Trip 2005 - Las Vegas Round 2 (Night)

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Caesar's Palace (left) is a ridiculously big Casino complex. It's pretty much it's own city, but that slice of cake just wasn't on my desert menu. I wanted to go out gambling downtown. Like every story, there's two sides to Las Vegas. There's the trendy, hip and new strip, then there's the old school downtown. I prefer the downtown area. If you've watched any Vegas movie prior to the 1990's, you would have most likely seen the old downtown part of Vegas. All of the Casinos are now connected in this mall area with a large overhang, with virtually no traffic going through the Casino strip. I set out gambling at 2:00 am, hoping to recoup some of my winnings. My goal was to play Roulette and get all of the free drinks that I heard you get in Vegas. I played slots for a while, then lost all of my money ($20) on the Roulette table. I took my winnings (free beer) and walked the streets of downtown Las Vegas with my dignity intact but with nothing in my wallet.

The end of a crazy night concluded with us picking up our car at the valet parking at Treasure Island. Everyone was angry, and my Dad had only intended to drop us off on the strip and stayed for 3 hours. All roughed up, we made our way downtown to stay at the Freemont.

Downtown was so cool because everything was so old. The neon lights and signs were all so retro. Anyone who has been paying attention recently would notice the retro comeback in everything from clothes, to advertising, to music, and virtually every other category. The reason why retro things are so cool is that everything today is so manufactured and bland. Back then, things were unique and very rarely reproduced, like this giant martini sign that signifies whether or not the Red Barn is open or closed. These signs adorned the entire plaza, and are so incredibly cool. I spent a good while just wandering around and looking at things, seeing as it was the best thing that I could do with no money.

Tim called me on the telephone  and told me to get over to Bally's and fast. He didn't say why, but when I got there we found Stormtroopers patrolling the streets promoting Star Wars Episode III. That's just a guess, as they really never talked to us, but I figure that would be true seeing as the movie opened only days prior to them pointing their guns at us and taking these rebels hostage.