Las Vegas 101

My wife and I do a Vegas vlog.  In between producing Vegas videos - we spend a lot of time answering specific questions about shows, hotels and restaurants.  We get lots of questions on our social media.  But some of these questions show that the questioner doesn’t understand how Vegas is put together at all. A lot of people ask questions like “can you go into resorts you don’t have a room in?” or “is the strip down town?”  (The Strip and Downtown are 2 separate and distinct Vegas areas.)

Sometimes first time visitors (who are not renting a car) will find a nice, inexpensive room at the M or Aliente and not realize until they get here that it is an expensive, hour long ordeal to go anywhere OTHER than their own hotel.

On occasion, people from overseas book a room at Casa Blanca or the Aquarius – not really understanding that Mesquite or Laughlin are NOT really suburban Vegas.       

We have not been able to find a high-level overview of how this amazing city is put together (designed primarily for first time prospective visitors) – so what the heck, we thought that we might as well do it!   So please enjoy our take on Las Vegas 101.

City Structure

Let’s start with a quick, high level, look at how this town is put together.

The Strip

When many people think of Vegas – they are thinking of the Vegas Strip. 

The Strip is a four mile section of Las Vegas BVD that runs from Mandalay Bay in the south to (un officially) the Strat in the north.  I say unofficially because The Strat is on the other side of the line.  The Strat is located in Las Vegas – while the rest of the strip is located in Paradise.

The strip is where most of the internationally famous resorts, theaters, clubs and restaurants are.

In any other city in the world, any one of the strip resorts would be a world class vacation destination all by itself.  In Las Vegas we have multi-billion dollar resorts stacked on top of each other.  We have the Venetian, The Wynn, the Luxor, The Tropicana, Planet Hollywood, The Bellagio, Caesars Palace and many others literally within walking distance of each other.      

Monorail

The strip is all connected – at least on the east side, by a cool little piece of engineering called the Las Vegas Monorail.  The monorail has 7 stations beginning at the Sahara and running south to the MGM grand.  You can get an all day unlimited pass for $15, and it is even cheaper if you buy it online in advance.    

We will discuss some of the specifics of what is available on the strip as this article unfolds – but the strip is by no means everything Vegas has to offer…

Downtown

If the Las Vegas Strip is the entertainment capital of the world – then Downtown Las Vegas is the party capitol – and the jewel of downtown is the Fremont Street Experience!

The Fremont street experience is about 4 blocks of Fremont street that begins at the Plaza and continues to the Slot Zilla zip line entry point.   It is covered by Viva Vision – the world’s largest video screen. 

The Fremont street experience has enclosed much of what was “old school” Vegas into a single destination. 

But… The Fremont street experience does not encompass all of down town.  There are multiple other casinos, restaurants, The Container Park, the Mob Museum, The Arts District and much more.

I will have a lot of downtown specifics to share in a moment – but we are STILL not done outlining what Vegas has to offer.

Boulder Strip

On the east side there is a couple of mile section of Boulder HWY unofficially called the Boulder Strip.  It has some small locals places and a few sketcher places and of course the East Side Cannery – but the highlight of the Boulder strip is a place called Sam’s Town – the creation of Sam Boyd and home to Mystic Falls Park which has a water and animatronic show that will remind you of being taken to rock city by your parents in the 70s. 

Water Street

If you ask a local – they will remind you that the 2nd biggest city in Nevada is NOT Reno – it is Henderson – and (not to be outdone) Henderson has its own entertainment district! 

If you can somehow picture putting a casino district in Maybury – that would be Water Street in Henderson. 

Besides having casinos that somehow seem “wholesome” in a strange way – they also have car shows, concerts and the home of our minor league Hockey Team – The Silver Knights.  It is absolutely worth spending an afternoon there and the customer service here is amazing!

Locals

Las Vegas has an institution called a Locals casino.  The best way I can describe this concept is that it is the rough equivalent to the German Gasthaus.  

Local’s Casinos are typically not located in any of the major resort areas, they have kids activities, arcades and sometimes day care. The have bowling alleys and typically… stuff is less expensive.  Sometimes these are small whole in the wall places, but there are also places like the M, SouthPoint, Rampart, and Sunset station. 

Alienate is a locals casino up north that was purpose built as a part of the Alienate master plan community.

The monster of all local’s casinos is Red Rock which is one of the top 4 or five resorts in town.       

Food

This is going to be a fun one because – as is obvious to everyone I love to eat – and Vegas is one of the greatest food towns in the world.

Now the original purpose of Vegas Food was to take hungry gamblers and turn them into unhungry gamblers and get them back to the tables as quickly as possible.  Everyone had a cheap buffet.

There are still a couple of super cheap buffets downtown and a few places still have hot dog carts on the casino floor – but for the most part – ultra cheap food is a thing of the past. 

Buffets are still around – but they are not super cheap.  There are far fewer buffets than there were two years ago.  Covid Shut down most buffets and they were one of the last things to return. 

In fact Station Casinos (the largest owner of locals casinos in town) made the decision to get completely out of the buffet business.

But on the other side of the coin, the last several years have seen the arrival of the super premium buffet – and the granddaddy of those is Bacchanal at Caesars.   I have not yet done this – it is hard to convince myself to pay $80 to serve myself out of a steam tray.

Other high-end buffets are Wicked spoon at the Cosmo, The Wynn buffet and the newest player in this space is the AYCE at the Palms which has crab and lobster one night a week.

If you are looking for a buffet recommendation – I really only have two.  In terms of cost vs quality we like the buffet at South Point and the buffet at Rampart (but my wife refuses to go there on Saturday because it is Hawaiian night and they serve whole suckling pig and Jill is not real fond of her dinner looking at her in the buffet line.

Steak

There are lots of places to get a good steak in town.  There is Gordon Ramsay steak, there is Tbones at Red Rock.

For a slightly lower price point there is Saltgrass in the Golden Nugget which is a Houston institution transplanted into Vegas.

There are prime rib focused places like Primarily Prime Rib at Southpoint and free standing restaurant Lowerys just off flamingo where they carry entire roasts around and carve it at the table. 

There are several Brazilian steak houses led (obviously) by Fogo de Chao which is an upscale meat buffet in reverse (they bring you steak until you pass out or tap out by turning your coaster over.) 

 However, I have absolutely no problem with definitively identifying the best steak house in this entire city. 

My personal favorite is at the end of the Fremont street experience at the intersection of main and Fremont in what used to be the martini glass pool at the Plaza Hotel and that – my friends is Oscar’s Steak house. 

And yes – it is THAT Oscar, former mob lawyer, former Las Vegas Mayor and husband to current the mayor. 

Oscar’s steak house adopted us literally the day we arrived. Our first meal as residents of this fine city was there, the service and food is amazing and the staff has become friends. 

It is a lot of fun to take people to Oscars, have the entire staff come out to hug us, and have the chef being a table full of desserts when we didn’t even order any.  We have had other diners at Oscars ask if we were some celebrity they should know – and our favorite waiter Nick just milked it (I am really not supposed to say.)

China Town

Las Vegas has, what can probably best be described as a “contrived” China town.”  Most big city China towns just evolved there – Las Vegas’ China town was purpose built to be an Asian cultural center. 

There is a bunch of amazing Asian food there to include several “cook it at you table Korean BBQ places.” 

Celebrity Chef

Vegas is celebrity chef central. 

The smallest celebrity restaurant in town is actually a metal box.  The Cake Boss (Buddy V) has a series of Pizza Vending machines that make some awesome pizza. 

The 2nd smallest celebrity restaurant is Gordan Ramsey’s Fish and chips in the LINQ Promenade – the fish is great and the sticky toffee pudding POPS are a thing to behold! 

Gordon Ramsey has several places in town – to include Hell’s kitchen, Guy Firie is here, Martha Stewart has a place, we have Morimoto, Emeril, Giatta …

But I think our favorite celebrity restaurant (again compairing experience with price) is Buddy V’s at the Venetian.  Their tomahawk veal chop is an experience that everyone needs to have once. 

Atmosphere

My final category of restaurant has little to do with the food.  Some Vegas Restaurants have atmosphere unlike anywhere else. 

Some of these just have a view of the city – like top of the world,

Sadelles serves an amazing brunch overlooking the Bellagio Conservatory. 

But SW Steak at the Lake of Dreams at the Wynn is an almost other worldly experience.  This my friends is a bucket list must – if you haven’t been there.

This is one of the few places in town that is really expensive but absolutely worth it.

Booze

When people ask questions about booze in Vegas – they tend to ask one of two questions:  Where is the cheapest and where is the best.  We will talk about both. 

At Machine

One of the most common questions we get on our social media is:  Do they still bring you free drinks at the slot machines if you are playing. 

