Travels With Monkey: July 2005

Las Vegas can be intimidating, dazzling, disorienting, and surreal. Neither Monkey nor I really enjoyed it the first trip there so we figured we'd never end up going back. Well, by a coincidence of fate, my job required me to attend a convention in Las Vegas this spring. I took a few extra days to chill out by myself and I found that Vegas can actually be quite pleasant. In particular, seeing the natural beauty of the surrounding desert and then looking down at the craziness of the Strip, literally cut down to size and put in its place, it just seemed a whole lot better.

Monkey and I thought the best place to do this would be at the Stratosphere Tower.

The Stratosphere Tower

The Stratosphere Hotel and Casino is just about as far north as you can go on the Strip and it seems to have a lot more in common with the downtown casinos that the gaudy Disney-fied palaces on Las Vegas Blvd. Walking around on the casino floor, you might get the feeling that it was small potatoes or behind the times, but I liked that throwback aura. Plus, the folks gambling looked like serious old-time gamblers mixed with hopeful younger folks who were probably gambling with next month's rent money. It's nice to see there's still a place for people like that.

Monkey and I bought our tickets and got in line to go to the top of the tower. This is the view we were rewarded with: