the pelican

once more with feeling

Visit ClubMotime

what stays in vegas

and so. there we were.

the low-budget white trash wing of the tropicana in vegas. oh yeah.

the elevator looked like it had recently been used to film a high action crime scene.

to be fair, we were tired. we got in quite late. a big weekend. valentine’s day president’s day february madness kind of time. and it was all a cheap-ish promotional sort of deal. and this was vegas so i guess they saw us coming. whatever. it is what it is and was what it was and this thing this old hotel on hotel monstrosity strip was built in 1957 and shows its age. a little worse for its wear and tear perhaps. dinge and mange. lots of mirrors and flashing lights to distract you from the stains in the carpet. the cracks in the wall. kind of an elegantly wasted keith richards kind of feel you know. fold-up take-out pizza menus kept sliding magically under the door at odd hours of the night.

yeah so we got the room with a trap door in the wall that wouldn’t quite shut fully and you could see into something dark and dusty inside the wall. the shower was alternately scalding hot and ice cold. and the adjoining room next door -- the one that connects through a couple thin and flimsy doors? heard their entire inane conversation. oh and no internet access in that particular “wing” of that fine establishment. it had been temporarily disabled but upgrades were available and i could take that up with the front desk if i was interested but budget is as budget does and what the heck were in vegas for a purpose and we had to get in and get out in a fairly short essentially 36-48 hour amount of time.

kind of funny really because i was all ready to be overwhelmed and dazzled maybe even slightly intimidated by the great glam and sparklies and wattage. heh. and there i was in the white trash wing of the tropicana on the strip and well frankly well honestly well truth be told i was not impressed.

although maybe it was really just my attitude. it was not the best upon arrival after the long drive.

the last time we were in las vegas was about 15-16 years ago. we had stopped by after a long road trip on the motorcycle coming from california crossing death valley in one hundred seven degree heat in full leather gear arriving in a ball of sweat and dust and finding the place truly to be a strange and psychedelic though oddly highly welcome oasis in the desert where we actually won a bunch of money playing our alloted amount to spend our total of thirty bucks on dollar slots and we walked away with about thirteen hundred in about twenty minutes and high-tailed out of there on the bike to see the grand canyon. so it was a pleasant but distant memory you know. not my style really but up for an adventure and open to possibility.

but that was a different time. a different trip. and this time i had brought along with me a different sort of attitude perhaps.

see maybe there’s some part of me that believes that room that place that environment was punishment for some previous unsightly behavior earlier in the day. some sort of instant karmic slap for being a needlessly nervous navigator. well it was one thing after another. panicked and jammed and slammed at work in a scramble to do it all get it all done ahead just to take a little time off of work. didn’t sleep the night before. making lists and worrying and leaving messages and left late and went the slow rush hour way instead of the pretty slightly longer but faster moving mountain way to get to I-70 but nobody would listen or mind my directions no oh no.

and then we got stuck in the bottleneck of the great long weekend ski commute. and icy roads.

and well i was not exactly a model passenger on takeoff day. no. no i was not. i was nervous. i read all the warning signs aloud. falling rocks and watch for bighorn sheep and lights on for the tunnel and no passing and fines doubled for speeding and construction two miles ahead and icy conditions and the fifty minute wait outside of the tunnel to vail. i worried about the condition of the roads. the air in the tires. the quality of the gas at the last stop. i was concerned we might hit deer. i thought we should change lanes. i reached over and flicked the windshield wipers on and off a couple of times.

needless to say this helpful gesture was not exactly appreciated. no it was not.

but still and all the drive was magnificent. and while everyone else flew there and they thought we were insane for doing the ten-hour drive and perhaps we were and we’ll let them think that because they’ll never understand but that drive was lovely and spectacular. rocks and rocks and rocks. I-70 over the divide and through the mountains and down into the rocks and reefs and formations of utah. a magical journey through petroglyphs and caves and ruins and mesas and painted soft rainbow foothills and red stones and arches and canyons and gulleys. layers and layers of sediment and colors and more layers and waves and washes and swooshes and rocks and colors and formations and layers and time and colors and rocks and colors and rocks and sky.

we went down a funnel down a shoot down a rabbit hole from home to vegas in a great little downward drain spiral on a curved arch pavement ribbon. the signs start telling you once you get past vail how many hundred miles it is to vegas. forget about the entire state of utah in between man. if you’re in this stream if you’re on this road if you’re heading west on i-70 out of colorado you must be heading to vegas and the signs begin to point you in right away.

so i guess it was maybe my karmic reward. the moment of truth. i was truly challenged to make the best of this situation. but could it be done? would we make it? would we kill each other before we pulled our tiny little economy good gas mileage vehicle into the seven thousand watt clam shell mirrored mermaid covered valet parking station?

though i don’t think it was really just that room. motels are creepy places anyway. full of strange and weird and unsettled energy. and it was vegas.

sleaze and cheese and clouds of cigarette smoke and mirrors and ring ding ding whoop whoop racketa racketa ching ching ching sounds with muffled loud music blasting through speakers and promotions and flyers and long lines for big buffets and cocktail waitresses in high heels and bell hops and men with big jewelry and women with lots of makeup and flashing lights chasing strings of lights everywhere and swim up backjack in the pool and fat bellies in tropical print shirts and purple and red carpeting and mermaids and fishes and clam shells in the mirrored ceiling and shrimp cocktails and rhinestone charm bracelets and turquoise and magenta flowered wallpaper trim.