My response is yes… if you are staying at a machine long enough to place an order and wait for the server to get back to you – then almost every casino in town will support your bad decisions with comped booze.    

However – you should probably take a look at your definition of the word “Free.”  A tropical slot player who sits at the same machine for an extended period of time loses between $150 and $300 an hour. 

But if this is your thing, and you do not want to be forgotten, then tip $5 for your first free drink and $1 for each subsequent drink and you too can become a Facebook meme slumped over a Buffalo machine!

Fat Tuesday

Lets move on to the category of cheap but not quite free. 

Remember my analogy a few moments ago that the locals casino was Vegas’s Gasthaus? 

Well Fat Tuesdays are Vegas’ Starbucks.  Just like in Seattle where if you throw a hand full of sand in the air you are going to hit 3 Starbucks and a Subaru dealership – if you go outside here and throw a handful of sequins in the air they are going to fall in a giant plastic female leg with fish net stockings filled with a quadruple daiquiri, a model of the luxor filled with a margarita that tastes like lemon pledge smells, and a 4 foot tall plastic yard glass filled with a purple and orange swirly frozen thing that even the person drinking it couldn’t describe.  

Fat Tuesdays and the others like it are referred to as “Daiquiri Bars and they are one of the most common tourist focused businesses in town.  They look like the slurpy station at 7-11 but with booze. 

Just Try driving down the strip on a random Saturday afternoon.  About 20% of the crowd will be carrying a giant plastic container with some impossible color of frozen intoxicants.   

TIKI

In the category of not cheap – but really cheesy – Vegas has at least two world famous Tiki Bars –

We have not been to Frankie’s – we have not got there yet and it has a reputation of being really smokey

But we absolutely LOVE the Golden Tiki at China town.  There is no inside smoking, the drinks are great and the appetizers are out of this world and the vibe is absolutely crazy.

It is a celebrity hang out and any celebrity who spends any real time there gets a shrunken head of themselves made and put in a case. 

Atomic Liquors

In the category of cheap, cheesy, smokey – but at least a one time must see is Atomic Liquors.  It is not my favorite hangout – but you need to get your ticket punched there at least once.  Its original entertainment was watching nuclear weapons tests from the roof. Every old school Vegas celebrity have been there at least once, and it has the distinction of holding Vegas Liquor License 001.

High End

Now Jill and I are not huge drinkers – at least from a quantity perspective.  When we go out for a drink, we focus on quality.  We have coined the term – the one drink night out – and when we have our one drink night out – we enjoy the upscale Vegas cocktail culture. 

Almost every resort in town has an upscale cocktail lounge where the bartenders consider themselves the equivalent to the chefs (and frankly – they ARE the equivalent to the chefs.   

A couple of our favorites – we have briefly touched on already.

The drinks Oscars are as great as the food

Positioned between the two restaurants at the Wynn is the lounge Parasol Down – where you can enjoy the lake of dreams without having a big dinner.

But we really have two favorite cocktail focused places.

One is Vander pumps Cocktail Garden at Caesars.  Their version of an Old Fashioned is crafted around a cloudless ice sphere containing a blood orange slice, all the other drinks are works of art and the snacks like the chicken sliders and the house made rosemary potato chips are pretty special.

But I think our favorite is the Legacy Club on the 60th floor of Circa at the Fremont Street Experience. 

The drinks are amazing, it is our favorite view in the entire city and Derik Stevens has put 100 OZ of gold bars up there – just because he can. 

Shows

Now we are getting to the fun part.  Las Vegas is the entertainment capitol of the world.  There are cirque shows, smallish fun shows I bet you haven’t even heard of, there are magic shows, comedy headliners, music headliners and even this just scratches the surface. 

Jill and I go to a lot of these – and I’ll let you in on a little secret… we pay for very few of them. 

Free Tix

You see, Vegas shows look better to the tourists if they are full.  So…There are a lot of programs designed to fill empty seats at the last moment just for appearances. 

There are a lot of ways to get on the free ticket lists – we primarily use three.   Two of them require you to be a local – so I am not going to go into much detail about them here.

Vet Tix is the only one that doesn’t require you to be a Las Vegas Local but it does require you to be a US military Veteran.  There is no fee to sign up with this system, but you will typically pay a small Ticket Master fee (Typicaly $14 total) for each event you attend.   If you are a military Veteran – sign up for Vet Tix. 

