Our friend Jerry sees an airplane landing in Las Vegas and says: ‘here comes another load of money into town.’ At times we can look out at the flight paths and see 3 planes lining up to land. The 4th and 5th plane are probably out there but my eyes aren’t good enough to see that far. Lots of money circling the airport to come in. Probably more comes in than goes out but not enough to save all the casinos. We read yesterday that Caesar’s Entertainment with 52 properties worldwide including the Harrah’s chain is working with lenders to manage $22 bill in debt tied to when the company was taken private in 2006. MGM Resorts International, whose properties include the Circus Circus name, Bellagio and New York-New York has $13.6 bill of its own debt. They had the horrible misfortune of being in the middle of large expansion plans when the recession hit.
And, as all of you who have been to Las Vegas know, these are huge casinos. Outwardly the lights are still on, the shows continue and all looks healthy financially. And, I guess that Las Vegas is coming back - just not far enough back that people are not suffering.
We thought we’d make our journey down to the Strip. What is a trip to Las Vegas without a trip to the Strip? Actually, we’ve been in town about 10 days and haven’t even come close to it. Hey, did you know that the Las Vegas Strip is NOT in Las Vegas? Sure enough, it’s in Clark County, built right out side the city boundary to avoid the taxes. We drove around the strip looking for a parking space but all we found were lots of vacant lots and lots of land cleared for construction. We think all this was cleared before the recession and now sits empty, waiting.
As we circled we noticed that the casinos have large parking ramps but we weren’t sure what the price of parking in one of them would be. We parked near the Mandalay at the end of the Strip and I got out to check on the pricing. As I walked into the parking ramp, I noticed that there are no booths, no tickets to take and no price signs. Hmm. Yep, as most of you probably know, the parking ramps are free - they WANT us to park there, in their ramp so we will spend money in their casino. News to us.
We parked and began our walk down the Strip. Now, most of you probably haven’t heard of the Strip Hike and it’s not listed in lots of tourists books but we’ve taken it before and embarked on it today. From one end of the Strip to the other, from the Mandalay to the Mirage and back. Down one side of the street and back up the other.
We noticed lots of brides and grooms, all decked out in their white and black finery. Gary added his bit of money to the Strip - he bought a comb. One thing we like to watch is the dancing water display at the Bellagio. Watching the artistry of those who put the show together is amazing.
We also enjoyed watching the neon lights. But one thing we hate about this walk is the gauntlet of men and women wearing t-shirts emblazoned with ‘GIRLS, GIRLS, GIRLS.’ flipping cards of naked women at you. Sometimes we had to pass by 6 at a time. It makes the glitter and glitz of Las Vegas pale in comparison to the tawdry displays. Ah, but then, what finances all of those glitzy displays?
Time to go home.
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