Viva, Las Vegas

Jan. 2, 2000

Gamble on ‘us time’ paid off in Las Vegas

“Viva, Las Vegas!”

More than once I found myself humming along with the Elvis tune in my head.

“Bright lights, big city, gonna set me free, gonna set my soul on fire.”

Unfortunately, those are the only words to the song I know! You can bet it got redundant. But it didn’t matter, because I was going to Las Vegas!

I’ll be the first to admit “Sin City” was not, nor is it now, high on my list of vacation spots. I’m not a gambler. Neither is my husband, although he will spring for a couple of bucks’ worth of scratch-off tickets around the holidays or buy a Powerball ticket when it hits some humongous jackpot. And that’s what I always equated with Vegas – gambling.

So why choose that spot for a last-minute vacation before the holidays?

Just because.

My mother-in-law actually started it. She belongs to a travel club that sends her monthly magazines to entice her to spend her hard-earned retirement money on trips around the globe. She asked my husband if we’d like to take a trip to oh, say, Las Vegas, for the weekend.

He mentioned it to me in passing. And I brushed it off. Then she said, “You two should go somewhere for a weekend. I’ll watch the kids.”

Did you see that blur? It was us, rushing for the door, suitcases in hand.

No, we really didn’t jump that quickly at the chance. But we’ve never had a vacation, a real vacation, where you go on an airplane someplace you’ve never been before, either without without the kids. This was weird. This was different. This was cool.

Then Vegas popped up again. “Why not?” my husband asked. “We could do it in a weekend.”

Well, why not?
This is where I tell you how I feel about the Internet.

It’s a great tool. You can find lots of information about far-off places (like Las Vegas). You also can drive yourself nuts fighting with search engines that want you to sift through hundreds of items to get to a nugget of what you want or search engines that “only recognize the first 10 characters” of your search phrase.

Now, what good is that? Type in “Las Vegas” and you’ll get all kinds of … well, all kinds of stuff.

But we began looking, sometimes taking a few minutes online together to look things up, sometimes apart, finding what was going on in Las Vegas in December. Turns out, quite a bit and not a lot. It depends on your perspective.

Some of the bigger productions (Cirque du Soleil’s “Mystere,” for one) were dark for the holidays Many others were gearing up for the big New Year’s bash (Wayne Newton, Barbra Streisand, Elton John). Many others were simply sold out. Not enough shows to go around, I guess.

The cab drivers and hotel casino workers told is it was the slow season. Lucky for us. It still was a hopping place at all hours of the day and night.

There was plenty to see and do. We spent three full days there. We ate a lot. We gambled a little. We saw so many things, I can’t believe what I probably forgot!

Our favorite? Don’t think us too nerdy – “The Star Trek Experience.” It was fantastic!

OK, the guy dressed up like a Klingon was funny, but the ride was great! You’re beamed aboard the Enterprise (cool effects), built to scale and spec of the TV show and movies, travel in a turbo lift (that isn’t operating properly do to an attack by a Klingon bird of prey) and finally take a shuttle craft on a wild, motion-simulator ride back to present-day Las Vegas.

The ride was the best, designed to trick your mind and body into thinking you actually were hurtling through space in the midst of a battle for your life!

We enjoyed just being together again without having to worry about diapers and naps and baths and pajamas and hot lunch and homework.

Oh, sure, I missed the kids. We both did. I actually tried to not think about them because I knew as soon as I really started, I’d miss them so much I’d feel bad I was there and not home with them.

But it was also a chance for us to be “us” again, to remember why we got together in the first place.

So, “Viva, Las Vegas!” I’m already looking forward to our next trip! I think the theme song starts, “It’s a world of laughter …”