Viva Las Vegas …

Now, as you can tell by the rather cryptic title, this blog is going to be about a recent weekend trip to … Las Vegas!

The trip was actually touch and go as to whether it would happen or not due to there being tornado warnings in place for the Hamilton County area on that Friday afternoon. The weather had been pretty odd all day but at around 2pm the sky was so dark it was almost as though it was night time and somebody had turned the moon up to 11 on the brightness scale. Rightly or wrongly, we still got in the car and headed off to the airport for our flight and although the roads were very wet with some strong winds, all the bad weather cleared up as we were about 20 minutes away from the airport. Lucky for us, but unfortunately (as we’d find out the next morning) many parts of the Midwest and indeed Southern Indiana had not been so lucky with tornadoes killing many people and causing a lot of damage.

As always seems to be the case, the visit to Indianapolis airport couldn’t have gone any smoother. Straight to the front of every queue and at the gate with loads of time to spare. We’d even successfully beaten the rest of our party that had left work a bit earlier! The flight out was great, and I continued my new found habit of developing narcolepsy whenever I step on a plane and take my seat. This sounds great as travelling goes really quickly … what’s not so great though is that when sleeping like this I CONTINUOUSLY jump myself awake throughout the flight and scare the shit out of everyone around me. I think this trip set a new record for me as both my row and the row in front turned round to look at my confused looking face.

At Las Vegas airport there are signs everywhere playing on the city’s tagline … “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas”. It’s quite funny, as this is communicated through large posters on walls with examples of people posting stuff on Facebook or Twitter that they will later regret. I think we all followed that fairly sound advice … and this blog probably will too, to some extent. HA

We did the transfer to the hotel in style by taking a black, stretch Chrysler 300C to the hotel. Between the 6 of us it also didn’t work out that much more expensive than getting the shared shuttle ride and was probably a lot quicker.

Although arriving late Friday evening, we still made the most of the night and went out for food and a walk around some of the casinos and bars. The first few things that stood out for me was just the mixture of people and the atmosphere; I hate the term, but the place was buzzing. I liked the fact that everybody was there having a good time and whether it was in a restaurant or around the roulette wheel there were women dressed in evening dresses next to guys that looked like they’d just rolled in from the beach!

I was also fascinated by the buildings and the attractions around them, and the way that every casino seemed to be linked to one another so that you would wander from building to building with as little effort as possible. I loved the escalators and moving walkways taking you up and over the roads, and we all got pissed off if they were out of order. We must have walked through every hotel and casino from the North to the South end of the strip, each one with a different theme or decor.

The drinking laws are also more relaxed in Vegas and so you’re able to walk around with an alcoholic drink in your hand on the streets, and there were even stands selling huuuuge novelty shaped containers of alcohol. Interestingly I didn’t once see any trouble that you might associate with all the alcohol around, and the closest we got to it was probably when a group of youngish Brits went past cheering … c’est la vie. Drinks in the clubs (when not free in the casino) were also a lot more expensive than in Indiana, as we found out with a round of shots …

The funniest moment is when we noticed that, in an effort to stand out, some of the homeless people had sourced Disney character costumes. Now, this may sound all well and good BUT how about this for ruining your childhood memories?! There was also a Kermit the Frog passed out along the way, and I don’t think it was from having relations with Miss Piggy although, in this place, it wouldn’t have surprised me. But there you have it: Winnie the Pooh knocking back Fosters at 11 am in the morning and just down the road from him a very depressed looking Garfield with a half finished bottle of Tequila. Cartoons don’t pay, kids!!

This actually leads me onto something I found really odd about the whole place, and that was that we actually saw some families around the place. I don’t mean mum, dad, and grown up kids but there were actually little kids walking around holding their parent’s hands! Vegas is not somewhere I’d want to take a child; I think they’d be exposed to more here than if you left them at home with Gary Glitter for the weekend. Walking around the place, whether it’s inside casinos/hotels or out on the streets, everywhere is sexualised. I’m not saying this is a bad thing, but you can’t avoid it: boobs as far as the eyes can see. Walking down the street there are small armies of people handing out business cards trying to get you to their strip clubs, some of which even serve you food topless (apparently) and by that I mean the waitresses not yourself! “Free entrance and cover for guys, girls welcome too”, “You can touch our girls” or, my personal favourite, “How does a steak served by a topless waitress sound to you, sir?”. Great; but is she going to do the dishes!? SORRY. The rest of the street army is trying to fill your hands with cards offering the services of “ladies of the night”; they stand there with 5 or 6 cards in their hand at a time flicking them and handing them to anybody walking past. Everyone in our group was collecting them and filling my back pocket with them; it should make for an interesting game of Top Trumps at some point. “What have you got?” “I’ve got Miley, she’s a $45 special and can be there in 20 mins. How about you?” “Julie, $99 happy hour special”. Might need to work on that one.

For an evening show some of us went to watch Penn & Teller at the Rio, whilst some went to watch Cirque du Soleil ‘O’ at the Bellagio. Penn & Teller was a great show and with seats 9 rows from the front we had a great view of all the tricks including the famous Magic Bullet. Google it if you’ve never heard of it.

After all the excess of this man made metropolis in the middle of a desert, we also did a helicopter tour of the Grand Canyon. This was an absolutely amazing trip and not only because I didn’t get sick in the helicopter (bad experience at the 2009 Goodwood Festival of Speed), it was incredible to see Lake Mead and the Hoover Dam from the air. When  we finally got to and descended into the Canyon we followed the Colorado River for a way and then touched down for a provided lunch. This is something that I’d recommend anybody to do on any trip the Sin City.

Now of course no blog of mine would be complete without some run down of the food that was consumed, so here goes my chubby inner self. We had some great meals in restaurants for both dinners and breakfasts. The buffet at the Bellagio was a favourite of mine because my plates could literally just consist of meats and desserts. Not on the same plate though; I’m not a total pig. Whilst in town we visited downtown Las Vegas on Fremont Street which was very cool. I had a lot more old school feel than the strip, and was also home to awesomely titled Heart Attack Grill. Have a look on the internets and you’ll find some interesting news stuff about the place, not to mention the calories in the burgers. I didn’t go for the Quadruple Bypass burger, but I did go for a full butter fat milkshake that even came with a knob of butter on top. Eurggh. The burger was tasty though, and the restaurant had a nice atmosphere to it. It’s all based around a hospital and so you have to get gowned up before you can go into eat. Given the calorie content of the burgers though I think this is probably written into the insurance somewhere.

Tuesday, the last day, was supposed to be about a trip to the Neon Light Museum and Graveyard (stop laughing; it sounds interesting to me OK!) however this was cancelled due to the high winds and storm that were battering Vegas. When we arrived at the airport there were flights being cancelled everywhere and I was very thankful that ours wasn’t one of them as I was ready to leave … a little poorer, a little fatter, very tired and in need of sleep. And finally I could end my Rain Man impression.

More photos will follow on Flickr later this week …