Don't Wear Wool in Vegas

"What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.” And let me just say, thank goodness for that! To clarify, I don’t mean that I have gotten up to any sorts of mischief in Vegas that I wouldn’t want the world at large to know about, but rather that I am just so very happy that the nonsense that is Vegas has, for the most part, stayed in Vegas, with a few forays into some of the Nevada border towns. Let me back up here and explain why I was in Vegas, a city that, most anyone who knows me knows, I could have died happy never having visited.
My dear friend Megan (pronounced Mee-gan, don’t mess it up!) used to live and work in Vegas after she left BF earlier last year and after a six-month stay in the city, returned to rural Kanab and back to her job as a dog caregiver at BF. She worked as an EMT/security guard at the Rio Casino, a job that she loved with people that she loved. She received word shortly after Christmas that one of her supervisors, a man she took great pleasure in knowing, had passed away.
The funeral was scheduled for Thursday (Jan 8) and she was planning to drive herself to Vegas after work on Wednesday - it is about a three and a half hour drive. I had been enlisted to watch her three dogs and an assortment of reptiles while she was gone for the overnight trip. However, her car decided to crap out on her at work on Wednesday, something about the fuel pump and filters, so, since Thursday and Friday are my days off anyway and I didn’t have any major plans, I told her I could take her out (she can’t drive my car because it is a stick and when someone else offered the use of their car she declined saying that she wasn’t comfortable driving that long of a distance in someone else’s car). Keeley was able to take over the pet sitting post and we were planning on leaving after work on Wednesday. There were a few snags along the way, namely that as we were walking out the door of her house, Trudy, one of her dogs bolted out the door and we ended up spending the next 45 minutes trying to track her down and then giving her the fastest dog bath I have ever seen because she had been across the street playing in the pasture and all it’s wonderful piles of poo.
We finally got on the road to Vegas around 9 pm. It really isn’t a bad drive and we had lots of interesting and entertaining conversations along the way. For those of you who have never driven into Vegas from the east at night, it is an experience . . . to say the least. After hours of driving in darkness through the desert with the occasional town or small city, you pass through the mountains and when you crest the final ridge, you are finally treated to the opulent glitter of the city that has been glowing on the distant horizon for the last hour. As you come down the hill, Vegas stretches out before you like an ocean of wasted electricity . . . yeah, you read that right, all I could think when I came over that last ridge was “Holy crap, could they waste any more electricity if they tried?!?” Still several miles from the outskirts of the city I could feel myself tensing up at the thought of the ridiculous waste that Vegas creates every minute of every single day.
As we worked our way into the city, it was approaching midnight local time and I was shocked at how many cars were on the highway at that hour on a Wednesday night. Driving into town, Megan looked at me with a slightly pained look on her face, the sort of look that says, I am about to ask you to do something I know you aren’t going to want to do, but you will do it anyway because you are my friend. “I know you aren’t going to like this, but the only way I know how to get to Angel’s house is from the Rio, and I was hoping we might be able to stop in there for a few minutes anyway so I can say hi to whoever is working tonight.”
As we walked into the casino, I felt like my retinas had started having seizures and that surely the rest of my body would follow suit soon enough. The blinking and dinging and vibrating and pinging and everything all atwitter was reminding me of the tales I have heard about people with seizure disorders being sent into an episode by the presence of flashing lights and I began to wonder if I might have just developed a seizure disorder myself. Not only was the visual and auditory experience overwhelming (to put it nicely) but the stench of cigarette and cigar smoke and the stifling heat made me want to run screaming from the building if I didn’t first pass out. When Megan asked if I was doing okay, I said I was just trying to do my best to not look like I really don’t belong here and she looked at me and said, “You don’t look like you belong here.” When I mentioned to Megan the ridiculous temperature inside the casino (which again reminded me of the ridiculous amount of waste of Vegas), she looked me up and down, wearing my jeans, a long sleeved shirt, and a zip-up wool cardigan and said, “Don’t wear wool in Vegas.”
We ran into a former co-worker and they chatted for a few minutes - he had absolutely no interest whatsoever in who I was or why I was standing there listening to their conversation . . . at least in a small town people tend to be polite enough in such situations to say hi and acknowledge your existence in the universe. After a quick chat, Megan thankfully led me from the casino and we made our way from the strip to her friend Angel’s house, with whom we would be staying, and slowly my retinas stopped seizing.
After some catching up and visiting we crawled into bed around 1:30 am; as he left the room, Angel warned us that his father gets up at 4am and his mother at 5am and his sister at 7am, what he didn’t tell us was that they had no idea there would be two girls sleeping in the middle of their living room floor, so as each family member woke and left, they flipped on a light somewhere nearby and were surprised to find a mess of blankets and two people on the floor. Angel works the night shift and doesn’t see much of his family and so, they were caught completely unaware of our presence. It also didn’t make for a very good night of sleep.
