1/17/09

What can people really say about Las Vegas? It's a place where the hotels are cheap, but everything else is expensive. Where the city is alive at all hours except between 7 am and 10 am, when everybody is passed out. Where dinner is served at 3 am and breakfast all day. Where people hand out fliers promising XXX women to happily married men with young children. Where women flaunt what they've got and men flaunt their money. Where neon and high heels are the local specialties. Where you can almost see Frank Sinatra sip a drink and croon. Where affiliations with the mob are noted on a public checklist of people banned from casinos.

It's an exciting place, an all-day, all-you-can-eat, all-you-can-drink, all-you-can-gamble, all-you-can-stand place, each themed hotel a throwback to something you can kind of remember if you squint.

We booked a hotel right on the strip, Bill's Gambling Hall and Saloon, a $45-a-night place with views of the Bellagio and ribeye-and-eggs for $5 from midnight to 6am. Prime location for pretty much everything, and we begin our jaunt in the Other City that Never Sleeps a, appropriately, New York New York, where I promptly win $618 at a slot machine and quit while I'm ahead. We also make the mandatory stop at Margaritaville, where we sing Jimmy Buffet tunes, sip a Land Shark with tequila in it, and dine on probably the largest plate of nachos I have ever seen.

The view from our hotel room to the left


Should I be jealous?


The view from our window to the right... the Bellagio Fountains

Ahhhh Paris!

A Las Vegas classic, the Flamingo!

Caesar's Palace from Margaritaville

From the rooftop bar at Margaritaville

Up the Eiffel Tower