VEGAS: Here's what I DON'T do...

            My oldest daughter teaches English in Seoul, South Korea.  Like all of my kids, she has a great sense of humor.  Each one unique, but very funny just the same.  When visiting her in October, we had some great conversations, usually fueled by Cass, a local Korean beer.  As my daughter pointed out, Cass rhymes with ass, which is consistent with its taste.  More on that in a different blog.  During one such conversation, she launched into a comic rant about “Here’s what I DON’T do” and “Here’s what I DO do”.  Like “Here’s what I DON’T do: Wear my Dolce and Gabbana’s to the market” or “Here’s what I DO do: Coffee Americana at the Paris Baguette”.  Great fun. 

             Over this past weekend, a friend and I flew to Las Vegas to spend a quiet, relaxing weekend.  I have been to Vegas numerous times, so there is no pressure of having to visit the big tourist sites or see the long-running production shows.   To keep things interesting, I try to stay at a different hotel each time I go.  Thanks to an email promotion and a momentary zero balance on my American Express Card, I decided to jump on a King Panoramic Suite at the Encore.  The weekend between the NFC/AFC Championship games and the Super Bowl is usually a pretty dead weekend.  Other than the Chinese New Year, not much else was going on.  The room rates and plane fares were a relative steal for this time of year.

Sunset view from the room

                Here’s what I DON’T do: Circus Circus.  I don’t do the Excalibur either.  Life is just too short.  Circus Circus is like staying at Disneyland except all the parents are drunk.  If I’m on vacation, I want to be on vacation.  After a long military career, I’ve had enough practice being miserable.  Take camping, for instance.  To paraphrase the comedian Jim Gaffigan, camping lost its luster for me when they invented the house.  Sure, when the kids were small, there was sort of an adventurous, pioneer feeling that you get by sleeping in a leaky tent in the rain or cooking your eggs in a frying pan that the youngest had just used for a sand shovel.  Thankfully, man has evolved and built great structures with clean, wondrous restaurants and warm, comfortable beds… Like The Encore in Las Vegas.

                Here’s what I DON’T do:  Hai Karate.  Like Brut, Hai Karate was THE scent of choice for the lounge lizards and disco dudes of the late 70’s.  It reminds me of a delicate alchemy of hibiscus and cat pee.  Although I was not even remotely curious about the fate of the musky mix, I was surprised to see (or smell) that apparently it has made quite a comeback in the Far East.  While in the elevator at the Encore, or strolling the Chinese New Year decorations at the Palazzo, or hanging out at the Fashion Mall food court, every time a group of Asian tourists walked by I got a good whiff.  Like the smell of burning flesh, one never forgets the smell of Hai Karate.  I envision a warehouse full of the aging concoction in the Philippines somewhere (left over from the presence of US GI’s) and a bright, young entrepreneur saying “Hey! Let’s sell this crap to the Chinese!”

                Here’s what I DON’T do:  When traveling, dress like I’m headed to the gym… Or bed.  Here’s the deal: If you dress like sh*t, look like sh*t, and talk like sh*t, guess what… You’re going to be treated like sh*t.  When checking in at a hotel in Las Vegas, unless you have a marker in the cage for 25 large, you are at the mercy of the check-in clerk and the rate you paid.  Any discretion that clerk has will go to the person who looks like the desired clientele.  Dress in your oversize Orlando Magic shorts and wife-beater T-shirt, and you may do OK at the Hooters Hotel and Casino.  When staying somewhere nice, dress like the people you would expect to see there. Try it.  You’ll be surprised.

The Palazzo

                 Here’s what I DO do:  The breakfast buffet at the Wynn, $2 beers and $1 foot-long hot dogs at Slots-O-Fun, Red Rock Canyon, $5 Blackjack at O’Shea’s, The In-N-Out Burger on Tropicana, Jameson & Ginger and a 3-card poker table at the Bellagio, Happy Hour at the House of Blues, Schweinshaxen and Dunkel at the Hofbrauhaus, afternoons at the Sports Book in Mandalay Bay, and a sports coat on the plane and at check-in.

$2 beer at Slots-O-Fun

               To me, a weekend in Las Vegas is the ultimate short vacation.  Lots to do, great food, lovely hotels, and you can carry a beer with you anywhere on the Strip. 

               After the long flight back to Atlanta, then a long drive home, we ease back into all that is normal life. Bags unpacked, dogs let out, clothes ready for work the next day, and the cat’s litter box cleaned out.  Still, the memories of the weekend linger like the sweet scent of hibiscus… and cat pee.