Two Days in Vegas
July 7-9, 2004
Part 1: Vegas at Night
The fact that Las Vegas exists at all is an amazement. Baking in a stark and arid desert under heat exceeding 100 degrees, Vegas is a brash, impudent affront to its environs.
Due to business, I had the opportunity to go to Las Vegas for a couple of days recently. Years ago, Joy and I passed through Vegas on our honeymoon. We were taking the train from Chicago to LA and stopped briefly in Sin City. We looked out the window at the casinos and said to each other, "Hey, now we've seen Vegas." Other than that one time, neither of us had ever been there. Neither of us are gamblers or are big on shows, so Vegas has never been much of an attraction for us. But this time the cost was cheap enough to bring Joy along that we figured, why not? I upgraded the rental car to a Mustang convertible and booked another flight.
Our flight to Vegas took us from Lansing to a connecting flight in Cincinnati. Approaching Vegas at night we could see a large, flat city. Unlike the cities of the Midwest, blocks of city were brightly lit sections sharply defined as they intersected areas of utter blackness. In the Midwest, the lights of civilization are muted by trees and humidity. They slowly trickle off in areas where development is less intense. Vegas is city right until it's not.
As we landed we saw the famous Las Vegas Strip off to our right. The emerald green of the MGM particularly stood out.
We touched down in Vegas at 9:33 p.m. local time, which was 12:33 a.m. back in Michigan. After picking up our rental car, an orange Mustang convertible, we headed for the hotel. We decided that rather than going directly to the hotel we would cruise The Strip first.
No matter how many movies or TV shows you have seen, no matter how many pictures, there is nothing like seeing the real thing. The heat, the mobs of people, the amount of glitz all packed together, the lights, it's all staggering.
By the time we hit the sack it was about 3:00 a.m., Michigan time.