Day 5: The Las Vegas Strip (and Hanukkah)

Over a month later, I'm finally getting back to finishing this blog post. Anyhow, on to Day 5 of December's Las Vegas trip:

After a good night's (morning's?) rest, we got a leisurely start to the day Wednesday. Still wanting to pad my coaster count, Stu and I headed out to the Las Vegas Strip to take in the gimmicky rides some of the casinos offer.

We began at the Stratosphere...



...which features Big Shot; think Cedar Point's Power Tower, only a single spire and a thousand feet off the ground. Honestly, at that height, it's easy to lose track of just how high "high" is. We've been 420 feet above Sandusky on Top Thrill Dragster, and it didn't really seem that daunting to ride Big Shot. Plus, it's an "up" thrust, rather than a drop, so you aren't dangling at the top for 10-15 grueling seconds. In the picture at the right, you can see red supports where there used to be a roller coaster track. Stu said there really wasn't much to it, for lack of space and the fact that it can't go very fast if it's just circling around the tower.

The view from the platform was rather hazy and (excepting the mountains) flat:


We also rode X-Scream, which rolls you out on a track over the edge and suddenly tilts downward. I suppose if you're spastic about heights, it would be terrifying, but we actually found it fairly tame (I generally look straight out, rather than down, on such rides). I imagine the front seat would be scarier. I wasn't able to snap a good picture of the ride itself, but you can see one in this Wikipedia article.

Had we known we would be slightly less-than-thrilled with Big Shot and X-Scream, we might have also bought tickets for Insanity The Ride. Insanity is probably best described in pictures and film:



See also: 2.2 MB MPEG movie

After that, we stopped for lunch at Carl's Jr., which I had never been to before. It's not anything to write home about, but the barbecue burger was pretty good.

Now then: on to the coasters. Speed - The Ride at the Sahara Hotel and Casino launches you out of the casino -- out of the ground, really -- into a loop, up a spire, then rolls and thrusts backward through the same track. It was brief but fun. Oh, and of course all of these rides are far overpriced for the thrill value they offer, but what would one expect? People don't generally go to Vegas for its roller coasters, so the cost has to be made up somehow. (Whaddya mean there's a casino attached?)

It was a little weird to smell smoke, after spending a year in Ohio's smoking-banned buildings. Nevada has a smoking ban, but with an exemption for casinos. (At the Red Rock Casino, for example, smoking is prohibited in the restaurant/buffet area, even though it's directly connected to the gaming room.) In spite of the small number of people in the casino, the smoke was still rather abundant. I wasn't sure how long I'd be able to last the night on the Strip without some Excedrin, but actually I was fine. The smoke wasn't nearly as bad in the other casinos, and we were walking around most of the time anyway.

After the Sahara, we headed over to New York-New York. I left my camera in the car, so I don't have any pictures from the rest of the afternoon. Apparently I should have left my cell phone in the car too: After waiting in line for The Roller Coaster (formerly called Manhattan Express) and buying our tickets, I got up to the platform and the ride host spied me putting my phone into my pocket. He said phones weren't allowed on the ride. I said I was putting it in my pocket, and he said I can't do that. By pure chance, Stu had already put his phone in his cargo pocket, so the ride host didn't say anything to him. Had I been wearing cargo pants too (which I normally do at amusement parks), I likely would have already put my phone away and it wouldn't have been noticed.

I was told I had to put the phone in a locker, so I walked over to the lockers and realized they cost 50 cents and only accepted quarters, of which I had none. I walked back to the ride host and asked if there was a change machine, and he said I had to go to the cashier, which was back down the stairs where we bought tickets. So I did that, waited until the cashier was done with the next customer, ascended the stairs again, put my lone, single phone in the giant locker, and went on our way. Meanwhile, our train had already left; on the upside, because we had to wait for the next one, we got to sit in front.

I was pissed off for most of the ride. It wasn't the $14 ticket that got me; it was those extra 50 cents. I guess the coaster was OK, but I'd like to ride it again when I'm in a better mood. It would be nice if there were a sign saying cell phones aren't allowed on the ride, not even in pockets. (Which is a ridiculous policy anyway; I've been to a dozen amusement parks and always put my phone in cargo pockets without incident, and this is the first roller coaster I've seen with such a rule.)

I think after that we headed back to Stu's parents' house. Incidentally, one cool thing about Vegas is free parking. Just about every casino has ample parking and valets. Try not to think of it as being paid for by legalized, institutionalized shell games at the expense of tourists under the guise of entertainment. Frankly I find it remarkable that a city of 552,000 grew out of this. Anyway.

For a change of pace, we had dinner at home Wednesday night, courtesy of Stu's dad. (Aside: When I say "Stu's dad" here I'm referring to his adoptive father, not his biological father who passed away recently. I mention this only because of this blog post and didn't want to confuse my readers.) After I had the pleasure of lighting the candle on the Menorah for the second night of Hanukkah, we dined on a delicious beef brisket, seasoned string beans, salad, and....... latkes! (Which we gentiles call potato pancakes.) I had never had them with applesauce before. Not only was it nice to have something besides restaurant food, but it was also the best meal I had that week -- although the black cherry gelato made the Red Rock Buffet on Friday a close second.

I don't recall exactly what we did after dinner, but I think part of it involved me playing showtunes on the piano. Stu's dad offloaded a few music books on me, including Evita, which is nice since I just recently discovered that show (gotta love Patti LuPone's modulation and crazy high belting in "Rainbow High").

Our intention was to wait until Laurie got Chloe to sleep, then those of us between the ages of 25-55 would go take in the Las Vegas Strip whilst the grandparents stayed with the baby. But it took longer than expected, then Laurie didn't feel like going out, so just Stu and I went out on the town, around 9:30 if I'm not mistaken.

