Sin City in Winter

Mike Leco — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 14:19:00 GMT

I have been to Las Vegas in the winter, and I know that the weather is usually cool and pleasant, but I have also seen it rain in the desert at this time of year. I was not suprised when our pilot said that the weather in Las Vegas was overcast with rain showers. As we decended through the clouds, Henderson and the southern suburbs of Vegas became visible. I was puzzled to see a sizable river flowing through the community. There is no river in Las Vegas? I slowly realized that the dry riverbed that wends its way through these suburbs with little or no water in it for most of the year, was now a full-sized river.

Las Vegas only receives a few inches of rain every year. It had just gotten about one fourth of its year's allotment of precipitation within the past 24 hours. The mountain peaks surrounding the desert valley in which Las Vegas is situated were sugar coated with white snow cover. This beautiful phenomena typically lasts only a short while before the desert sun returns to make it evaporate.

Building cranes punctuate the horizon of the fabulous Las Vegas Strip. Old casinos and hotels are constantly being torn down and newer, bigger, more spectacular casinos are incessantly replacing them. High-rise condos along the Strip are the latest fad. Just behind the giant casinos, tall buildings housing expensive luxury condominiums are sprouting like weeds.

The Monte Carlo Casino just suffered from a roof-top fire that devastated its top floors. Fortunately, no one was injured, but the guests from its 6,000 rooms were evacuated and the hotel was closed. Smoke stains still soiled its top rim. The local newspapers reported that every guest in the hotel was relocated to other hotels within hours, All reservations for incoming guests were diverted to other properties before the fire was completely extinguished. Only in Las Vegas with its 150,000 hotel rooms would such a feat be possible.

The Alladin Casino on the Strip has now become the Planet Hollywood Casino. The old San Remo just off the Strip has been refurbished and resurrected as the new Hooters Casino. The frontier has been demolished and construction will soon begin on another new mega-casino. Near the heart of the strip, a huge swath of businesses and hotels have been cleared and construction begun on the new City Center business/hotel/casino complex. This city of Las Vegas never stops re-inventing itself,

I drove out to Summerlin for dinner at the Red Rock Resort. It is only 14 miles from the strip to this suburban bedroom community in the Northwestern quadrant of Sin City. You can even take the new six lane freeway most of the way. It should take no more than 20 minutes to get there. Yet, if you go during rush hour, and there is any sort of auto mishap along the way, you can get stuck in traffic for an hour or more.

The Red Rock Casino is one of the newest off-the-Strip properties. It was completed only a year ago. Like its couterparts on the Strip, it is huge. Unlike the on-the-Strip casinos, it is surrounded by vast landscaped grounds and beautiful golf courses. It only offers 800 rooms, but they are suposed to be spacious. The casino is gorgeous. Every one of the thousand or more slot machines has a high-backed padded leather chair in front of it. The restaurants are excellent. There are no crowds of tourists at this casino. It is quiet and somewhat empty. Local Las Vegas Natives have learned to avoid the Strip and its crowds of tourists, so they come here to gamble. Visitors from surrounding states that wish to avoid those same tourist crowds, book accommodations in this hotel and enjoy the relatively quiet atmosphere.

There are a thousand or more restaurants in Las Vegas, including some of the finest dining establishments in the USA. Sure, Vegas is known for the all-you-can-eat buffet, but that is no longer the only option available. Today, some of the great chefs from around the world have opened restaurants along the strip. You can get every type of food immaginable from Japanese sushi to French haut cuisine. You can even get gourmet foods at some of the buffets. No, not at the all-you-can eat-for-$8.95 buffet. Those inexpensive buffets are usually located in the less popular casinos or the out of the way casinos off of the Strip. They provide copious quatities of food for cheap prices just to entice you into their gambling establishment.

The buffet at Bellagio costs a bit more ($27 for dinner) but it offers a plethora of gourmet cuisine. More than you can comfortably eat even if you only take a very small portion of each. The buffet at Paris provides a sampling of French cuisine from various regions of France. It is one of the better buffets. If you are a seafood lover, the buffet at Rio offers a magnificent spread of various foods from the world's oceans. (It cost about $30 but is well worth it to a seafood lover.)

Life in the USA : casino

Sin City in Winter