and we’re well we’re just we’re from colorado, see. snowboots and wool sweaters and cookie packages we brought our own big K brand carbonated water in a cooler in the crusty but clean little economy car in the valet parking lot. a couple of low budget bumpkins bumbling around in the midst of this spectacular display of distraction. have to say if planned out better with actual forethought, it could be a great place to see some shows.

but we were there for a reason.

it was vegas with a purpose.

for we had come for a wedding. an event. a shrek sort of cartoon fairy tale medieval-esque wedding.

a good friend of mine has in some way managed to embrace her inner fiona as we say. she has finally found such a good guy. and he loves her. he appreciates the magnificence of all that she is which truly involves a certain amount of energy and how does he do it we really don’t quite know but he does he really does love her and it really is an animated greeting card soul mate sort of deal. this is i think though not entirely sure but there is an actual count i think and it is her fourth marriage but third wedding not counting those other two situations or something like that and yet oh yes she is a princess and she’s never stopped never gave up filled the backyard and the storage shed and the garage up with rejects but she kept waiting she kept trying she kept searching she stayed shopping she continued waiting for her prince charming. she never doubted his arrival one day.

and get this check it out no kidding but the thing is he finally showed.

he really did.

and so of course they did this at the excalibur. across the street connected by some over-the-highway type of built-in walkway from our little tropicana paradise to some kind of pasteboard castle place with big turrets. had to dress up too. oh yes. wedding done in full princess and knight gear. and then we got to join the gang for some sort of rubber chicken dinner pasta primavera vegetarian option doing shots of tequila someone ate my little pre-microwaved desert pastry deal extravaganza with horses and swords and jousting in an overly choreographed brightly colored highly scripted albeit tightly run dusty arena family dinner theatre type of AAA roadside rated situation. yee-hah.

oh my friend my good strange sometimes oddly close friend. my friend from work from the big law firm from seven years ago. my every week for six years one lunch a week therapy comedy show type of girlfriend chatter support and argument regular rhythmic part of the work week. she got married. yeah and i even cried and drizzled actual mascara on my velveteen renaissance-ish bluey green dress.

i mean that day that wedding day it was not so bad. we fiddled around a bit. we explored. we had omelets and muffins and salad bar sour domestic champagne buffet and we went to see the titanic exhibit at our hotel we looked at lots of old damaged sad rusty stuff dug up from that cold underwater grave picked apart and reassembled and displayed for everyone to marvel at. it was an exhibit. it was history. it was educational. it was really kind of strange and creepy and more than a little morbid and odd and eery and bizarre and i truly wondered why it cost so much but this was vegas and somehow looking a bunch of old rusty shipwreck junk in an exhibition hall all made sense.

i mean, we had time to kill. and i bought a refrigerator magnet and some dice shaped lollipops that said sin-city suckers on the tags. yeah.

time in limbo before the wedding before the great event before the moment i had to squish myself into that dress and put on actual semi-acceptable shoes and take the great walkway over to the cartoon castle to witness the sacred vows.

something about a declaration of love before friends and family. something about that saying this is the one this is the person that sweet sweet look into the eyes that promise that hope those rings on the fingers that kiss that ceremony that dance those good intentions and love and vows and stand up and sit down and walk and pose for the pictures and snap and flash and snap flash leave quickly before the next wedding is seated out the backdoor down the hallway through the alternative reality portal and wham bam back into the casino with coupons for free games in the family faire area.

well we lost them after the dusty jousting dinner. there were too many of us. it was too loud. we were traveling as a group in a pack it was crowded we had to go back to the hotel had to change back to wearable clothing had to become comfortable had to stop off and gamble a bit under the big blue motorcycle on a rotating pedestal and have a frozen fru-fru strawberry margarita in a giant pink and blue souvenir hurricane glass and well it was their wedding night after all and it had been a long day a very long day with a buffet breakfast and the rusty titanic stuff and a wedding and jousting and everything so we staggered back across the walkway over the highway into our strange dingy motel room and that didn’t seem so bad after all and we looked out the little balcony into the unnaturally lush enclosed garden paradise courtyard with a trickling waterfall and planned our immediate morning exit strategy.

for the next day the very next day we headed out of that sweet sad strange and sordid bachanalia blitz and back into the rocks. back into the rocks and the sky and into zion into southern utah into ancient indian lands and it was cold but sunny and clear and the snow was on the ground but not the roads and the air was clear and the flash and the glare of the electric lights were finally gone and the clouds were few and the rocks were red and grey and green and pink and orange and we left that big glittering vegas cloud of cigarette smoke behind us in the desert and we could breathe again. and then we were free.

and a big bald eagle flew us in guided us right into a little side trip to a fremont indian who the heck was fremont and who cares village canyon bunch of beautiful and interesting petroglyphs where a great ancient village was torn out in 1982 to make way for I-70 for the great funnel into vegas and so we stopped to see the markings read the signs pay our respects and so.

and so my friend is married happily ever after and i am no longer the official dating consultant she has moved to denver she has a different job she is not in boulder anymore we don’t do lunch every week we email a bit she is busy i am busy they have bought furniture together they got married in vegas and we went to explore southern utah and i hope we don’t completely lose contact but you never know you just never know but i’m glad we went and i know she’s happy and she will always stay in my heart and there’s more there’s so much more but i guess maybe i guess that’s why they say i guess you can’t really put it all into words i guess that’s basically what it is i guess i mean maybe i know it feels like valentine's day red foil cards and hearts and candy and that's what they say you know it's just what stays in vegas.

posted by: limine at 23:22 | link | comments (4) |

Template by motime.com  |  header image credit: Markus Gann © www.begann.de