viewing the various structures from this vantage allowed us to more fully comprehend how big and spread out each of the megahotels are, appearing as—without all their glitzy marquees clearly visible—giant silhouettes of ugly behemoths, walls of boring steel and uninspiring glass rising tall out of an otherwise perfectly gorgeous desert landscape. To our west, however, were the glorious, snow-peaked mountains of the Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area; and while we won’t be visiting Red Rocks during our trip, the incredible landscape offered a tantalizing glimpse of the driving tour later in the week when we’ll be visiting Hoover Dam and Valley of Fire State Park.

We eventually arrived at Fremont Street (so named after 19th century explorer and politician, John C. Frémont) and suddenly Vegas seemed so much more real and alluring: cracked pavements, smokey windows, marquees with busted light bulbs all unapologetically on display for us to enjoy. One of the most prominent features of Fremont Street is the Fremont Street Experience, more specifically a 4-block long and 90-foot high arched canopy affixed with an LED screen displaying various animated colorful patterns spinning and twisting and turning—sometimes abstract, sometimes literal, blooming flowers, floating fish, spinning roulette wheels—all the while “Swingtown” by the Steve Miller Band blasted loudly and satisfyingly, inviting us to all “come on and dance” to the tune’s electrifying synthesizers, driving drum beats, and gorgeous sweeping melodies.

We briefly stepped inside the Golden Nugget—dating from 1946, one of the oldest casinos in Vegas—and its decor radiates that old, classic, vintage Vegas character: a white-and-gold building facade adorned with an ostentatiously golden marquee, countless light bulbs declaring GOLDEN NUGGET in all caps in a timeless, serifed font; inside, a casino bursting with activity, even at 10:30 in the morning, gambling devices trilling their incessant arpeggiations, a man in a wheelchair attached to an oxygen machine as he smoked a cigarette, garish chandeliers hanging from the ceiling, globes of rusty auburn and hazy mustard recalling a wild decade. This is the Vegas that I imagine in my head when I think of Vegas. And here it is: it’s real… and it exists!

Not able to dawdle very long as we had an appointment for a food tour, we made our way to Downtown Container Park, an outdoor shopping mall with its various shops, restaurants, and bars housed within repurposed shipping containers painted in bright, bold colors. Greeting us at the park’s entrance was a giant sculpture of a praying mantis, standing ominous and tall and constructed of rusty scrap metal, its two antennae piercing the sky and its giant, alarming claws reaching out and intimidating passersby.

Our 11:00 appointment was with Katrina, our food tour guide with Secret Food Tours. Katrina was bright, energetic, incredibly agreeable, and extremely eager to tell us so much about what we were about to eat and see as we made our way from stop to stop. Our first destination, located right in the Container Park, was Bin 702, a wine bar in a silvery grey shipping container. Its interior was gorgeously shabby, its structural supporting beams littered with numerous, colorful stickers, its bar lined with sturdy, reliable metal stools, while the sound system satisfyingly playing “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” by Tears for Fears, elegant melodies supported by dreamy synths with the electric guitar’s reverb on overdrive.

While at Bin 702, we were treated to our first delight: a montadito (a mini, open-faced sandwich from Spain), this one made with lobster meat and dressed with crushed-up flaming hot cheetos, reminding me of the episode of Ghosts where Jay prepares a meal using a similar technique. While I felt the sandwich could’ve been a little spicier (I have a high tolerance for spice), it was still an enjoyable little feast, a satisfying introduction to our food tour. I also ordered a vodka tonic, but had to quickly down it; while Vegas may be dubbed “sin city,” carrying open containers in this part of town was not allowed, something that surprised me and made me love New Orleans even more (a city I already quite adore), where such things are allowed.

As we made our way to the next stop, Katrina cheekily told us of Nevada’s state flower, the traffic cone, as she jokingly complained about road construction while also pointing out El Cortez, a hotel and casino that still features gambling devices that spew out actual coins. We eventually arrived at Evel Pie, so named after daredevil Evel Knievel, their website declaring, “No fancy lentil-crusted, tofu-topped asparagus pies here. Like in Evel’s day, just cheese and pepperoni New York slices (among others).” Evel Pie’s indoor aesthetic was similar to Bin 702, reveling in a scrappy appearance that I just love: walls littered with stickers and more stickers; dim and hazy light fixtures hanging lazily from the ceiling; an outdoor patio with a colorful mural of Elvis painted in a style similar to the Garbage Pail Kids; countless framed photographs cluttering a long wall, each one capturing moments from Evel’s life as he flew his motorcycle across long rows of junky cars.

As we sat in this incredible ambiance, scooched up together in a long booth, Queen’s “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” playing on the loudspeaker (one of the few Queen songs I actually don’t like, if I’m being honest), we enjoyed a pizza not with marinara and pepperoni, but with barbecue sauce, pork, bacon, and onions. The pizza was on the sweeter end of the spectrum (but not too sweet), and the sugar was counterpointed satisfyingly by the salty bits of meat.

