There is a quiz tournament there each summer, and Nephi has wanted to go for awhile. You can read about it in this Newsweek article, and if you look carefully you'll see that Nephi is actually in the main photo very intensely playing Knodgeball and is therefore pretty much famous. He had a fun time playing trivia and was able to hold his own in a group of pretty amazing trivia players. At the same hotel where we stayed and the tournament was held, the Tropicana, there was also a big heavyweight boxing banquet and press event where some people were being inducted into some hall of fame. I think Evander Holyfield was there, actually. As you can imagine it was really hard to tell who was there for the quiz tournament and who was there for the boxing banquet. Although both groups were pretty male-dominated, after awhile I started catching on that one group was a little more white, pasty, balding, and pot-bellied, and the other was a little more black, ripped, blinged out, and well dressed.
I watched a bit of trivia, but mostly did my own thing during the days. I walked along the strip one day, which was quite unpleasant, and I went into an Anthropologie at Caesar's Shops which I had never experienced. I sat out by the hotel pool one afternoon and read a book and worked on my tan (ha). I went to the Mac King afternoon magic show which was fantastic and if you ever go to Vegas I highly recommend and only costs like $20. I went to the temple one morning. In a surprising and happy coincidence my parents happened to be in Vegas also and we met up and I got to hear about their wonderful National Parks road trip that they were concluding. I spent an afternoon with my friend Mindy and her kids who live in Seattle and were also there for her husband to play trivia. We also got to spend an afternoon with my friend Debby and her family who live in North Las Vegas and it was lovely to see her again; I knew Debby when I was in middle school in Germany. I really had a nice few days.
Before we even drove into the city, the first day we stopped at Red Rock Canyon which is about 30 minutes east of the city and is very beautiful! We hiked around a bit and really enjoyed it.
One night we went with our friend Earl, who was also in Vegas to play trivia, to the Cirque du Soleil Beatles show Love. It was amazing and we loved it!
We also ate some great food! The first night we ate at a little Japanese tapas bar in a strip mall that was incredibly delicious called Ichiza; we ordered dish after dish, and at the end of the night our bill was $36. Another night we had a delightful dinner with Earl and his brother and the Jennings at Lotus of Siam, a Thai restaurant that has a several hour wait and is on peoples' short list for best Thai food in the entire country and that has entrees that cost like $12 and is located in a very sketchy looking mostly abandoned strip mall. And we got some trendy fusion tapas at a restaurant called Firefly one night. Really, it was all so good.
So, the strip was just generally unpleasant to me, and I spent a lot of time while I was walking around wondering what I disliked about it so much. And here's what I think it boils down to for me. It's not the sex and gambling that saturate the place that really bother me, although those things really aren't my scene. It's that the entire strip is designed entirely to take all your money. And there are all these people walking around spending all this money that I'm just guessing (but I know I'm guessing right about for 95% of them) that they don't have for stupid experiences like putting money into slot machines and going to some M&M "museum", and shopping at stores that are the same stores in their suburban malls but that cost twice as much, and spending $100 for dinner that is really just a normal restaurant. The hotel where we stayed was fine, but our room was like a room at a Best Western or something. It was just a room. It's like Vegas is a place people go to pretend to be rich by doing the same banal things they do at home but for way more money. Mindless debt-fueled consumerism rubs me the wrong way. And thus we see that the strip is just not my thing because it makes me feel all judgy.
On the way out of town we spent a few hours hiking around at the Valley of Fire state park, which was also quite pretty.
And we arrived home to ellen and the boys who had had a happy few days together.
They sewed pillow cases, went bowling, watched movies, and baked and decorated some cakes. Including this "illegal immigration" cake, which was entirely the boys' idea and I don't even know what it all means but I think it is hilarious. See, the immigrants are on top of the train cars, and they are at the US border fence.
Also, they made a birthday cake for Nephi and me. Yum.
1 comment:
That sounds like a fun trip! I am glad you and Nephi are able to take trips without the kids :)
I love the cakes the boys decorated.
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