Dateline Las Vegas, Nevada. The proximate excuse for this trip is a Las Vegas Hash House Harriers weekend event, but we’re really here to let the kids know we’re still kicking (so that they won’t forget us and neglect to care for us in our rapidly-approaching dotage). Also they wanted to see Schatzi, who once again earned a Car Trip Good Citizen Award®. Our daughter Polly scored us two comp nights at the Mandalay Bay. First hotel room we’ve ever stayed in with a TV in the bathroom . . . so if they can pop for that, why can’t they throw in a coffee maker? Bitch, bitch . . . I’ll show them . . . I won’t take one step into the casino!
Our room is on the 16th floor. We looked out our window this morning and there was a balloon with a passenger basket hanging underneath, floating at eye level just across Las Vegas Boulevard, aka The Strip. You see a balloon and you think hot air, but this was a helium balloon, and when I looked closer I realized it was tethered. Some enterprising guys are selling rides in it. I wonder if the FAA approved that . . . you see, what’s across the street from the Mandalay Bay is McCarren International Airport, and the balloon operation is set up on an disused taxiway less than a quarter of a mile from two active runways. McCarren is one busy airport, and I’m not at all certain allowing someone to float a tethered balloon 500 feet up in the air is a good idea, particularly if the rope breaks! But when it comes to the FAA, money talks and safety walks, and if you knew half the shit they tacitly approve you’d never go near an airplane again.
Unemployment’s high in Las Vegas and the evidence is everywhere. On our last trip we saw a lot of empty, closed business on the west side of town. Everything on the west side is new, so the empty businesses aren’t yet visibly run-down . . . they look more as if they were just built and haven’t had their grand openings yet. I wonder how long that’ll last. So far this trip we’re noticing clumps of day laborers waiting for drive-by work in strip mall parking lots, and homeless people squatting outside grocery stores. You see this everywhere these days, but this was in a high-end neighborhood where such things would never have been tolerated a year ago. There must be a tent city somewhere nearby . . . something else that never would have been tolerated a year ago.
Here’s something that should never be tolerated, fat times or lean:
But! The kids are prospering and our grandchildren are happy. They have Friday off for Nevada Day, but I know the state just uses that as an excuse to make Halloween a three-day weekend . . . strike that, I just learned it’s a four-day weekend (schools are closed Monday for teacher training). Thank you Nevada for making such a big deal of my birthday weekend!