In the morning, we got ready for the funeral and were going to meet up with some of the other Rio security and EMT folks to catch up and have some breakfast before the service. I was quite hungry, having only eaten a slice of pizza and some traditional road munchies the night before. However, my hunger quickly evaporated when we arrived at a Carl’s, Jr. - for the easterners not familiar with the chain, it is something like a Burger King, they are owned by the same company that owns Hardees. Not exactly offering a menu full of vegetarian choices, I declined to eat and just had some water, Megan (a non-veggie) claimed she wasn’t hungry but admitted later that she wasn’t about to eat in front of me if I wasn’t going to eat - she is a very good friend.
Following the service we went to a bar for a toast to their departed supervisor. Of all the bars in Vegas, we just happened to walk into an Ohio State Football themed bar - there were photos and trophy replicas and flags and jerseys in a display case and a few things hung on the walls, I have learned in my two years away from Ohio that Ohio State is remarkably inescapable. When we asked the bartender why on earth a bar in Vegas is decorated in the scarlet and grey, she explained that it used to be a Nebraska bar because the owners are originally from Nebraska, but then the Cornhuskers (or whatever they are) started to suck and Nebraska fans are very fickle so they decided to theme the bar after another team. There was much discussion and one of the other bartenders (an Ohioan) really pushed for Ohio State. In the end, Ohio State won out because their fans are so fiercely dedicated that even when they suck, the bar will still be packed for game day. (If you don’t know Ohio State fans, you just don’t get it - picture the most rabid sports fan you know, multiply it by ten and you will be somewhere in the vicinity of an average Ohio State Fan - my brother has an Ohio State toothbrush.)
After a couple of hours at the bar, I announced that if I didn’t find some food soon, I may have to resort to eating my own arm. We drove back across town to Angel’s house, opting to take the city streets rather than the interstates - a choice I have yet to understand, crossing the Strip is a nightmare of traffic, for the distance we were driving it shouldn’t have taken more that half an hour but the trip took nearly an hour. My level of frustration at the traffic, combined with the lack of food in my stomach and the uncomfortable nature of my fancy-pants dress shoes made me want to kick somebody in the knees.
After packing up our things and thanking Angel for his hospitality, we took to the road in a search of food. We had one quick stop to make and then it was time to get some sustenance, unfortunately, Megan spent the vast majority of her time in Vegas going to work, home, or EMT classes and rarely ventured out into the city on her own. Her ex was the all knowing, directionally gifted one that knew all the great places to eat and exactly how to find them from virtually anywhere in the city - Megan was having trouble keeping track of the location of the Strip as we drove around, in spite of the towering building and cranes erecting more towering buildings. So we meandered through the city looking for someplace to eat, but everything we spotted was on the wrong side of the road or I was in the wrong lane and we were in too much traffic (again) to make any sudden movements. Finally we just gave up and decided that perhaps it would be better to just get on the road and stop for dinner in Mesquite. As we pulled onto the interstate ramp, we realized that we were jumping onto the highway at 5:03 pm, just in time for Vegas rush hour. Quickly rethinking our plan, we hopped off at the next exit a quarter-mile down the road and she looked at me with that same pained look of the night before. “Would you be totally against eating in a casino?” And to be honest, my stomach was thinking, “Casino’s are famous for their all-you-can-eat buffets and I could eat my weight in anything right about now.”
“No, I could do a casino,” I said, forgetting for a moment about the smoking and the fact that by eating in a casino, the casino would be getting my money, something I had vowed not to let happen. But I needed food, so I was willing to bend the rules a bit, at least I would be getting something in return for my money.
“There is an All-American Bar and Grill in the Rio and I am sure they will have something you can eat.” So, after an hour of fruitless searching and aimless driving, we were off to the Rio to find some food .
We finally reached the restaurant in the Rio and there were a few people ahead of us to be seated, as we waited, it occurred to me that it might be smart to check out the menu before we were committed to a table. Certainly a restaurant in a place as cosmopolitan and international as Las Vegas would have some vegetarian options, but alas it was not to be. I couldn’t even find some generic pasta dish that I could order sans chicken, there was nothing except for a side salad and perhaps a nice baked potato or some mashers. On most days, I could have made do, but I had not eaten anything all day other than some of the left over road munchies from the night before as we were meandering through Vegas in search of real food. I didn’t want some sad excuse for a vegetarian option in a casino grill, I wanted a real meal, preferably as big a my head. So we trudged back out to the car and just sat for a minute pondering the situation and our complete inability to pick a place to eat in a city of thousands of restaurants. Really, both of us would have preferred little elves appear in the car and whip up a magical feast, but that wasn’t happening so we had to make some choices.
