On Memorial Day I left for a road trip that lasted nine days. Before leaving, I made big claims about writing blog posts or doing a video blog of the trip, and all of that fell apart in the face of long drives, other obligations, and, well… Vegas. I wrote a few notes while I was gone, though, so I’m going to try to piece together the trip in a few blog posts now that I’m back.
In late 2003 I learned how to play poker. The game changed my life in no small way, as I wrote about in My Journey With Poker. The natural progression, of course, was a desire to finally see Las Vegas. Prior to playing poker I had little interest because I wasn’t a gambler. I don’t play craps or roulette, I don’t like other table games like Blackjack and Pai Gow, and I absolutely can’t stand slots. Vegas had the same vague appeal it has for almost anyone looking to get away and see the opulence of it all, but poker put it in a new light.
It took me a few years to get there; my first trip to Vegas was in 2008, when my wife took me for my 30th birthday. We went with another couple and had a great time doing every touristy thing we could think of. We walked everywhere, and visited every casino from the Mandalay Bay to the Stratosphere. To this day, the only strip casino I haven’t at least walked through is the Palms.
Being in Vegas for the first time was an awesome experience. The places that were legitimately nice – the Bellagio & the Wynn, for example – were beautiful and elegant. The fake re-creation places like the Venetian and the Paris were fun to behold and, to some degree, laugh at. The over-the-top cheeseball places like the Luxor and Treasure Island were hilarious, and the rest of the strip was… well, at least I didn’t catch anything.
We took a trip to Fremont Street for a night and had a great time. The Fremont Street Experience is kinda cool for what it is, and seeing the places that gave Vegas its start was definitely worthwhile. For me, the best part was stopping in to Binions (even though it’s not called that anymore) to see the WSOP Hall of Fame. That is, after all, where it all began.
We walked and walked and walked, visited Hofbrauhaus for some awesome German beer and food, and went to Delmonico for one of the best steaks I’ve ever had in my life. It was a great birthday trip, and I couldn’t have asked for a better experience out of Vegas. Coming away from that trip I still looked at the city through rose-colored glasses, tinged by the excitement of everyone else I knew who loved going to Vegas. I couldn’t wait to get back.
My second trip came a few year’s later via a lucky opportunity. My wife’s work was sending her there for an event, and if I could get myself there I could stay in her hotel room, so I jumped at the chance. We stayed in downtown Vegas – for one day in the Plaza and three days in the Las Vegas Club – so we were able to see a lot more of Fremont street. I played poker at the Golden Nugget and the Venetian during the day and hung out with Christina at night.
The first thing I noticed on my second time around was the weather. Our first trip had been in February, so it was in the 70’s and overcast most of the time. That kind of weather suits me just fine, having grown up in the Pacific Northwest and being a lover of rain and clouds. This trip was in July, and the first time I came out of my hotel at 10am it was already 90 degrees, on a day that would top out at 103. That kind of weather, if I might be so bold, can eat a whole bag of dicks.
Wandering around Vegas this second time was a very different experience. Having been there before and seeing almost everything on the strip and in downtown, a lot of the veneer of the place had worn off. Once you get a chance to see past much of the distraction that Vegas is built around, you start seeing the underlying structure. And holy hell, that structure could use a good cleaning, and perhaps a strong disinfectant.
I had a similar experience going there my 3rd time, when my wife and I stopped there for a couple of days to go to the Classic Gaming Convention as part of another trip. The CGC was actually pretty pathetic, and that trip was short, but I was there with my wife again which always makes Vegas better.
The beauty of being in Vegas with my wife, though, is that we both enjoy making fun of stupid shit. So wandering around the casinos and seeing some of the terrible things that they do to attract people is really fun with her around. We have similar tastes in food and entertainment, so going out for some beers or getting an awesome steak are great experiences with her, and we would fill the time in between with sarcastic humor.
This last time in Vegas I went by myself. I was lucky enough to meet up with a friend from my home poker group while I was there, but he wasn’t playing in the WSOP and he wasn’t there the whole time I was. I did spend a lot of time my last two days there alone. And it’s possible that being there alone has a lot to do with how my opinion of the place has shifted.
Driving to Vegas is definitely something I’ll never do again. I drove down via I-15 from Utah and out the opposite way through Barstow & Bakersfield, and it’s one of the worst drives I’ve ever undertaken. It really adds punctuation to Reuben’s quote from Ocean’s Eleven “I’m sure you can make it out of the casino. Of course, lest we forget, once you’re out the front door, you’re still in the middle of the fucking desert!” Never, ever again.
Wandering around the city alone – or even with my friend – gave me some time to really notice the Vegas around me. The artifice of the place really got to me this time, for some reason. Having traveled to Paris last summer, seeing the fake Eiffel Tower at the Paris Las Vegas really struck me as more stupid than funny this time. Before, it was just a kind of neat replica building. This time, it felt almost like an affront to the real thing (which is how I believe real New Yorkers must feel, to a much more acute degree, walking through New York New York).
Packed on top of the artifice of the buildings was the pervasive artifice of the people. I saw more women in little tiny dresses and four-inch heels than I can count, and not a single one of them looked like they wanted to be dressed that way. And the vast majority of the guys who were out in slacks and a tie looked pissed that they couldn’t get into Tao wearing cargo shorts and a wife beater. You should win a jackpot in that city if you can find a single person with a smile on their face who isn’t either drunk or part of the hospitality industry.
Above all else, the thing that got to me this time was the smell. There are very few places on the strip that don’t smell either like a) boiling asphalt, b) cigarette smoke, or c) raw sewage. And if one of those smells doesn’t get you, it’s likely you’ll get a nice whiff of someone’s sweaty armpits, or the bleachy chlorine smell of the Bellagio’s fountains. Inside the buildings you can get away from most of the smells as long as you’re nowhere near a casino floor, and even then it probably smells like cleaning agents or cheap air freshener.
I’m very taken aback by how much Vegas as a place bothered me this time. I already knew that the activities available to me were limited. When I left the poker table each day, instead of feeling like there were a world of possibilities in the town, I felt… stranded. Between the heat and the people and the smell and the fakeness of it all, I just wanted to be anywhere else. And, when I think about it deeper, the only thing Vegas has to offer me is poker tables and tournaments – which is awesome – but when I’m away from a poker room I just want to be back in my living room.
It’s hard for me to justify going to a place where I’m forced to distract myself from it in order to enjoy myself. There is a chance that I might be convinced to go back someday and give it another shot, and perhaps making the trip with friends or my wife again could be enough to make it worthwhile. I would definitely go back to play in the WSOP – if I can ever pull together a buy-in – but I’d do the trip much differently. For now, though, I think I’m just done with Vegas.