Our next stop brought us to Flippin’ Good, a chicken, burger, and beer joint. This stop was the only miss on our food tour, I’d have to say. It’s not that it was particularly bad, it’s just that it also wasn’t especially memorable. We were served coke floats (the ice cream made in house), and coke floats are, well, coke floats. Nothing to write home about. That said, as we enjoyed the classic concoction, Katrina told us about how Wayne Newton was underage when he first started performing, so they’d go to various soda shops and have coke floats. So Flippin’ Good ended up being more a stop to fill in a bit of local history rather than to try a particularly memorable local food.

Next we made our way to Dirt Dog, a small chain with a handful of locations in Vegas and Los Angeles, its name derived from founder Timothy Cam’s memory of eating bacon-wrapped hot dogs on summery days in LA, buying them from a street vendor, Timothy’s mother complaining that he’s just eating dirt because of all the dust the traffic was kicking up onto the vendor’s flat grill. Our dogs, however, were free of dirt (as far as I could tell), and instead of bacon were dressed with elote, that delectable Mexican concoction of grilled corn, mayo, chili powder, cheese, and limes. The dog itself was beefy and juicy, and the elote was mouth-watering perfection. We also were served complimentary strawberry margaritas, which was a real treat, especially as we listened to this stop’s musical selection of “Still into You” by Paramore, Hayley Williams’s vocals a satisfying mix of punk and pop, a grittier vocal quality to match Dirt Dog’s equally gritty decor: black ceiling, exposed ventilation ducts, and dim red lights that affected the thick, colorful brush strokes of the hues of a the painting of a city hanging above the counter.

As we made our way to our next destination (stopping by Binion’s Gambling Hall on the way, a casino that opened in 1951 and named after Texas gambler Benny Binion, where we got to view a display of $1 million in cash, the $100 bills stacked in the shape of a pyramid), Katrina told us of how neon signs began to be displayed on building facades following prohibition to lure in unlucky gamblers (“Hoover Dam just opened, so providing energy to all these signs wasn’t a problem,” she quipped). Eventually we arrived at hotel and casino, Circa (but not before Katrina pointed out Vegas Vic, that famous neon sign of a cowboy standing tall, one leg relaxingly crossed in front of the other, his left arm raised and bent at the elbow, his hand pointing the way with his thumb), which housed Saginaw’s (Katrina told us the name comes from a town in Michigan on account of Circa owner Derek Stevens’s Detroit roots, when in fact Saginaw’s co-founder is Paul Saginaw, also from Michigan), a delicatessen known for its sandwiches but that also serves a Vegas classic, the shrimp cocktail (“60,000 shrimp are consumed per day in Vegas,” Katrina said). What makes a shrimp cocktail, of course, is the sauce it’s served with. And the sauce at Saginaw’s was so strongly infused with horseradish that nasal passages not only became miraculously free and clear and open, they may have bled a little bit as well. It was fantastic! So zesty, so tasty, and so invigorating. A celebration for the senses!

We soon made our way to our next destination, the California Hotel and Casino (its founder, Sam Boyd, an avid bingo fan), where we visited Aloha Specialties, a Hawaiian restaurant that fit in well with the California’s history of deliberately attracting guests from Hawaii. Aloha Specialties was the first Hawaiian restaurant to open in Vegas, and so naturally we got to try two classics: chicken teriyaki (a dish with Japanese roots but incredibly popular in Hawaii) and Spam musubi (a dish inspired by Japanese sushi but with a definite Hawaiian twist). While the teriyaki was inoffensively fine (you’d have to try really hard to mess that up), the Spam musubi was a delightful little twist on that Japanese classic: rice and Spam wrapped in nori. Spam is curiously popular in Hawaii due to GIs voraciously introducing it to their diet during World War II. And while Spam is, of course, very bad for you, this moderately-sized roll was a curious little treat that offered the tiniest little preview to a place I’ve long wanted to visit.

Within the California, we made one final food stop to Ethel M Chocolates (its founder, Forrest Mars, Sr., the inventor of M&Ms and the Milky Way chocolate bar) to enjoy some small-batch chocolates. We first got to try a lemon chocolate truffle and then picked out our own selection, a champaign truffle for me (the chocolate shell dazzlingly gold in color) and a creme de menthe truffle for Matt (its sea-green hue a preview of the mint inside). While the truffles were a delight, I can’t say there was anything particularly special about them that made Ethel M stand out from any other small-batch chocolatier. So go seek out Ethel M if you want (or don’t)—I won’t be particularly bothered either way what you decide.

Our final stop was Main Street Station, another Sam Boyd hotel and casino, not for more food but simply to enjoy its classic design. While the building opened in 1978, you would be forgiven if you thought it opened in 1878, as it revels in timeless Victorian decor: tall, elegant, white pillars topped with capitals all golden and ornate; ceilings gilded in more gold, intricate and opulent patterns a feast for the eyes; an upstairs gallery featuring Winston Churchill’s stoutly robust snooker table elevated by eight, lavish wooden legs with more ornate carvings. The whole casino was dripping with a velvety atmosphere and perfumy opulence, a real delight to experience. “It’s like being in the Wild West,” Matt commented, and I agreed… as if stepping back in time to old San Francisco.