As we discussed the option of enduring the rush hour traffic and making the 90 mile drive to Mesquite again, I was suddenly struck by the fact that I was ridiculously warm in spite of my car heater being turned to off, the thermostat on the neutral setting, and my wool-free attire. I felt like there was hot air blowing on my pants and with a startling belligerence directed at no one in particular I began ranting and raving about the temperature in my car and when I paused after questioning (in a rather unwarranted accusatory tone) Megan as to whether she was warm or not, she just stared at me with a confounded look of concern and announced, “We need to get you some food. We are not going to Mesquite.” She directed me where to turn out of the parking lot and we began driving again. After only a few blocks on Flamingo, we came across a Thai restaurant. One of the things I miss most about living in a city, or even near a city is the variety of food, in Kanab, we have fast food, a couple of American diner type places, and several Mexican restaurants. There isn’t even a greasy, bad Chinese place, the closest Asian restaurant is an hour away, which makes me sad because it is truly one of my favorite ways to eat out. So when I spotted Thai Spice, I was of course in the wrong lane and it was on the other side of the road. I almost gave up on the idea and continued driving, but then decided to pull a u-turn and head back. As soon as we walked in, I knew it was going to be good. The lights weren’t blinking, there were not video poker machines or slots crammed into the corners, aside from the open sign in the window, there wasn’t any neon lighting, it was quiet, and it didn’t reek from years of smoking and it wasn’t boiling hot inside. I had found my happy place. We ate dinner and I thoroughly enjoyed the calm and quiet atmosphere and the food was tasty and satisfying. Full and happy, we made our way back to the car and onto the interstate for the drive back to Kanab. By then the rush hour traffic had died down and we were able to escape the city without too much difficulty.
Megan asked that we stop at Wal-Mart in Mesquite, in spite of a deep and festering loathing for the chain, I agreed to the stop. As long as I didn’t have to buy anything, I would be fine - I had already pushed my limits nearly to their breaking point in Vegas, and the store was relatively empty (it was about 10 pm) and I was too worn out to even care that much, so I wandered aimlessly through the store with Megan for a little while and then we were back in the car.
“Okay, home now, no more stops!” Megan announced as we were pulling out of the parking lot. We still had about two hours to go before we got back to Kanab. There was, however, to be one more unplanned stop. As we were coming into a construction zone in the western outskirts of St George, I got pulled over for speeding. Now, let me just clarify here, I rarely speed, and if I do it is generally not more than a few miles an hour over the limit. While I tend to follow the rules in general, I have been learning more and more about fuel efficiency and am realizing that speeding, especially on the high-speed interstates of the American west kills your car’s fuel efficiency, so in spite of 75 mile per hour limits out here, I rarely press it above 70. As we came into the 60 mph construction zone, I slowed down and continued chatting with Megan and didn’t notice that as I was driving down a small slope, my car was slowly coasting up in speed. And then came the lights. And then a few choice words on my part as I pulled to the side of the road. I rolled down my window, pulled out my license, registration, and proof of insurance and tried to stop shaking and put out of my mind the possible fines I may have just earned myself being in a construction zone. Megan and I were patiently waiting for the officer to come to my window and we were both startled and momentarily confused when we heard a knocking sound coming from somewhere else. As I looked around, I found that the officer was standing at Megan’s window, not mine. Megan locked the doors in an effort to open the window, so I used my buttons to open her window. The officer asked if I had seen where the limit dropped to 60 and when I said I thought I was going 60, he informed me that he had gotten me at 67 - crap and a half! I apologized and he was very nice and said that there was no need for apologies and asked for my driver’s license. I gave him all my papers and license and he asked where we were going. We told him we were on our way back to Kanab and he asked from where we were coming. In my head, I groaned, I didn’t want to tell this officer that we were on our way back from Las Vegas at 10:30 pm, for it would certainly lead to more questions and probably assumptions of drinking and debauchery. But I also didn’t want to mention the funeral, I would never have wanted Megan to think that I was using her dead friend to get me out of a speeding ticket, so while I fumbled around in my head for the best way to spin the answer, Megan announced, “We are on our way back from a funeral in Las Vegas.” He asked a few more questions, most of which Megan answered - she was closer to him and my brain had apparently gone into vapor lock because I was having trouble forming words let alone complete sentences. Have I mentioned that she is a very good friend? Without even returning to his cruiser to run my license, the officer returned my documents and wished us a safe trip home. I was more relieved than I can say and he was very nice. He was part of the K-9 unit of the highway patrol, so before he left, Megan asked about his dog and they chatted for a minute and then we were on our way. As I merged back on the interstate, relieved to have not been hit with a speeding ticket and fines, and minding my speed carefully, Megan made the observation, “A turn signal might be nice.” I immediately flipped it on and we both started laughing. We made it home, exhausted, a few hours later. For all my new found dislike of Las Vegas, I should say, for a friend, I would do it all again without a moment’s hesitation.
I learned two very important things from my Vegas experience, 1) don't bother discussing energy efficiency and conservation with the locals, it is about as productive as hoping elves will cook you dinner in your car and 2) don’t wear wool in Vegas.