Whether you are paying for them or not– there is an amazing number of entertainment options in town,

Cirque

While Cirque de sole is headquartered in Canada – Vegas has more cirque shows running continually than anywhere else. 

There is old school Cirque at Treasure Island – Mystere

The wettest Cirque show in town is O at the Bellagio

The most dangerous Cirque in town is KA at the MGM

But our Favorite and the one I would recommend for s first time visitor is LOVE, the Beatles show at the Mirage. 

I would recommend this one because – well, we like it, it is in the round, it is amazing and there is a reasonable chance it will go away as the Mirage becomes the Hard Rock.  So go see love – you will regret it if you do not. 

Just a quick aside:  one of the coolest things about Vegas shows is the size of the theaters.  If you are doing a one night only show in Cleveland – you need to squeeze as many people in there as possible.  If you are doing the same show in the same place 5 nights a week for years – the venue can be far more intimate.  A dirty little secret in ticket pricing is that in some venues, the back row is actually a better seat than the front row.  In several theaters – the stage is larger then the entire combined seating area.

Awakening

I do want to plug a show that Jill, Grace and I have seen recently that doesn’t fall into any other category.  Awakening is the new show at the Wynn that re-placed La Reiv after Covid.  It is almost a magic show (without calling itself that.)

It is just that completely impossible stuff happens in front of you.   It is in the round, the theater is beautiful and the last 90 seconds will leave you wondering for days.  Go see it!

Mid Size

There are a lot of mid size shows that out of towners may have never heard of…

production shows like Extravaganza at Harrah’s (which is good) and Wow at the Rio is even better. 

Raiding the Rock Vault might have random members of your favorite band on any given night.

The Billy Joel – Elton John Tribute show at the Mosaic is surprisingly fun. 

Legends at the Trop is a must see!

There are at least three Michael Jackson Tribute shows going on.

Music Headliners

Vegas is the home of a lot of music headliners.  People like Donny Osmond and Barry Manalo perform several times a week. 

We have recently seen Styx, The Doobie Brothers and Chicago.  Aerosmith and Queen with Adam Lambert did extend residency and it seems like you can see Bruno Mars most weekends.

Almost every national touring act will stop here for a few days.

And folks, bill bord magazine voted Allegiant Stadium the best Stadium sized concert venue on earth.   

Comedy Headliners

Every comedian worth his salt wants to play here too.  We just saw Jill’s Favorite “Dry Bar Comedian” Leann Morgan at the Wynn,

I challenge you to name a national comedian off the top of your head that hasn’t played at the theater at the Mirage – and this includes big boys like Steve Martin, Ray Ramono, Dana Carvey, Ron White and Martin Short.

Brad

You absolutely HAVE to experience an evening at Brad Garrets comedy club – just don’t sit too close to the front or you will be part of the show and trust me – you do not want that.  The last time we walk by there Kevan Nalin was playing.

Our personal comedy highlights were that We got to hang out with Jay Johnson who played both Chuck and Bob on the classic TV show soap (anyone remember Soap?) and we have seen Rich Little at the Laugh Factory at the Trop in (I kid you not) an audience of 8 people.  Seeing Rich Little in a smaller croud than we could fit in our living room was a magical experience.

Magic

 And speaking of magic - Vegas is also the magic Capital of the world – and again, the reason for this goes back to the theaters. 

One night only shows that you have to be able to pack up in your truck are limited.  But if you own the theater, you can install pullies, dig tunnels and use larger and heaver props than you would ever want to move. 

On any given week you can see Xavier Mortimer, Jen Kramer, Shim Lynn, Pen and Teller, Chris Angel and many many more. 

And at the MGM Grand you can see the world’s only multi Emmy award winning Billionaire Magician David Copperfield – who is currently doing stuff with full size dinosaurs and space ships.    

BLUE

Let me wrap up the shows section with three words: Blue Man Group.  If you haven’t seen it – you must.  You will never eat another twinkie again.

And just in case you haven’t found anything that sounds like a fun night out for you yet – Vegas also hosts almost every sporting event imaginable.

Sports

Knights

Perhaps the most “Vegas” of our major sports teams are the Vegas Golden Knights. 

They were an expansion team in 2017  so as everyone in the organization will tell you they are “Vegas Born.” 

Home games are played in T-Mobile Arena and they are a high tech event to behold – as you might expect. 

The knights have the distinction of being the greatest expansion team in the history of professional sports.  They went to the Stanley Cup finals (the national play off) in their first year of existence.  No other professional sports team has done that – either before or since.

Silver

The Golden Knights also have the somewhat uncommon distinction of having their minor league affiliate in the same metro area.  The Henderson Silver knights play at Dollar Loan arena in Henderson.  When a player gets called up from the minors – they do not have far to go.

Raiders

The Las Vegas Raiders is Vegas’ NFL team.  They play in Allegiant Stadium which is an amazing multi use facility.  Jill and I had the opportunity to take the behind the scenes tour of Allegiant.  The Raiders are currently looking for a new quarter back.  Hopefully they can make a deep playoff push this year.

And this would be an exceptional year for the Raiders to get deep into the playoffs – because in 2024 - Las Vegas is hosting the Super Bowl!

  UFC

Las Vegas is also home to the Ultimate Fighting Championship.  Their corporate HQ is on 215 – about 10 minutes from our house.  Numbered UFC events are held alternately at T-Mobile Arena in Vegas – and in Locations around the world. 

Despite your personal opinion of people beating each other senseless in an octagon – you have to respect UFC CEO Dana White who took what was essentially bar room cage fighting and turned it into something that is rapidly getting bigger than boxing. 

The 3rd member of our team – our daughter Grace (who is responsible for recording events her parents are too old for – like the Electric Daisy Carnival and other EDM stuff) is a black belt in TKD.  She hasn’t been in a MMA style fight – no, her connection to the UFC is a little more interesting.  Through a strange series of events – she ended up as one of the coaches ON SET babysitters for Season 30 of the ultimate fighter - . 

Grace

And… she brought her good ol dad back an autographed glove.   (Grace is a good girl!)

So anyway – Grace has NOT fought in the octagon at the UFC Apex.  She HAS However chased a 2 year old little girl around the octagon at the UFC apex.

Nascar

Vegas has a world class Nascar track just north of town.  There are two major races and host drive through Christmas Lights

Aces

Vegas does NOT have an NBA team – but if we did – you might not hear about them – because our WNBA team (The Las Vegas Aces) is the reigning world champs!  The Aces play their home games a Michelob Ultra arena at Mandalay Bay.

Desert Dogs

In a pervious life I sponsored the Portland Lumber Jax – Portland Oregon’s short lived Arena Lacross Franchise.  It is a great spectator sport.  So I was extremely excited to learn that Wayne Gretzky was bring a new lacrosse team HERE. 

It is a fun family event because the price point for tickets is much lower than any other professional sport.    

            F-1

I do not have a lot of details on this yet – but Vegas is about to become a Formula One City.  I am going to be monitoring this – but it is looking like one of the two Vegas event tickets with the most crazy price points.

Rebels

And before I get completely off of sports – Vegas is also home to a major mountain west university – UNLV, so we have all big time college sports as well to include football, baseball, basketball, water polo – you name it.

Gambling

I would probably be wrong if I didn’t briefly discuss gambling opportunities.  Neither Jill or I are big gamblers – but it is a huge component of this city so lets briefly address the main types of gambling.

Table Games are the Category for most games played against the house – other than slots.

The classics include craps, roulette and black jack , but they are always inventing new card table games like Caribbean stud, ultimate Texas hold ‘em and let it ride.

Slots

Vegas has somewhere in the neighborhood of 200,000 slot machines.  Almost all of them are cash in – ticket out type machines (you don’t carry around a bucket of quarters anymore – although there are a handful of coin in coin out machines just for nostalgia.)

The big thing in slots these days is the progressive jackpot where people in multiple machines (in some cases in multiple cities) are playing for the same big payout.  The biggest progressive jackpot in Vegas at the moment is a little better than $13M for a single pull of the handle

Poker is one of the extremely few player VS player games in Vegas.  You can find low dollar games all over town.  People fly in for invitation only games with million dollar buy ins.

In the last 20 years or so tournament poker has become a spectator sport.  The world series of poker has been played here for over 50 years.  But For a long time it was primarily bragging rights for poker nurds.

In 2003 an amateur poker player and full time accountant named Chris Moneymaker won the world series and changed everything.  In fact the modern era of poker is referred to as the “post Moneymaker era.” 

Amateurs, celebrities and business people who can scrape together the entry fee of 10,000 can enter and believe they can win. Last year there was a field of 8663 and a Norwegian won the top prize of $10M and the event was broadcast on ESPN.     