All in all, I highly recommend Secret Food Tours and their historic downtown Vegas tour. Katrina was amazing, the tour was informative and fun, the food was a nice eclectic mix, and each stop—even if Flippin’ Good was a bit disappointing—provided a glimpse into the lore of Vegas, alluring stories delivered through food.

After such a satisfying food tour, it was time to take a moment to relax with a drink for a bit and enjoy some good old fashioned people watching. We saddled up to an outdoor bar at Four Queens Hotel and Casino, ordering an old fashioned for me and beer for Matt. My old fashioned was definitely a tourist’s old fashioned, served in a tall plastic cup, lots of extra bourbon, extra cherries, extra simple syrup, turning it into more of a drink to be inhaled rather than a classy drink to be sipped. But I couldn’t help but enjoy it regardless. We found some high top tables nearby on Fremont and 3rd to sit and watch the multitudes of people amble about, up and down the street. The crowds in this part of town on a Monday afternoon seemed more relaxed, slightly frumpier, slightly older… a crowd very different from the one on the Strip.

Following our drinks and people watching, we next made our way to the SlotZilla Zipline—a zipline that offers a couple different packages—and Matt and I opted for their Super Hero Zoom, a zipline elevated 11 stories and spanning 5 blocks of Fremont with zipliners positioned prone as if flying through the air like Superman. I first tried ziplining in Puerto Rico in 2022, and then Matt and I did it together in Mexico just last November, and we both absolutely loved it. As my previous two ziplining experiences were particularly special and wonderful and exhilarating, I was prepared to have quite low expectations for this one, since it was so short and not terribly high in the air. And even with setting expectations low, the experience is more a novelty than an exhilaration, ziplining down 5 blocks of an iconic street, a cacophony of music blaring from casinos, hoards of people milling about, the sky an impressive LED screen. Is it worth $70? Maybe not. Matt and I agree, however, that we should’ve done this at night so all the glitz and glam of the neon lights would’ve impressed even more.

Feeling a bit peckish, we decided to revisit a stop from our food tour, returning to Saginaw’s to enjoy some of their sandwiches, and I’m so happy we did, as our dinner at Saginaw’s ended up being one of the more memorable dinners we enjoyed in Vegas. And while Saginaw’s may not be quite as amazing as Katz’s Delicatessen in New York (a tall bar to surpass), Saginaw’s still delivered some fine sandwiches indeed. I got a classic reuben and Matt got a turkey/coleslaw sandwich, and the sandwiches were excitingly zesty and enticingly delectable.

We next explored a section of Fremont Street that—for whatever reason—hasn’t quite caught on: Neonopolis, a three-level, 250,000 square foot complex designed to attract restaurants, bars, nightclubs, and live performances. Essentially designed like an open-air shopping mall, it bizarrely attracts very little traffic even though the hordes of people walking Fremont street are mere yards away. That said, the space does provide a respite from all the riff-raff if crowds aren’t your thing. The third level also has a bridge that spans Fremont Street and that allows for an amazing view of the famous street looking east, desert mountains in the far distance, a long line of fairy lights criss-crossing over the street from building to building, marquees lit up in gaudy neon lights inviting unlucky gamblers to enter, the moon a perfect floating disc rising in a sunsetting sky, hues of crystal blues high in the sky slowly fading to vibrant golds at the horizon. The bridge was so high up and open to the expansive air that it activated my intense fear of heights, as I might lose control of my senses and throw myself off over the edge. Fortunately, I didn’t.

We had one last appointment to get to for the day, this one with the Neon Museum, a 15-minute walk north along Las Vegas Boulevard. I wouldn’t describe this walk as a pleasant walk but rather, to use Matt’s parlance, a dicey walk. This part of town wasn’t particularly well lit, and it necessitated walking underneath the dilapidated overpass of Interstate 515. I’m particularly thick-skinned when it comes to exploring urban decay, but on account of the rapidly diminishing daylight, this walk tested even my determination. So if you are in any way bothered by tricky areas of town, I would recommend taking a car to the Neon Museum.

All this said, the Neon Museum is a must-see stop to anyone traveling to Vegas for the first time. It is an outdoor museum best visited after sundown, a collection of famous street- and road-side neon signs, most of them lit up in those characteristic Vegas hues of gaudy pinks, seductive reds, oasis greens, and glorious golds. The Moulin Rouge sign was particularly memorable. Designed by Betty Willis for the first racially integrated casino in Vegas (opening in 1955 for a mere 5 months before filing for bankruptcy and since then operating just enough hours per year to maintain their gaming license), the sign spans several yards and stands several feet tall, swooping and elegant cursive typeface lit in a glitzy rose, the giant letters exquisitely looping up and down and around in a pleasing and stylish aesthetic.

