After my solo adventure, it was time to meet back up with my dad in Las Vegas. Since he did decide to tell my mom, I can finally divulge that while we were split up, he was at Corvette Driving School in Pahrump, NV, about an hour outside of Vegas. Be sure to ask him about this. It sounds like
real-life video game meets racecar driving.
I got an early start and left ghost motel about 9AM. I thought I was going to get a "free continental
breakfast," but the real people were just as much ghosts that morning as the dead ones. The only person I saw in the entire place was the housekeeper vacuuming the downstairs carpet. No guests. No one at the front desk. No coffee. No muffins. So I stopped down the road at the
Silver Spoon Family Restaurant and had some pancakes and sausage. Even though they seemed to be cooked perfectly, the pancakes had a slightly burnt taste. I think maybe it was the syrup, though that is as equally inexplicable. I can't wait to be back at home in my kitchen!
The drive toward Vegas was just what I had pictured - dusty, reddish brown mountains, enveloped in a thin haze. I don't know if they looked that way from smoke drifting in from California, from Las Vegas smog, or just because the mountains were so far in the distance. Either way, it felt exact.
I drove across the Hoover Dam and pulled over on the side of the road to peer down. My dad tried his hardest to talk me in to going in for a tour, and yes, I know it's one of the seven modern civil engineering wonders of the world (since I obviously have that entire list memorized), but there were just so many people... and I just didn't really feel like it. The view from the road was enough to do me. So I just kept driving.
I met my dad at the campground so we could repack our things for the hotel. A HOTEL!!! Yes, I had been staying in hotels for the past few days, but this would be a real one! I was excited. We swapped around a bunch of car rentals, threw armfuls of things in the trunk (since empty luggage is something you don't normally think to pack, we didn't really pack it...), and drove into Vegas.
The Wynn Hotel became home for the next several days. It was crazy! Huge and gorgeous, and honestly, a little overwhelming at first. The Wynn is one of the newest on the strip and, now that I've been in most of the others, definitely by far my favorite. And the room - holy crap. The view alone had to be worth several hundred a night, and the pillows were worth the rest. The bathroom was bigger than our entire RV, and I took a bath every single day, at least once a day. For all of this, I will forgive them for the fact that we each had to pay $14 a day for internet access and if you removed anything from the mini bar or snack cabinet for more than 60 seconds you were charged. Whatever. They had lots and lots of hot water.
Vegas welcomed us by taking our money. We went down to the casino before dinner (and after) to partake in the town tradition. We did good for awhile - in fact, I had some seriously hot hands on the craps table for a few rounds. (Nine has always been my lucky number...) I didn't believe it at first when my dad told me that if the table turned "cold," you'd better take your money and run, or find a new table. But it was strangely true. A series of unlucky number 7's and you better get out. Regardless, craps was fun. That's where the party's at. A crowd of people all playing together and another crowd watching, everyone hooping and hollering and cheering each other on, cause if you win, they all win. And the trick to finding the winning table: look for the loudest crowd. It always works!
The only other thing I played was the slots, and that was a bit of a disappointment. I wanted to sit down with a big bucket of quarters and pull the handle and wait for the sound of jingly, clinking coins gathering rapidly on my lap. But the machine only took bills, and $1 was the minimum for one gamble. And most of the handles had turned to buttons. If you won, it printed you out a ticket to go cash in. Booooo.... My dad did win $50 playing the slots, though... which he quickly lost on the craps table.
My dad had lined us up a string of dinner reservations for our trip, and for our first night, we finished off our red meat streak at SW Steakhouse. You can't go to a steakhouse without having steak, so we split one. It was good, but the one I had at one of those Ranch House Cafes in one of those towns was actually much better. The best part was the view. That's what an advanced dinner reservation gets you. We had a "beautiful table by the window," as the hostess described, which overlooked a giant waterfall (man-made, of course, as everything is in Vegas) that was the backdrop for a lights show and was also occasionally used for animations to accompany the restaurant's music. This was my first taste of Vegas theatrics.