We parked at Caesars Palace since it's fairly central. Thanks to my interest in Ancient Rome, I took more pictures of this place than anything else. I mean, I know it's all fake and mixes artistic periods, but it's still cool to look at. Here I am posing with my main man Augustus:



I missed my chance to get the Caesar haircut back in the late '90s when it was popular and I still had hair long enough to do it. Oh well. I'll also interject here that weeknights in early December are apparently a good time to visit Vegas, since the crowds were fairly minimal and the weather temperate. It was just a little cool at night, hence the long pants and light jacket seen in my Augustus photo above.

On to the 'Palace montage:



Attached to the ginormous Caesars Palace complex is the Forum Shops mall. The azure painted ceiling and soft lighting give a feeling of daytime throughout much of the interior. A more recent addition to the Shops features a circular escalator.



We then decided to just pick a direction and walk up The Strip. I was determined to get my 50 cents back from New York-New York after the fiasco with the roller coaster lockers, so I suggested we head that way. This led us to the Bellagio, where we paused to watch the fountain show. That was very cool. I've included two short videos below, but you can also find more on YouTube.



10 MB MPEG movie
7.8 MB MPEG movie

I took a picture of Bill's Gamblin' Hall & Saloon for my dad...



...as we headed toward Paris Las Vegas. The theme there should be fairly obvious:



Much like Times Square in New York City, even the common chain stores get into the glitz. I found the neon CVS down right amusing:



The Monte Carlo:



And at long last, we arrive at New York-New York!



The last time I set foot in a casino was Deadwood in 1995, and before that was Atlantic City when I was nine, so this was the first chance I'd had to actually play games.

As I said, I wanted to win back my 50 cents, so I saved my gamblin' money for New York-New York. When it comes to pretty colored lights and throwing money away, I tend to prefer the one-armed bandits, because I'm not interested in doing any thinking. If the game involves placing chips on squares or upping antes, that's too much cognition. If I wanted to use my brain and waste money while calling it entertainment, I'd go to Dave & Buster's.

I visit Dave & Buster's in Westlake several times a year, and easily spend $50-75 each time. Since casino machines are illegal in Ohio, any such devices must be "games of skill" rather than chance. That means, while the house is still favored, it actually is possible to get better at the games. And I have -- ironically, that is exactly the problem. At a casino, I'm losing real money and it hurts every time. At Dave & Buster's, I get better at the games and rack up huge amounts of tickets, thus enticing me to play more. I currently have over 20,000 tickets on my D&B card, and for what? I've gotten a beach towel, coffee mug, and some crappy headphones so far. Once I need to furnish an apartment kitchen, perhaps I'll get a toaster and coffeemaker too. As it turns out, I lost only about $30 in Vegas, including the $5 I spent at the airport slot machines before we left.

The other reason I spent so little money on gambling is that the machines have changed. You'll be hard pressed to find any that even accept quarters (remember, my impression of casinos was at least 12 years old). None of the machines pay out in coins either. The casinos save a lot of money by not having to handle tons of heavy coins or paying people to collect them.

I played my first "quarter" slot (using a dollar bill), and the machine beeped and showed something on a little LED screen. I went to pull the handle again, when Stu said, "By the way, you won your 50 cents back." Huh? I did? "And if you pull without pressing the 'bet 1 credit' button, it automatically bets the maximum." Crap. There went my dollar, plus my winnings.

See, what happens is, when you put your money in, you get so many 'credits.' Since I put a dollar in a quarter slot machine, I had four credits. When I won 50 cents, rather than getting an actual, physical 50 cents like in the olden days, what I got was two credits added to my bank. To get your money back, you have to press the 'cash out' button and take it to the cashier counter.

I have several problems with that. First, when I put that dollar in, I assume I've just spent $1 for my entertainment, and when I win 50 cents, that's like 'earning' 50 cents back, and I can just walk away with it. Under the current system, I have to make a trip to the cashier for my measily pocket change. This makes it a little more difficult to keep track of how much you've won (since your winnings are lumped in with what you originally spent), and until you get used to it, it's sometimes hard to even tell if you've won at all since there are no coins dropping in the tray. I mean, the damn machine is going to play happy music no matter whether you win a hundred dollars or nothing at all. Sometimes there's even a minor bit of math involved, since you have to multiply the number of credits times the cost of the game (e.g. quarter, nickle, fiver) to figure out how much you have; some of the machines display the dollar amount of your credits, some don't. My first machine, of course, did not.

So that, combined with the fact that I was losing real money without winning coffee mugs and beach towels, meant I didn't spend a lot of time gambling. Stu attempted to explain craps to me, foolishly pretending it didn't involve much thinking, but I begged to differ, so I stuck with the stupid slots until the lack of coin-based winnings annoyed me enough to stop.

In short, I did not win back my 50 cents from the roller coaster locker incident.

It was getting late (by our standards, by Stu's standard of being the father of an 18-month-old), so we headed toward the MGM Grand to catch the monorail back to Caesars Palace.



Along the way, I took a picture of Excalibur whilst singing songs from both Camelot and Spamalot:



And one last view of The Strip:



I wish we had had more time, since we didn't go inside the Bellagio or make it to The Venetian, but I had fun just walking around taking pictures, especially at Caesars Palace. We even ran into Santa Claus, who was taking a break before the Christmas rush (actually just a portly gentleman with a natural gray beard and Santa hat, but you get the idea). Somewhere along the way, apparently I was checked out by a streetwalker, although I was completely oblivious... so, there's that. Pretty much a wild night on the town.

Next day: Hoover Dam and the pinball museum!