Vegas An overwhelming amount of lights, sights and sounds

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Each time I have visited Las Vegas it has been different. My first experience was in the 60’s. I was under 21, so all I saw was the lights of The Strip. It was August and we had driven all night, in a non air conditioned car, to cross the desert on our way home from California. The next time I was in my 20’s and it was a girls weekend. In the 90’s, George and I were here for a get away from winter long weekend in February. Up until this trip we have stayed on The Strip. Now we are here as campers, so we are staying on the east side at Arizona Charlie’s. We are also here for a longer period than the frantic fly in to have as much fun as possible and then fly home exhausted. While we are here we need to take advantage of all the comforts of civilization and catch up on laundry, pay bills, refill prescriptions, etc.

The Strip
The is the heart of the city and is filled with energy. It is over flowing with sights and sounds. The architecture is full of surprises. So many details., colors, and shapes that present a surprise factor. There are sound systems that add to the feel and energy of the experience as you are walking around. Confusion and being just a little bit lost is part of the experience. This is part of their design and is briefly frustrating. We’ve had a few experiences where we came out of a casino on the wrong side from where we wanted to come out. Normally we would have just walked along outside to get to where we wanted to go, but it is way too cold to give up the warmth of the casino, so we head back in and try again.

We have been on The Strip at a variety of time during the day. The late morning is mellow and not very busy. The pace is picking up by 3pm and it’s really jumping by7. The population changes by about 11 and the shops have closed. There are occasional tipsy tourists trying to navigate on 4+ inch heels. The crowd becomes younger and the clubs are busy. The slots and table games are more crowded, but there is always room to sit down and donate some money to the casino. We regularly make our donations through the video poker slot machines.

Another change occurs for the weekend. Everything is busier. The evening crowd is much larger and there are many more cars in the parking structures with California license plates.

Gambling
Neither George nor I are big on giving away our money. We do like to play video poker and we are good about sticking to limiting our play money. I can play for a very long time on a few dollars. I never get ahead enough that I want to cash in and take my winnings, but there is always that possibility that I just might win big. Isn’t that really what they count on people believing, so they keep on playing because maybe that next spin/deal will be The Lucky One. So far we’ve done better at the casinos on Fremont Street or off The Strip.

Time Share Sales Presentation
This is something we have never done in the past, but have heard about or seen the people that hook you in to sign up. We were looking for discount tickets for Blue Man Group, as I couldn’t see paying $100+ per ticket. I was willing to give up 2-3 hours of our time to get the tickets for $10 each. Also it was another experience. We signed up for The Grandview and it’s located on the south side in Henderson. The property was lovely and the facilities were impressive. Eddie was the real estate agent who explained and showed us around. He did a very nice job of phrasing things so that in ones mind you would visualize yourself in that setting or traveling to one of the many other places in the RCI family. Of course there is the gauntlet of people to get through to get to the prize of the tickets. Next came Jim and he had some more figures and deals to present. After Jim then there is the “survey” person. It really isn’t a survey, but the hard sell closer of the deal. She irritated me a bunch. Up to that point it was okay. It was at the high end to the time range they gave us and she was just too much. I wanted out and what had been an okay experience became a more negative experience. Fortunately we were quickly moved on to the next person to receive our tickets.

Now a few days have passed. I’m glad we got the tickets and enjoyed the show. Do I plan to make it a habit of listening to sales pitches to get something free? Absolutely not!!! Will I ever do it again, at sometime in the remote future? Probably not…..well maybe not….well maybe. Life is a series of experiences and this was one of them. I learned stuff about time shares and resorts and now it’s time to move on.

Fremont Street
This is in the old section of town. The street is a pedestrian mall with a canopy of LED lights. Periodically the casinos turn off their marquee lights and an overhead light show begins. We wandered and played our way through the casinos. When it was time to head back to the parking garage, before we had to pay for parking, we were greeted with the light show. It was fun and well worth the trip to this section of town.

Blue Man Group
This was a lot of fun! We chose to sit in the 5th row center, which was the last section of the poncho section. We were relatively safe in our seats and I was hit with only a small glob of banana on my poncho. It certainly is an interesting and crazy performance and I’m glad we were able to go to it.

Where to Next?
We seem to alternate between the comforts of civilization and boondocking....so we're heading to Death Valley.

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