Other memorable signs included the sign for the Stardust Resort and Casino, which operated from 1956 to 2006 and reveled in a space age aesthetic, its neon sign designed with tall, sharp, jagged letters and lit in countless, golden bulbs; an immediately recognizable Hard Rock Cafe sign, used for the Vegas location from 1990 to 2016, a recreation of Pete Townshend’s guitar, standing 80 feet tall and lit with over 4,100 feet of neon tubing; and a smattering of smaller signs that were a delight to behold (the Yucca Motel sign, lit in a pleasing green and topped with flowering yucca plant; the sign for one of the first openly LGBTQ+ bars; the Red Barn, its typeface lit in a sultry red and adorned with a tall martini glass; and the sign for the Flame, a steakhouse establishment from the 1960s to the 1990s, its tall, single, wide flame lit in pink and red with a giant red arrow pointing downwards in a graceful arc).

There was so much more to see that I’m not covering, so I encourage you to visit for yourself to discover which signs strike your fancy. The museum is expertly curated and the self-guided tour is enhanced with an informative web-based listening guide accessible on your phone, providing a detailed history of each of the signs. All in all, the Neon Museum was a real highlight of our trip and I encourage you to prioritize a visit when you go.

The night was closing fast, so we made one, last, dicey walk back to Fremont Street where we were able to catch a show on the giant LED screen. The shows screen at the top of every hour, and it was pretty neat to see but I’m not sure it’s something you need to necessarily prioritize. After we finished watching the show, I had to ask Matt, “Who was that singer on the screen?” And Matt, ever so patient with my lack of knowledge of popular culture, replied, “That was Shakira.” (Don’t ask me to pick this “Shakira” person out of a lineup, as I probably still would fail.)

Feeling ready to head back to the Excalibur (but not before we spent one last moment on top of the bridge in Neonopolis to view Fremont Street at night all lit up in its numerous neon signs), we returned to Container Park to call a Lyft driver, our evening coming full circle as we revisited the praying mantis sculpture, but this time its antennae spewing real flames, bursting and exploding toward the sky in sync to music. When we arrived back on the Strip, we spent some time sitting at an outdoor table in an area of New York New York just slightly away from all the hubbub of the Strip, but just near enough to gaze upon the hoards of people reveling in all the ridiculousness. It was so lovely to take a moment to reflect on our busy day, feeling so grateful for all that we saw in a single day.

Stray observations:

1. Be sure to check out the various murals in the downtown zone while you explore Fremont Street. The murals span entire buildings and deliver incredible explosions of color, a delightful counterpoint to the explosions of light provided by their electronic, neon cousins.
2. While we were on our food tour, we passed by Heart Attack Grill, a ridiculous establishment I would never be caught dead in, where diners wear hospital gowns, and those weighing over 350 pounds eat for free. The menu features “bypass burgers” with up to 8 hamburger patties (nearly 20,000 calories). Those who finish at least a triple bypass burger are wheeled out on a wheelchair. It all seems pretty dumb.
3. As we were entering Circa on the food tour, we had to show our IDs. One of our fellow foodies on the tour was from Hawaii, and Matt and I enjoyed comparing our licenses to hers. The person who was checking our IDs was tickled pink when she saw us doing this. “That was so cute!” she beamed.
4. Main Street Station also features a men’s room with one of its walls literally a giant slab from the Berlin Wall. Women may also view the bathroom as long as they ask for help from security.
5. Nearby our table while we were people watching at Four Queens was a person wearing a hat indicating he was going to vote for a felon-to-be for president (except, of course, that the hat merely mentioned this deplorable man’s name, a name I refuse to allow space here), and I don’t have to tell you he was a white, straight man (or, at the very least, passably straight; I wouldn’t be surprised if he may feel inclinations to have sex with men in airport toilets while espousing so-called “family values”).
6. Our Lyft driver who brought us back to the Strip from Fremont Street was a young man called Daniel who enthusiastically exclaimed, “I read a lot!” when we told him we went to the Titanic exhibit the previous day and who proceeded to tell us about his interest in forensics and body identification.
7. I really, really, really enjoyed downtown Vegas, so much more than the Strip itself. When we go back, I want to stay at Circa, as it’s the tallest building in downtown Vegas where the right room would provide glorious views. And the hotel’s rooftop pool is a plus too!

Waking up on our first morning in Vegas, we slept in quite late, mainly because we were out and about past 2am the previous night (which would’ve been 4am Minnesota time). Feeling quite ready for breakfast, Matt was eager to take me to the Pyramid Café in the Luxor, where he raved and raved about the pancakes they’ve got.

The walk between our temporary home at the Excalibur to the Luxor was a mere ten minutes or so, but as this was our first daylight-hours trek through the streets, it was the first time we got to really experience the glorious Las Vegas heat, solidly in the 80s and 90s all week (apart from our last day), and apparently warmer than usual this time of year, according to the locals. It just felt so good to be out and about in this magnificent weather.

The Luxor itself is quite a behemoth of a building standing 350 feet tall and measuring about 590 feet on each side of its square base (as far as I can tell from this handy resource). As we entered the building, two tall, giant seated statues that reminded me of the Colossi of Memnon (which, I believe, is the point) greeted us, both statues sitting upright, regal, and elegant. I also had to take a moment to marvel at the incredible size of the interior, especially when I thought about the architectural achievements of the engineering of this place. Much of the inside of the pyramid is a giant open space over 300 feet high, a magnificent pyramid-shaped atrium (although somewhat dimly lit), while hotel rooms line the square perimeter. But each floor above the previous is, of course, slightly smaller in area due to the very nature of a pyramid. And each floor has unobstructed views of the ground floor as visitors peer over the parapet along each terraced walkway. I don’t recall ever being in a structure quite like this. It was actually kind of remarkable.

We eventually arrived at the Pyramid Cafe, a large, open space on the ground level—very busy but well staffed, as I don’t recall waiting very long for a table. Our coffee soon arrived in a standard carafe that wouldn’t look out of place at a Perkins, and I remarked that the coffee was “surprisingly good,” as for some reason I was expecting to be disappointed by it. For our breakfasts, I decided to have chicken and waffles and Matt got biscuits and gravy and a pancake. I quite enjoyed my plate (even though a word I might use to describe it would be serviceable), while Matt seemed a little unimpressed by the biscuits and gravy, as it lacked any real semblance of noticeable protein. The pancake, however, was divine.

Following breakfast, we made our way upstairs to Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition. One thing that really surprised me about Vegas, I must say, is the amount of really quite good exhibits this town has to offer, the Titanic one included. Matt and I also both share a long, long fascination with this ship and its moment in time, so we both were inclined to enjoy the exhibit. But even those with a passing interest in the ship (or history in general) will also find this exhibit really very alluring.

Expertly curated and researched, the exhibit has numerous artifacts on display that were excavated from the wreck, including items that may have been mundane in 1912 but are now tantalizingly fascinating today (rivets, sections of rope, light fixtures, cutlery, dishes) to more unique items that provide a glimpse into the opulence of the ship (an unopened champagne bottle that miraculously survived decades under miles of water, an elegant window frame from the Verandah Café, a mostly complete set of stately channel letters spelling C D-E-C to label the walls of C deck). Also on display were some personal artifacts from passengers, including a shirt, a pair of boots, spectacles, and other items. (I joked to Matt going in that I will only be happy with this exhibit if I see some boots and some spectacles.)

A real highlight of the whole visit, however, was the Big Piece, which is a giant section of hull from the starboard side, measuring 26.5 feet by 12 feet and weighing 15 tons, raised from the wreck in 1998 using large rubber balloons filled with diesel. Visible on the piece is the exacting rivet work that dotted the ship in geometric patterns as well as portholes that belonged to two cabins on C deck. It was just really quite remarkable standing before this incredible section of the ship, difficult to believe that it once belonged to the liner (and isn’t a fake recreation like so much of Vegas) and survived so many decades in such an inhospitable environment. I just can’t recommend enough how cool this whole exhibit is!

Following the exhibit, we briefly went back to our hotel room at the Excalibur to book some things for Monday’s trip to downtown Vegas (which I’ll write about in the next post), and then we started another excursion along the Strip. This time we headed all the way south along Las Vegas Boulevard for a 30 minute walk to—what I liked to call—”that goddamn sign,” the famous one that declares, “Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas.” It seems a little silly, but you kind of have to got to go see this sign at least once in your life. It’s just one of those icons that are a requirement. And while I felt silly making my way there and taking a moment to view it (a long queue of people waiting to take their own selfie in front of it), when we arrived, it was actually really special to see: the elongated diamond shape, its 1950s typeface, a gaudy star crowning the top. So, do make your way to this goddamn sign if you can.

We next made our way back north along the Strip for a marathon 3.5-mile walk all the way to the Erotic Heritage Museum, where—quite on a whim, booking the tickets last minute—we decided to attend a particularly infamous show, which I will write about in due course. Along the way, however, we stopped at a bar in the casino in Mandalay Bay, a resort with a tropical theme, but I don’t think I necessarily noticed the theme when we were there, as my memory of the place only recalls “generic casino theme.” But we only really visited the casino, so that’s probably why I didn’t really pick up on anything discernible.

When we sat down at a table at the casino’s main bar, I asked if they had a specialty cocktail list, and the waitress’s response was, “We’re a 24-hour bar, but we can make anything,” so we ordered a pair of old fashioneds. As we enjoyed the drinks, I continued to be fascinated with the sensory overload of these casinos: gambling devices displaying bursts of crude, garish colors and blaring intrusive electronic arpeggiations; endlessly carpeted floors of generic geometric shapes; the ever-present vague whiff of stale cigarette smoke sullying the air; whoops and cheers of gamblers defeating the odds; music pumping loudly and continuously on an infinite loop.

