Las Vegas, CSI (Have you seen the prices? Criminal!)

Not impressed with Not Enough Indians. Dare I say it? His writing reminds me of my writing! Not quite there yet. Not a novelist, just a few funny ideas. There’s something humorous buried there, but it doesn’t quite hit. As far as a novel, it never quite gels. There are plenty of quirky small town characters ala Garrison Kellior, yet they are not touching, endearing, or even annoying enough. He gives great thumbnails of ‘type’, but there is no bildungsroman. I don’t really see anyone fleshed out, growing or changing in the course of the book. He has this funny premise of small town growth and greed, two topics that are way too close to home for my comfort, yet I never really care about any of the characters. Good first effort, but without the celebrity name, would this have been published? More likely an editor have said nice first try, be sure to send us your third.

So we landed in Vegas and began the anxious wait at the luggage carousel. Al grabbed a black bag off the belt and I had to say, “No honey, that’s quality luggage. Put that back. Ours are from Cheap-Mart.” Thankfully, all arrived intact. Amazingly Al told the cab driver precisely which hotel to take us to… I asked if he’s spontaneously recalled the name, but he admits to one of his coworkers coming through with a phone call. Saved by a geek.

We stayed across the street from the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino, and checked in around nine p.m. We were assigned a room at the furthest building of the complex, number 28. It was a three block hike from the check in desk, and I started to wonder why Al was too cheap to get us help with our bags. Then I started to suspect someone replaced my clothes and three pairs of shoes (four is on my feet, the Keds) with lead ingots. After passing three swimming pools and an outdoor nighttime wedding, I slouched over my bags in order to gear up for the big flight of cement steps to our second-floor suite. Not much of a suite; small, reasonably clean, not very flashy or updated. This place might have been something, oh, say 25 years ago. I pondered why some of the lights don’t work. Al pointed out they lacked light bulbs. What dimwatt took the light bulbs? At least there was a fridge, ironing board and iron. More towels would have been nice. Oh well. Not someplace I would recommend.

We had dinner across the street at the Pink Taco where we were introduced to the Las Vegas standard of “the $8.50 Margarita”. Nice to know I’m too poor to get drunk in this town. Also too poor to gambol anyplace nice – the table limits on the nicer casinos were quite high. Not having $10 bucks or more per spin of the roulette wheel, I never did play the whole trip. I’m kind of disappointed in retrospect.

Quickly realized the hotel room was directly under “Runway 2” as I nodded off to sleep.

The next day was spent by the pool while Al attended his software conference. The cheapos couldn’t even heat the pools in our hotel, so it mostly consisted of sunning. I wrote a nice post for my blog, but they wanted $5 additional to use the internet there, so we figured we’d wait until our third night when we would move over to the Bellagio hotel. They must have free wi-fi. Wrong.

After filling out postcards and reading, I was ready to leave when Al returned. We ended up going to check out the Harley Davidson Café where we got some cool T-Shirts. Then we went to Smith and Wollenski’s for dinner. Al seemed uptight about money the whole trip, which is another reason I’ll never travel with him again. So tell me if we can’t afford a trip. Don’t have a cow every ten seconds just because somebody wants $45 for a steak. Tell me (in advance, if at all possible) if we’re on a budget or I have to pay for my own meals, or whatever. I don’t need the passive-aggressive price whining and avoidance, believe me. Anyhoo, I had a great Filet, glass of wine and Crème Brule sampler. (God forbid I should tack a veggie on. So I didn’t. Wise move. Didn’t need one. But damn it, I’m worth a baked potato the size of a football. )

The next morning it was raining pretty hard and I was worried since I hadn’t siliconed my new Keds, but it cleared up by ten and got even nicer out. Everything smelled fresh and it was even warmer and sunnier than before. Got moved over to the Bellagio – now that was a hotel.

Huge swanky lobby bursting with pretension and a cool ‘conservatory’ area of topiary bushes and massive waterwheel fountain. Tons of people in line waiting to check in, it took us quite a bit of time to get squared away, but the staff there was very pleasant and efficient.

The room was almost as big as our first house. A marble bathroom had separate tub and glass-enclosed shower. Lots and lots of fluffy white towels with a big embroidered “B” on them. Had they been “R”s, I would have stuffed a few in my luggage…

Internet usage here was like $10.95 extra a day and we had received even stiffer warnings about the complexities of the mini-bar. Supposedly it could tell by weight if an item had been removed, and there was no fridge for guest use. No coffee maker, either. These people were out to get every penny from a guest possible.

Our room overlooked the massive pool areas of fountains, Jacuzzis and swimming areas. There was a cool wardrobe that hid the TV and contained two separate ‘closet’ areas with cubbyholes for shoes, etc. Very cool!

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