What Didn't Happen In Vegas...

Notice the drivers attention to the road...

8/4/15
Vegas is a place to get cheap flights and hotel rooms.  At least that’s what it is for people like me.  I don’t gamble and if I want to see a “show” of some sort I go to New York.  If I want to “party” I prefer to be in a place that I know the people I am partying with.  I have gambled in Vegas.  I have seen a show in Vegas (Grateful Dead UNLV 1991) and I have “partied” in Vegas.   I guess I just never understood the draw enough to be a return customer - other then to use its strategically placed airport, and its cheapish hotel rooms. 

I am a bit intrigued by the ‘something from nothing’ fairytale  that the city seems to exude.  To me the cities reputation feels like a giant, greased up spider web that people from all over the country slide into as some sort of right of passage.  Americans feed into the idea of Vegas.  It’s a place to win big (even though the mass majority of us lose), hook up with someone they barely know (while blind drunk), and generally do things they would never think of doing at home.  Of course Vegas always wins.  Once it has drained each visitor of their money (and integrity) it spits them out back to whatever shit ass town from which they come.     

Not that long ago Las Vegas was a tiny dessert town that became a rest stop for GI’s returning from the Pacific after World War II.  From there it grew into some sort of debauchery destination for shriners, bachelors and bachelorettes, retirees, and other thrill seekers that should have tried climbing instead of gambling away their pensions and bringing home sexually transmitted diseases to their girlfriend, wife, or significant other.  Las Vegas is a place that people make last ditch efforts to win big.  A place to beat the odds.  A place to, “go big or go home”.   “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas”.  In other words don’t tell your friends how badly you got fleeced during your visit.  

My friends and I are probably the lamest visitors that had ever stepped into the city proper.  We didn’t want to partake in the usual debauchery and were more interested in what time the pool closed at night and what time it opened in the morning.  We did clink a couple beers together once the folks that flew in connected with the two of us that drove in.  Of the five of us only Brian and I knew everyone.  The other three (Greg, Vaughn, and Mark) had never met, but quickly became friends through common interests and close proximity - five guys in one hotel room will do that...