Clearly I didn’t have enough of the casino, as we continued to make our way north to stop at Excalibur’s casino. I had a rule going into the damn place that I would take $20 to a machine, lose it all (probably within five minutes), and then stop playing. So, that’s exactly what I did. I sat down at a traditional slot machine with actual, physical rotating reels displaying vulgarly showy images of the number seven, the word “BAR,” and other images I can’t remember, complete with an actual lever to pull… none of this touch-screen business. On my first pull, I miraculously won $10. But this, as they say, is how they get you: instill you with a feeling of luck so that you might win another $10. But, alas, it was all downhill from there, as each successive pull of the lever returned diminishing, er, returns. So, defeated, we left, but this isn’t quite the end of the gambling saga quite yet. More to come in later posts.

Before we continued onwards and northwards to the Erotic Heritage Museum, we stopped at a fast food taco joint called Baja Fresh (I always wanted to call it tacos frescos), in the Excalibur to grab a quick bite to eat. Baja Fresh is a fast food chain unavailable in Minnesota (I usually have a no-fast-food rule when traveling), but I was eager to see what Mexican food was like at a place like this located a little closer to the southern border. The verdict is: it’s fine. Maybe substandardly fine. It was serviceable. The salsa bar was disappointingly bland, the so-called “hot” salsas barely causing any intense sensations of heat—more a sleeping, drowsy suggestion of zing meant for white people who think yellow mustard at a ballpark is too spicy.

We eventually carried on with our long walk to the Erotic Heritage Museum. “Very cattley,” Matt remarked, referring to the pace and density of the foot traffic. And, indeed, it was quite slow and lumbering, like cattle moving through a fenced bottleneck in the pasture. Don’t expect to walk anywhere fast when walking the Strip, especially during peak hours. Remarkably, however, once you veer off the strip even just a little bit, the traffic disappears very quickly, and it becomes difficult to believe that such commotion is mere footsteps away.

At long last we arrived at the Erotic Heritage Museum where we—perhaps against our better judgment—decided to attend, er, Puppetry of the Penis. If you’ve never heard of this ridiculous show, the title says it all: it is, indeed, a show where totally naked men use their penises as puppets. I suppose we went because one of the recommendations my brother gave when I asked him about what to do in Vegas was to attend some kind of adult-themed show. So, this is what we ended up with. (“Whatever you go to will be horrible, but it will give you something to talk about years later,” he said.)

Performed all around the world, the show originated in Melbourne in the late 1990s by comedy producer Simon Morley and puppeteer David Friend. The version we saw in Vegas featured two performers, Jamie and Andrew (and I’m sorry… I only caught their first names, and Google searches yield little clues as to their full identities), who initially came out wearing flashy ponchos that covered most of their bodies. After they teasingly warning that, yes, we are about to see full frontal male nudity, they stripped completely, and the show began in earnest.

While initially I found myself laughing along as the two naked men quipped and joked to introduce whatever it was they were about to do with their penises (turning it into an Eiffel Tower, making it look like a blinking eye, manipulating it to appear like a hamburger, tucking it behind their legs and pretending to be Buffalo Bill from Silence of the Lambs), after awhile the novelty of it all wore off, seeing two naked men on stage doing ridiculous things with their penises. I honestly don’t remember much more than what I’m recounting now. After all, how much can a man really do with his penis to maintain audience interest for 60 minutes? So, it was all good harmless fun, but I can’t honestly say I’ll ever attend this show ever again. (Even Matt, some days after we got back, remarked that he had already forgotten that we had gone. So maybe we won’t have something to talk about for years to come.)

After the show, we made our long walk back to the Excalibur, walking through the Wynn (“Everyone in this resort seems so much more wealthy,” Matt remarked); catching a glimpse of the Sphere, all lit up in vibrant colors as it displayed ads for Ben and Jerry’s ice cream; taking a moment to enjoy views of the canals of the Venetian, its waters appearing a vibrant blue-green as it shimmered in the Vegas lights; until finally we walked past the Bellagio, its fountains dancing in long arcs and erupting in tall, powerful geysers. “Gosh, those fountains make loud, rumbling sounds as they explode out of the water!” I remember enthusiastically observing.

We eventually arrived back at the Excalibur, and our feet were angry with pain, the amount of walking we did in a single day causing them to scream out in agony. That said, we still had energy to stop by Cocolini, a no-frills gelato joint on the ground floor, where we took our gelatos back to our room, enjoyed them, and quickly fell asleep, as our next morning involved much to do off the Strip in a part of town that ended up being my favorite of all the places we went: Fremont Street and downtown Vegas.

