Earlier this year I went with my friend Bart to Las Vegas. It was my first time going and a very good time.
People always say what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, but since there wasn't anything salacious about the experience. I thought I would share a few things that happened.
First of all never pay full price if you can. Not that I am an expert, but from watching some youtube videos that suggest staying during the week because hotel rates are a lot lower....we didnt do that but I was able to use some rewards points to get two free nights. Originally the plan was to listen to a timeshare spiel which I had paid for in advance, but the chain didn't have the weekend I wanted so we did this instead.
My friend had a wedding to attend in Arizona so I thought we could kill two birds with one stone.
Prior to the trip we stopped in at a few lounges at JFK. Timing is everything they say. The first lounge was called the Maharajah I believe with an Indian theme/cuisine, but because they were about to close we were only able to get a few grapes and some water.. The worker there was kind enough to get us some. She did inform me however that another lounge called Wings was open in another part of the terminal so we went there quickly to see what we could obtain.
The lounge was great. They had free hot and cold drinks and real food.. Chicken with rice and beans...We also loaded up on energy bars. In retrospect, I probably should have avoided the beans....Never a good idea to have spicy food prior to a plane flight, and lets not forget the flatulence too.
The flight was pretty uneventful only a small bit of turbulence, and Bart and I watched The Hangover at the same time. A great film to see before traveling to Vegas. I also got to watch A Quiet Place (loved it)
When we arrived in Vegas, I was amazed that they have slot machines in the airport and the amount of advertising reminded me of Times Square.
Bart's cousin is a travel agent so she got us a good deal on rental car from an agency I never heard of before...The employee was from New York and loved Bart's Met's hat. Bart is a diehard fan. It seems that there are lot of New York transplants in Vegas and the Met's hat was definitely a conversation starter.
I also remember a time Bart and I had driven to Montreal. When we were returning to New York/USA the worker was a big fan and after asking us the standard questions we discussed the Mets....The line behind us was like a mile long but he didn't care...I felt a bit guilty that people were waiting, and perhaps they thought we were trouble-makers but Bart was happy so it worked out OK.
The rental car agency at fist gave us a very large SUV. I had my doubts about it because we had requested a smaller car. When we tried to leave the lot there was an issue because the contract was limited to the car we rented and the gate wouldn't go up....Bart and I tried a few times but to no avail. Instead Bart backed up the car all the way back to to rental building. Bart has had experience with driving UBER eats so he has a skilled driver. Fortunately for us.
Instead of the SUV we got a much smaller car instead....Bart took the precaution of walking around the car and taking a picture of a dent in the back. Surprisingly, unlike Enterprise rent-a-car they didn't do a walk around. It was good we did though...We informed the rental car company and off we went at 10:00 pm Las Vegas time which was more like 1:00 am New York. I felt wiped. and we hadn't event left the airport.
Bart and I were hungry at this point and he suggested that we go to In and Out Burger.
For some reason I had never heard of In and Out Burger. It has been one of the most well known chains outside of New York and has been around almost as long as White Castle. In fact it looked a lot like White Castle.
We got to the restaurant around 10:30 I think they are open till 12:00 and we ordered the double burger. It was pretty good and the workers extremely nice, although like many places the fries were subpar.
Halfway through the meal three college-aged students approached us looking upset.
One man said, "Is that your white Toyota?"
He said this to us mid burger do I didn't know what was wrong. I hoped that someone hadn't broken into it. I mean we were there for like 15 minutes.
Bart said that it was and he said that he accidentally bumped into our car while backing up.
We exited the restaurant and all five of us went to inspect the car. The young man thought he had caused a lot of damage to our bumper "I thought I only tapped it."
He didn't know there was a dent in it already. We exchanged insurance information and hoped for the best. Bart wondered what we could do about the red paint on the car. I had an epiphany. I had a small bottle hand sanitizer spray from Trader Joes and sprayed it on the back of the car. At my school I have frequently used sanitizer to get rid of pen marks on desks and I reasoned we could do the same on the bumper. Turns out it worked like a charm. Like it never happened. As far as I know we were never charged.
After our late night snack we went to our hotel. It was about a mile off the strip.
The next day we dined at our hotel's breakfast which was OK, but not really memorable. Afterwards, we decided that we wanted to drive to Red Rock Canyon.
The drive is actually the same direction to Pahrump the location in the desert where there are brothels, but Bart and I were not looking for that kind of entertainment. Instead we just wanted some good hiking and fresh air. We found both.
The air in Nevada is warm and dry and on this particular day not especially hot. It's a good idea to make a reservation in advance for visiting this park, because they time your tour to reduce traffic in the area. I thought the hills were beautiful and red from the minerals, but when we entered the park I was blown away. It looked like a scene from another planet. There is a lot more to the story, but I will save that for another time, and if you ever go to Vegas. I wish you good luck.
