Las Vegas for Introverts

Beth Gibbs
Aug 8, 2017 · 7 min read

My two siblings and I poured off the airplane like the numerous little bottles of alcohol we’d consumed on the plane, short and ready to go! Elbowing other tourists and cutting lines, we flung luggage and ourselves into a taxi. One of my siblings shoved their head out the window as we hurled toward the strip and screamed “PARTY!” into the desert night.

Just kidding. The only true statement in that paragraph is that we’re all short. The only substances consumed on the plane ride were to deal with flight and post-election anxiety and we stood in line like all the other tourists. Las Vegas, like Florida, does lines very well — an efficient and fast herding of wallets. And while we might not have been the most boring passengers for our taxi driver that night, I imagine we were a nice breathe of calm air for her as the evening picked up.

When my siblings and I decided to travel to Las Vegas for a milestone birthday, sans partners and spouses, we were met with variations of the following:
“You? Really?”
“Huh.”
“That’s a surprise.”

Despite Las Vegas being one of the top vacation destinations in the US, it wasn’t on any of our lists to visit until we had started reminiscing about casino pit stops on family road trips when we were kids. I have vivid childhood memories of sitting in lonely Nevada casinos off interstate highways eating breakfast sausage links from a heating tray in smoke-hazed purple light listening to the pings of slot machines before heading out into the pale yellow winter Nevada sun light.

If nostalgia was the undercurrent luring us to Las Vegas, then curiosity was the boat that got us there. We were lured by fascination then persuaded by cheap flights, a promise of something for everyone, entertainment at our fingertips at all hours of the day, celebrity chefs and campy themes. We booked our trip and flew to Las Vegas.

I had a list of sights to see, possible places to scout out along with a few separate requests from my siblings. We checked into the Venetian because nothing seemed as appropriately kitsch for 2016 as fake Venice. After fiddling with the blinds to block out the neon blazing Trump sign marring an otherwise scenic view we set out to experience Las Vegas.

Thursday Night
We ate at a restaurant in the Venetian that reminded me of a Chili’s, if Chili’s served marked up Southern food. Rather than wait an hour for a table, we balanced our shared plates awkwardly on coffee tables while sitting on a sofa and armchair meant for sipping overpriced booze and feeling up your date. After dinner, we wandered around with a sense of deja vu. There was an underlying mix of smells — fake sweet fruity drink, tobacco smoke and a whiff of chlorine. Then I recognized why it felt familiar. Las Vegas is like a giant shopping mall, miles and miles of shopping mall.

Friday
I slept late and woke to find both siblings gone from our shared hotel room. I found them eating pastry while looking at the locked up Venetian boats outside in the tiny little canal. We watched ducks land in the heavily chlorinated water and wondered if they felt as out of place as we did.

Most of the day we wandered around taking in a few sights, constantly surprised at how many miles of carpet we walked on and how many different costumed folks were out offering photo-ops in exchange for a few dollars. We concluded that there was real opportunity for a sort of photo bingo-scavenger hunt phone application specific to Las Vegas. Your bingo card could be populated with such squares as: show girls in blue feathers, Elvis impersonators stand-off (70s vs. 50s Elvis), everything but the nipples, Spiderman on a fountain, drunk bachelorette party and battle-worn street Pikachu.

Friday Night
“See A Show!” seemed to be a tourist battle cry while in Las Vegas so we had picked out a Cirque du Soleil show at New York! New York! called Zumanity. Why go to Las Vegas and not see a few tits, right? An enjoyable show, overall, with plenty of opportunity to marvel at very physically fit people who can dance in heels.

Saturday
Our respective introverted qualities were starting to show; each of us was spending more down time in the room to get a break from the crowds on the Las Vegas streets. I recall a friend who described spending most of a Las Vegas trip in a nice hotel room with her husband watching Sponge Bob Squarepants with a bottle of booze and thought it sounds like a very reasonable way to spend a Las Vegas vacation.

We try gambling, briefly. Since we are all very risk adverse and some of us despise and freeze up trying to do math in our head, we go for the slots. The verdict: so very boring. A message to the Nevada Gaming Commission: we were raised on Nintendo, on Playstation and we aren’t going to be entertained punching a button; you need to figure out how to combine chance/rigged odds with super colorful interactive video games and then you can have our money. Until then, keep watching those statistics on Gen-Xers and Millenials coming to Las Vegas and not gambling. Seriously, why can’t I try to win cash while playing Kirby? Las Vegas, I would give you all the coins to run that adorable pink blob around on the orange crush sea, making him eat his enemies and taking their super powers.

Saturday Night
Celebrity chef restaurant night has arrived, finally. This was the Las Vegas part I was most looking forward to, to eat at Thomas Keller’s Bouchon restaurant. All I needed to do to truly enjoy Las Vegas was to dress up, of Oregon pretend I have money and eat raw oysters from my home state in a tarted up desert city. There is clearly an entire side to Las Vegas if one is actually moneyed that probably doesn’t feel like a mall.

The meal at Bouchon was exquisite, from what I recall after I had a Manhattan or two. We shared several small plates, composed dishes of paper thin smoked salmon and handsomely done up vegetables. We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves though I had a nagging thought in the back of my mind that a meal of equal caliber could be had in my hometown of Portland without too much trouble.

After dinner, one sibling is down and in the room. The other sibling and I go for a walk and come across a protest marching from the Trump tower on down the strip. We watch the police quickly put up blockades to keep the protest from spilling into any private properties, aka the casinos. Like the taxi line at the airport, I admire their efficiency at handling a crowd. The protest was quite enjoyable to watch, mostly young people marching to protest the election results, to remind those watching that there are lives and rights at stake. As the night closes, I can’t help but think, “You can take us out of Portland but you can’t take the Portland out of us.” Who else would go to vacation destination and count a political protest as highlight?

Sunday
I’ve had my fill of the strip but on this one day we thought maybe we’d get out and see the Neon Boneyard or the Mob Museum, the whole strip is shut down for a marathon. Damn. Perhaps we’ve stayed one day more than we needed to but we are also glad to not be trying to leave on a day with what must be a traffic nightmare. It is a trip to see the strip with no cars on it. The marathon runner in the full Elvis jumpsuit almost makes it all worth it but the crowds overwhelm all three of us. Introverts who dislike crowds + Las Vegas = No match. Two of us give the spa in the hotel a try and get manicures. My first manicure but I’m still pretty sure it shouldn’t draw blood and result in inflamed skin around the cuticles.

Sunday Night
We probably should have just gotten room service and tried to find a Sponge Bob Squarepants episode but instead we trudged over to a buffet called the Wicked Spoon because it seemed fitting to have at least one all-you-can-eat meal in Las Vegas. The Wicked Spoon turned out to be my kind of buffet. Instead of giant portions, everything was appetizer sized so I felt like I was actually getting my money’s worth of food or at least experience. We ate tiny fried chicken drumsticks and thimble-sized portions of risotto while coming up with a list of songs from the 1990s that are not invited back to 2017, predominantly from the bands Pearl Jam and Sublime.

We ended the night with two of us getting drunk on tequila in another Not-a-Chili’s-but-feels-like-Chili’s bar in fake Mall-Venice. At least there were mild hangovers going home with us on the flight as it seemed like the best way to leave Las Vegas.

Beth Gibbs

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