January 2, 2022: Heading to the Glitz of Las Vegas
The environmental part of the trip was over. We are now heading to the bright lights and decadence of Las Vegas with a surprise stop along the way. No one had a notion of what the surprise might be. Oh, by the way no one won the previous night $400 million plus Powerball so we had to make a stop before we left town to load up for the Monday night drawing. Against my better judgement I invested $10 of my hard earned retirement funds for 5 chances to win something. We shall see what Lady Luck has to say about it.
As soon as we hit the road our tour guide, Dino, inserted a 30 minute documentary video about a now famous person from the area- a barber named Angel Delgadillo of Seligman, Az. Never heard of him. Turns out Seligman is a small town on Route 66, the now famous US highway that runs from Chicago to LA. When Interstate 40 opened in 1984, Seligman, along with virtually all the other small towns on Rt 66, began to die. Angel is noted for founding the Route 66 Association of Arizona, which resulted in the highway being named as a historic roadway. His actions gave new life to the area. Now people from all over the world stop to see his barbershop although the focus is now on Rt 66 souvenirs. Angel is still alive (94) and occasionally visits the shop although he no longer does barbering. His family now runs the souvenir shop.
Well, the surprise stop was a visit to Seligman (population 776) and Angel’s barbershop. He was not there that day but we had a great time seeing his barber chair, reading newspaper articles about him from around the world, and shopping for unique Route 66 souvenirs. I decided to support the local economy by buying a long sleeved tee shirt with an Angel’s Barbershop logo prominently shown on the front. The Selgman visit was a fun stop-seeing his shop, some of those old 1940-50’s motels, ma & pa shops that lined the streets and Route 66.
Our lunch stop was a throwback in time-Cracker Barrel! We used to take our moms to one in northern Indiana when we lived in Wisconsin, but there are none in the state of Washington so it has been 15 years or more since we ate at one. And even better was that there was a Culver’s custard shop right next door. Again we have none in Washington so while others were shopping at the Cracker Barrel I went and had a double scoop of the flavor of the day-blackberry crumble!
We reached Las Vegas around 4:30 after passing Hoover Dam on the way. Wow, were we shocked to see how low the water level currently is. The news of droughts in the west are no joke. Joe said that they are forced to modify the turbines in the dam because there is not enough water pressure to properly operate at current water conditions.
Our home for the next three nights is the famed Bellagio hotel & casino. We had visited it on previous trips to Vegas but this will be first time we stay there. It has been over 15 years since we last visited Vegas. It would be interesting to see how it has changed since our last visit.
Normally we like to see shows when we are in Vegas, but most of the shows have shuttered now that the holidays are over. The one show that was available today was one featuring acts from the America’s Got Talent(AGT) TV show which we watch. I had purchased tickets for the 7PM show at the Luxor. It was a good show! An interesting aside: The host for the show was a comedian named Preacher Larson. He had appeared on AGT a few years ago and came in 2nd in the competition. The interesting part of the story is we had seen Preacher here on Bainbridge Island a few years before when he was competing in a Seattle comedy competition, which he ultimately won. He was hilarious and I was glad to see he has gained some fame and hopefully, fortune.
We quickly learned that Uber/Lyft, rather than taxis, now dominate local transportation service. There are even special designated areas at each hotel where ride share pick up & drop off. Hotels have done a nice job labeling those areas. All of our rides were quick and inexpensive.
Before retiring we did have to see if Lady Luck was smiling on us so we “invested” some money in the casino. One of the immediate changes I saw from early times was the minimum bets on tables was now $25! And they go up to $50 and $100 a bet. Whatever happened to the $3-5 tables? Slots have gone high tech and are larger with incorporated videos and more audio. And I suspect they have cranked down the odds of winning to make up for Covid losses.
The other observation is people are suddenly showing up in casinos with dogs-not service animals, simply pets! And the dress code no longer exists. The Bellagio is no longer home to the “beautiful people”. Oh, yes, the ultra high end stores are still there (not many people in them) and prices for food and drink have sky rocketed: $18-20 glasses of wine, $20+ salads, $5.25 for bottled water and $70 entrees. Sadly the 99 cent shrimp cocktails are long gone.
Tomorrow will be a day of exploring the new areas of development in Vegas.