My first day in Vegas, I did... nothing! After two weeks on the road, I needed a break. While my dad attended the Consumer Electronics Show (our reason for stopping in Vegas and actually, for making the trip), I slept late, went down to breakfast about 11:45 (white chocolate french toast with candied orange zest!), did some blogging, got a sandwich for lunch about 4:30, and took a bath. I didn't even let the lady in to clean the room. Lazy Las Vegas.
My second day in Vegas, I immersed myself in the madness. I walked the strip to see all the spectacles. If you don't know me very well, I'll tell you this isn't really my thing - the flashy and the fake - but I felt like I should do it, since I was there. After all, as man-made and made-up as it all is, it's still part of America, and that's what this road trip is all about - seeing the country, with all its people, places, history and culture. For extra kicks, I bypassed the food court in the Venetian (a replica of the Doge's Palace), to treat myself to lunch in San Marco Square. The entertainment - some type of operatic singing by overly costumed actors - echoed off the concrete "sky." On my meandering walk to the Ristorante Veneto, I passed over the Grand Canal, with men in striped shirts giving gondola rides through chlorinated water to families and couples. I couldn't believe it. This is Disney World for grown-ups. Instead of Mickey Mouse, they have showgirls (and cocktail waitresses and well, let's face it... hookers). Instead of rides, they have casinos. Instead of candy, they eat and drink. Instead of buying a stuffed animal to take home, they buy Chanel. And instead of visiting the imaginary and magical Cinderella's Castle, they visit Venice, Paris, New York, and ancient Greece - all places that are just as dreamlike to those who can't make it there. Each hotel-casino, is its own little ride, its own destination. Las Vegas isn't a city; it's a giant theme park. My favorite "ride" of the day was probably watching the water show in front of the Bellagio, which was in sync with a Celine Dion ballad.
On my third day in Vegas, I was supposed to go do a hike at the Grand Canyon. Somehow, in my planning, I miscalculated my driving time, which turned out to be four hours. So at 7AM, I came up with a plan B. My dad had been wanting to ride a helicopter into the canyon, and that took significantly less time to accomplish. We quickly booked a tour for the next morning (see next entry), and spent most of the day readying ourselves for our next day's departure. This list of tasks included refilling Rocinante's propane (she had been parked at a nearby campground), cleaning her, picking up dry cleaning, getting a start on repacking clothes, and shipping boxes of unnecessarily packed junk and trip collectables back home. My dad finished the day with one last trip to the Consumer Electronics Show and I toured a few more things on the strip that I had missed. And then there was that Panther's game...
While in Vegas, we were sure to indulge in good food, good drinks, and even better entertainment. We saw two shows. Le Reve was something like Cirque de Soleil entirely in water. I really have no idea how they did most of what we saw, and someone could have easily died at almost any minute during the show. There were things and people dropping from a very high ceiling into the pool of water that was the stage. Lots of dancing, singing, swimming, acrobatics, circus-like tricks, and a strange story line about a girl who lost her guy for a bit and was tempted by others until she got him back (I think). We also saw Jersey Boys, a musical about Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons. The singing and staging was amazing, and it really brought to life a lot of classic songs that I'm used to singing along to on the radio. My favorite part of Vegas was definitely the shows - can't get anything quite like it anywhere else.
A few gastronomical highlights...
- White chocolate french toast with candied orange zest and a side of bacon & fruit, overlooking the hotel pool
- Ravioli stuffed with beets and ricotta with a sage cream sauce for lunch in the Venetian
- Another pasta stuffed with pear & parmesan with a brown butter sauce & dried cranberries for dinner at Rao's in Caesar's Palace (We made up for our lack of Italian.)
- Banana Cream Pie at Emeril's Fish House in the MGM
- Blood Orange Martini in Carnevino, Mario Bartelli's restaurant in the Palazzo
- Lots of good wine, both red and white, though I can't remember the specifics of any
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