I spent this past weekend in Las Vegas for a "team building exercise" held by my work. Thankfully, we don't take ourselves seriously enough to actually believe that was the intent of the trip (sssshh, don't tell the IRS). We left for Vegas midday on Friday and headed back Sunday evening. Honestly, I'm not sure I would want to stay there any longer for a variety of reasons ranging from sensory overload to the fact that staying in Vegas and being entertained requires truck loads of money.
I should probably clarify a bit in saying that like most other people's trips to Las Vegas, it was more of a trip to "The Strip" than to the city itself. I'm sure there are residents of the city of Las Vegas that would take offense to any generalizations about their city that don't come with that disclaimer. Although I did not see it myself, there's got to be a section of the city that isn't represented by the obscene gaudiness of everything on display on Las Vegas Boulevard. After all, the city did look quite large from the plane. So keep that in mind - in this post, Vegas == The Strip.
Visiting Las Vegas is like being in the middle of a 4th of July fireworks display. Everyday. We stayed at the Luxor hotel (the pyramid shaped one), which is next door to the very large Mandalay Bay. As I slept at night (yes, I slept while in Vegas), it was necessary to ensure that there wasn't the slightest crack in the curtains or the Mandalay Bay's video screen advertising the line up in their theater would have been like a movie usher's flashlight in my face. There were several times while we walked from place to place that I had to squint my eyes at the brightness of the signs and video screens as we passed underneath them.
Having said that, it's an incredible place to visit. There's nothing else that I can think of which is like it. It's almost impossible to describe everything you see from the half-scale Eiffel Tower restaurant to the kingdom of the Excalibur hotel & casino or the Colosseum at Caesar's Palace. It's overwhelming. You just stare at all of it wondering how the city ever became what it is today. Who built the first of these monumental hotel/casinos starting the game of one-upmanship that continues to this day? Incredible.
Despite the brief stay, we did manage to pack a lot in to our trip. Friday night, we had an excellent dinner from Emeril's restaurant in the MGM Grand. I had the best bowl of gumbo you can imagine and a fantastic salmon fillet. I also took special notice that the MGM Grand has a group of slot machines where you could win a brand-new Dodge Viper. Needless to say, I did not win nor did I spend enough to justify it anyway (although a co-worker did win $120 from one pull of a single slot machine in their casino). We wandered the Strip for a while that night and I lost my first $20 playing roulette at the Luxor.
Saturday was packed with highlights. The day started with me taking a $25 chip donation from my boss and turning it in to $80 at Blackjack; a $55 profit for 30 minutes "work" putting me up $35 for the trip. We spent a few hours at the Hoover Dam, also beyond words for description, where we learned that there are NOT people buried in the dam, contrary to urban legend, although the dam is 100% concrete without any rebar or steel reinforcements of any kind. That evening, we saw a performance by the Blue Man Group. Thankfully, I visited their website ahead of time to discover that our front row seats were considered the "Poncho section" and dressed accordingly. I'm still trying to figure what that concoction of liquified Twinkie mass that they shot at us is really made of. The performance was incredible and has made my decision on how to spend my last $25 at Best Buy. The post-BMG show time was spent at a Blackjack table in the Luxor with a bunch of Chicago Bears fans where we all promptly lost more money than any of us cared to admit. Thankfully, it wasn't my money anyway and I still had a lot of fun.
Sunday was our final day in Vegas. We went to Caesar's Palace to eat breakfast at Cafe Lago (although the line to get in coupled with the buffet line made it more of a brunch). Still, any breakfast buffet that includes sushi is okay in my book. After watching people in my party with more money (and less sense) than me gamble at the blackjack tables of Caesar's Palace, we headed to the Hilton to check out The Star Trek Experience. An hour and one mini-Warp Core Breach later (5 shots of rum and "fruit juices" served in a small bucket with dry ice), we were laughing at my incredibly buzzed co-worker and his futile attempts to stop his head from spinning by eating a cheeseburger 10 minutes and 5 shots of liquor too late.
I didn't take many pictures (most were of the Hoover Dam), but when I check them out, if there are any note worthy, I might put them up here.