Sports Betting

Sports betting is one of the most complex types of gambling – especially for the casinos.  They have to be able to calculate odds, spreads and more.  It is kind of like a combination stock broker insurance agent. 

It is SO complex that most casinos to not have their own sports book – they piggyback on other major sports book systems.  Most casinos use one of three systems, MGM, Ceasars and Circa. 

My sports betting is usually limited to putting $10 on a game I plan to watch because it makes it more fun or to buy a ticket for a championship early in the season as a gift.

It is always more fun to watch a game when you have some skin in it.   

More

Before I wrap up here today – let me quickly hit a few Vegas Activities that don’t really fall into any previous Category:

Hoover Dam is an engineering marvel.  It is just one of those things that when you look at it is is hard to believe that humans did that. 

It is even more amazing when you consider construction started in 1931. 

And it is even cooler when you remember that hoover dam was one of the sets for the last season of West World!

It is only about 30 minutes from the strip.

Boulder City was built to house the Dam workers – but it is still thriving.  It is a small town and plans to stay that way (they have a strict limit on new construction every year)

You have to visit Hemmingway Park – home to bunches of big horn sheep who think the park us theirs

The desert princess is a paddle-wheeler that will take you out on lake Mead to hoover dam.  If someone is going to be here a week or more we always recommend a relaxing cruise.  After a couple a days on the strip it can create a mental reset.

Another opportunity for a mental reset from urban Las Vegas is the Red Rock Scenic loop.  It is just west of the 215 beltway, and it is other planet impressive. 

The Strat is on the north end of the strip.

It is 1149 Ft Tall.  That’s big. 

That’s like taking the Lincoln Memorial, putting the Seattle Space Needle on top of that, and putting the statue of liberty on top of that. 

And even If you were to somehow do all that… you would still be almost half a football field from the top of the strat.

You should definitely take the elevator ride to the top.  When you get up there you can jump off, you can slide over the side or you can let huge magnets shoot you to the top.  Or… you can just have a drink and take the elevator back down.  Your Call.    

The mob museum is housed in the old federal courthouse and tells the story of organized crime.  Among the artifacts there is the reassembled wall from the valentines day massacre – complete with bullet holes

The container Park is a shopping, dining and entertainment complex made entirely out of metal shipping containers.  It is located about a block from the Fremont street experience.

Area 15 is one of the most unique dining and entertainment complexes anywhere in the world. 

The Anchor of area 15 is Omega Mart which is part museum, part interactive theater and ALL mind blowing.

The Adventure dome is a five-acre amusement park with multiple roller coasters that is INSIDE.  You will find it at Circus Circus.

The springs preserve is located at the original water supply for the city of Las Vegas. It contains the Nevada state museum, walking trails botanical gardens and an on going dog show!  This might be the most underrated thing in town – and admission is $5

Wrap Up

Folks, I could go on – but I am not going to. 

There is just really no good stopping point.

These is just no limit to what this city has to offer. Las Vegas is called the entertainment capitol of the world for a reason.  I make it my business to know what is going on here and even I am just beginning. 

If you would like to follow our explorations of this amazing city – go to you tube and subscribe to G & Jillie Rock Las Vegas.

Or you can just go to gjrlv.com.  We have created an index that links to you our tube channel.  You can look up any of the 180 or so locations or attractions we have visited and go directly there.

We joke that we are far too cool for business cards – we have G & Jillie rock las Vegas Poker Chips and I have a few for the first people who ask for one.

Going all the way back to the beginning of our time together today – if you would like more info on how someone goes to Vegas and wins a hardware store… well like most good mensans I have several books in publication, one of them is the hardware store contest store story and I have a handful of copies with me today. 

As you can probably tell, I love this amazing city.  I believe that it has a unique energy that goes beyond the litany of activities we have discussed today.

In fact – my personal favorite place in the entire city is  about half way across the pedestrian bridge that connects the NYNY and MGM Grand – facing north.  From that vantage point it is hard to accept that humans actually built all of this.

Does anyone remember, pre covid, that when any plane landed in Vegas they played viva las Vegas on the speakers and all the passengers applauded? Remember that?

Well, when I land in Vegas I still applaud.  Even if I am the only one.  Sometimes I get other people to clap with me.

And I guess – that is what I am really trying to do today.  I am trying to help people celebrate this amazing town – even if it is where you get up, go to work, pick up your drycleaning and buy groceries every day!