Stray observations:

1. Over breakfast, I believe, was the first time I coined the term gambling device when referring to slot machines and other instruments of chance to lose money (as I couldn’t think of the term slot machine). This topic came up when Matt recalled the existence of a Doctor Who gambling device. A google search reveals that such a machine exists, but we were unable to track one down.
2. During the Titanic exhibit, Matt and I also enjoyed an area that recreated the first class grand staircase. And—for $20 extra—of course we took advantage of the photo opportunity. (We didn’t pose like Jack and Rose in the film, though. Maybe a miss there.)
3. Vegas may be cheap to fly to (I think we spent $150 each round trip, which actually is on the higher end), but it is expensive once you get here. Even fast food joints are outrageously priced. However, if you’re in the mood for a cocktail but don’t want to spend $20 for one drink, go visit these shops they have in each of the resorts that sell snacks, nick-nacks, and booze, including cocktails in a can. However, they won’t list prices on any booze, so feel free to ask the clerk how much things cost before you buy. The canned cocktails, for example, ran about $8, but small bottles of champagne were in the $50 range.
4. The opener for Puppetry of the Penis was comedian Kristeen von Hagen, whose set was quite enjoyable and got us sufficiently excited for the evening’s performance. I remember a particularly funny bit where she talked about dick pics, and how she always finds them unwelcome, shrieking a blood-curdling scream as the images appear on her screen.
5. Matt pointed out that Trinity the Tuck—a famous drag queen, apparently—was also in the audience during Puppetry of the Penis. An avid Drag Race fan, Matt was overjoyed when Trinity accidentally stepped on his shoe lace, necessitating him to re-tie it. “I had to re-tie my shoelace because of Trinity the Tuck!” he gleefully exclaimed.
6. One of the last things we saw as we walked back to the Excalibur after the show was a disused, abandoned section of the strip where the immense size of these resorts became easier to comprehend. You see, when all the lights and frills and facades and fake castles and phony towers are removed, it’s easier to gauge the sense of scale: they really are just giant warehouses, immense convention centers, buildings of unusual size.

Some years ago, I remember flying somewhere that necessitated a very brief layover in Las Vegas. When the plane came to a stop at the gate, I’m pretty sure I was the only person to not get off the plane when we landed in Vegas, as I elected to just stay seated for the brief 30 minutes while the plane emptied and filled with passengers, the ones arriving cheering loudly when the captain announced our destination. From out the plane window, I was able to see the Las Vegas Strip, the Luxor pyramid looming large from the cityscape, and I remember remarking to myself, “Welp! I saw Vegas from my plane window, and that’s enough of Vegas for me!” vowing that I would never see the city ever again.

And yet, I’ve fallen in love with a man who adores Vegas, and so here I am with him, visiting Vegas more properly for the first time. This city was never really very high on my list of places I’ve wanted to visit, as my impressions often left me thinking that Vegas is just a giant facade of plasticized fakery, devoid of any actual real things to see. But this seems to be exactly the point of Vegas. And, I would be lying if I remarked that I am not at all curious to see what this place is all about.

Our flight into Vegas was uneventful yet comfortable (“We’re doing this right!” Matt observed, as we had a three-seat row all to ourselves, an old fashioned and espresso martini in hand), eventually arriving at about 10:00 pm local time. As we landed, the famous Las Vegas Strip prominently appeared out our windows, the Luxor pyramid once again immediately recognizable. Leaving the plane to grab our luggage, various “gambling devices”—as I liked to call them—greeted us in the expansive corridors of the airport, the machines’ gaudy electronic arpeggiations pervading every nook and cranny as garishly tasteless colors spun and spun on overlarge screens, gamblers staring blankly and expressionless into a vortex of misfortune and bad decisions.

By the time we got our luggage and met Gil, our Lyft driver—who kindly offered to take us to a marijuana dispensary before taking us to our hotel, as to avoid the inflated prices of the Strip—we arrived at the Grove to purchase some gummies and a vape, both to become enjoyable parts of our adventures. I’m so grateful that public sentiments around marijuana are shifting—even if ever so slowly—and viewing all the different options at the Grove (edibles, vapes, flowers, joints) was a reminder of the days soon to come back home in Minnesota. I got a real kick out of visiting the Grove, partly because it was outside of the main touristy zone of Vegas, the dispensary sharing walls with the Double Down Saloon, a seedy, divey establishment of the sort I revel in visiting (“Dicey,” Matt would describe it). Our Lyft driver, Gil, was so kind to make this extra stop, and we gave him an extra $10 cash tip for his kindness. (“I love tourists,” Gil exclaimed. “They keep Vegas alive!”)

Arriving at our home for the next week, the Excalibur Hotel and Casino, I will soon discover that each of these resort hotels along the Strip generally follow the same layout in design: the ground floor will feature a giant, warehouse-sized casino, more gambling devices intrusively violating eyes and ears, the smell of stale cigarette smoke vaguely present as it is ventilated out as best as possible; an expansive lobby area located on the perimeter complete with a long, long check-in counter staffed by 10-15 associates; countless hoards of people walking and roaming throughout, drinks in hand; music piped in loudly, vibrating the whole space, all adding to a cacophony of sensory overload.

Where each resort will differ, however, is in their themed design, and some resorts will do it better than others. The Excalibur, for example, draws from a Medieval castle theme, and I would say in a way that is not even half successful. While the building’s facade features architectural elements similar to a Cinderella castle at Disney World—six or seven cylindrical towers rising high, topped with red and blue conical roofs, flanked by two, giant, rectangular towers standing 28 stories high and spanning three city blocks—internally, the building is tired and uninspired, like a Medieval Times dinner hall: cheap, wrought iron chandeliers hanging from ceilings, each outfitted lazily with lightbulbs shaped like candle flames but lacking any flicker; tacky battlements near the ceiling lining tall perimeters of open spaces. Where other resorts will succeed at nearly almost suggesting you’re elsewhere (a plasticized Venice, a fake Egyptian tomb, a faux Paris), Excalibur will not.

Soon, Matt and I were off to explore parts of the 4.2 miles of the Las Vegas Strip, the facade of the New York New York Hotel and Casino greeting us first as we excited the Excalibur, towers rising tall from the Strip, recreations of the Chrysler and Empire State buildings soaring above the street, a Statue of Liberty sarcastically constructed to two-fifths scale to the genuine article. Inside the resort, the casino is another warehouse-sized room, but this time lined at the perimeter with tall facades of walk-up brownstone buildings to remind us that we’re not in Greenwich Village no matter how hard the designers try. We next made our way to the Park MGM, a resort with no real discernible theme beyond “fancy mall.” It was here where we saddled up to the bar at Gran Caffè Milano, an Italian bar situated as an island amongst other busy walk-up counters selling pizza or pasta or gelato. At the caffè, I decided to enjoy a drink called the milano (rye, vermouth, orange bitters, and lemon), expecting to experience a reimagined manhattan, but ending up disappointed by how sweet the drink was (the drink priced at $25, an expensive mistake), while Matt had a pallini spritz, a limoncello affair.

It was here where Matt asked me about my initial reactions to Las Vegas. “Well,” I sighed, “It seems to be built and packaged for a very specific type of person.” “Yes, packaged,” he agreed. “And it’s safe and unchallenging, and it’s for a type of person that I can’t possibly see marching in, for example, a second line parade in New Orleans.” And that basically sums up my thoughts of the Las Vegas Strip, and—writing this back home in Minnesota after all our adventures are over—they are thoughts that remain unchanged. But this seems to be exactly the point of this part of Vegas: it is a giant illusion that rather deftly, I must admit, befuddles the sense of scale and makes a jigsaw of expectations. And when I allowed myself to marvel at the architectural trickery of the Strip and immerse myself in this packaged world, I started to enjoy Vegas for what it is.

The rest of our evening took us through more iconic sights, first the half-size recreation of the Eiffel Tower of the Paris Hotel and Casino and then the instantly recognizable Bellagio, its fountains dormant beneath a human-made lake. As we approached the main entrance to the Bellagio, it was here where it occurred to me just how far away everything is on the Strip, but everything is built to look smaller and closer than they actually are. The Bellagio, for example, is especially remarkable in this regard, as its windows are built to suggest a 10-story building, when in fact each window is built so large that each window is actually four separate windows belonging to separate rooms. (Caesars Palace accomplishes a similar trick.) And these types of illusions will permeate throughout our time here: everything is so big and so far away but built to suggest just the opposite.

And these illusions of size aren’t limited to the resorts themselves. For example, we also spent some time at the intersection of Las Vegas Boulevard and Harmon Avenue, and as we marveled from our view on the elevated walkway, I counted that each cardinal direction of traffic had five, thick busy lanes, the intersection itself capable of fitting two baseball diamonds. The escalators also spanned incredible lengths, moving people to and fro the pedestrian walkways extending 200 feet. My sense of reality was so thrown off that at one point we were walking past several cactuses planted elegantly within sandy soil, and I wondered, “Are those cactuses real or fake?”

Much of our time on the Strip will feature more awesome moments (“As in ‘awe’,” Matt will clarify), and while my initial impressions of the Strip on this first night were somewhat lukewarm, I will surprisingly find myself ever so slowly warming to what Vegas has to offer. As with the Princess cruise along the Mexican coast that Matt and I just enjoyed last fall, Vegas is what it is, and attempts to make it into something else will only cause frustration and disappointment. Even the most cynical skeptic, as with myself, may be pleasantly surprised when fully immersed in such a ridiculous spectacle of glitz, illusions, and debauchery.

Stray observations:

1. If you can, try to get a room that is on the higher levels to enjoy views of the city, especially at night. Matt and I were stuck on the fourth floor, our window providing only a view of the wall of the hotel.
2. I know I was quite down on Excalibur, but I can’t help but suggest staying there at least once. The gaudy cheapness of it all is basically the point. And it’s super affordable.
3. While at the Bellagio, we briefly stepped through the Bellagio Conservatory and Botanical Garden, enjoying views of their current display “Tea and Tulips,” a whimsical collection of giant teacups and pots of springtime pastels surrounded by countless daffodils and tulips all expertly arranged in explosions of color.
4. When we walked through Caesars Palace, we stopped quickly for late-night noodles at Beijing Noodle, a highly designed but low-scale restaurant, prismatic tanks of koi greeting us as we entered, the walls and ceiling a facade reminding us both of paper cut-out art. The food itself was fine; don’t go out of your way to find this place.