....Las
Vegas you son of a bitch.
There
is nothing normal about this godforsaken city. We drove 272miles (438kms),
4.5hours through the desolate Nevada desert to get there. Midway through it,
the sky suddenly opened up unlike anything we'd ever experienced before &
showered down torrential rain upon our poor little Ford Fiesta. Traffic went
from 140kph to 30kph within seconds, as visibility shortened to a generous 20
metres. Poor Jacy freaked out when the semi-trailer in front of us slammed on
it's anchors & started bleeping it's hazard lights, but I work with semi's
back in Perth & almost expected it to happen. It was a crazy storm that
lasted for maybe 15 minutes then completely passed over us. Unreal. The
landscape through the desert was something out of this world. Beautiful, huge
rocky mountains & deep almost bottomless, cascading valleys. You'd ascend
up one side of the mountain & 40minutes later begin descending down the
other side. This situation went on for hours until some 4 hours later we
declined over the largest mountain yet & appearing before us was this
astonishingly tall, dense & brightly lit city that proclaimed Las Vegas!
Unbelievably hot, as you'd expect being in the desert centre, we made our way
through all the twists & turns, 50 ft tall LCDs, water fountains,
roller-coasters & casinos to the underground garage of the "Imperial
Palace". I enquired to the concierge as to the whereabouts of the front
desk in order to check in. Following his instructions led us; down two escalators,
past an arcade, through an entire shopping mall, through a cocktail bar, into a
casino & to the very back of the casino on the right hand side...was the
hotel reception. Hallelujah! Giving the ol' aussie honeymoon spiel scored us a
penthouse suite upgrade to the 16th floor. Bonus. It was pretty over the top.
There was an enormous jacuzzi in the corner of the room, flat screen tv,
high-rise balcony, two bathrooms, all the unnecessary trimmings PLUS (in true
Vegas style) mirrors on the roof above the bed & spa. Wtf!? Really? It made
us feel dirty thinking what these mirrors would have seen. Shortly after
arriving, we gathered our belongings & headed down to floor 2 & got
ourselves cozy around the pool. The pool bar-geezer hooked us up with two of
the most amazing Cerveza style beers that we'd ever tasted. Far better than
Corona. Named 'Dos Equis' pronounced doss-eccies. Whilst we were relaxing in
the jacuzzi sipping our first brews of the day, a thunderstorm passed overhead.
People began clearing out of the packed pool area but it was still like
35-degrees so even the sprinkling rain didn't phase us. It wasn't until the
lightening started & due to regulation everyone must exit all water-filled
areas, that the fun ended. And it did. But only momentarily. We walked back up
to our hotel, through the mall & stopped by a deli to collect 4 Corona
longnecks & a bag of chocolate. Got upstairs, filled the jacuzzi with hot
water & suds & kicked back listening to tunes eating chocolate,
drinking beer for a good couple of hours. By this time it must have been
pushing 7pm & we had a pre-booked heli ride downtown. We grabbed the next
cab that took us where we needed, logged in, received our complimentary
champagne, jumped on a shuttle bus out to the heli terminal, received the run
down, boarded -amongst incredible winds & lifted off in a helicopter tour
of Las Vegas! I'm personally, not very fond of heights but after Knott's Berry
Farm (+ a champagne) I thoroughly enjoyed this. We received a complete
commentary/tour of all the iconic buildings, clubs, venues & brief
histories of each, all the while levitating thousands of feet above the
mesmerizing city lights of Vegas. It was by far, the most dazzling tour we've
had to date. After landing & making our way back to the hotel, past all the
grifters on the street attempting to sell me prostitutes we dined at
"Embers" restaurant on the 3rd floor of the Imperial Palace. We were
both so damn hungry from our day-long journey, fed up with booze & just in
need of some decent food that we ordered the most typical foods on the menu,
that turned out so beautifully presented, well-cooked, delicious & filling.
I had steak with cheddar mash & Jacy had salmon with roasted honey sweet
potato. Incredible. We slept really well that night. And long into the next
day.
We
awoke the following morning feeling a little rough & stampeded toward our
complimentary breakfast at the hotel/casino next door. It was a desperate
mission which required many flights of stairs & direction changes but after
enquiring with an extremely weathered, leather-skinned casino worker as to
where the hell we needed to be, she pointed us to the nearest Starbucks. We had
$18 credit to spend each day. Which of course didn't include any savory foods,
only pastries, muffins, cookies & other undesirable sugary foodstuffs. Two
large coffees did the trick although the cashier couldn't fathom why we didn't
spend the remaining credit on sweets. We're Australian, we don't eat sweets for
breakfast is why! Chowed down a delicious fruit salad then went about our
journeys. We spent the next couple of hours walking up & down the main
strip checking out a number of alternative clothing stores & bizarre
underground malls. The temperature was peaking at it's high 30s by this stage &
after hunting for a specific sandwich place for over 30minutes we gave up &
returned to the hotel for a swim. We ordered club sandwiches by the pool that
were quite tasty but came with an 8liter-bucket size tray of fries that we
didn't ask for or eat. Foolishly our first drinks for the day were 32oz Long
Island Ice Teas served in a souvenir Imperial Palace yard glass. I really don't
know what we were thinking with them... Regrets were to follow. At around 5pm,
wrinkled by the pool & baked by the sun we returned to the hotel room,
changed attire & ventured out to a Japanese restaurant we had seen during
that day. Fantastic food. Top notch Japanese & we ordered another typically
Vegas style drink; a mixture of various whites spirits & sake served in a
fish bowl. I forget the time, but so I am told, at some point during the night
I went to the toilets & disappeared for over 30minutes. I returned
flustered & disorientated after getting myself horribly lost, got the bill
& exclaimed "I am too drunk & fed up, I want to go home!" Jacy
took me back to the hotel, past the grifters who received words of poison from
me as they again tried to sell me hookers, through the door, hit the pillow
& passed out dead-weight.
I
woke up the next morning feeling like a bag of ripped assholes. We both did for
that matter. It was time to leave. We bolted next door to the Starbucks for
live-saving coffees & forked out $9 for dirty sausage & egg burgers. We
returned to our room, carelessly threw all our belongings in our suitcases,
checked out, loaded the car & high-tailed it... used & abused like the
countless others who like us, had been chewed up & spat out by Sin City.
As
we drove off into the distant mountainous landscape of the Nevada desert on our
483km journey to Arizona, we couldn't help but flip the bird to the sign
reading 'you are now leaving Las Vegas'.
