A cultural difference is reflected in visiting not your mother's LasVegas

Las Vegas Strip

Carol Forsloff-----Years ago when folks went to Las Vegas they looked forward to that special meal in a casino, played a few slot machines, and took in a show for an inexpensive vacation that had a little magic that was affordable and didn't break one's personal bank, but those days are gone in a Las Vegas your mother, and surely your grandmother, would not recognize and likely could not easily afford.

The Strip is all that glitters in the night where its glorious lights and majestic buildings line up in a fashion that makes the proverbial jaw drop, even as it all is a reminder that they weren't built by businesses seeking visitors who relish the good deal but those people willing to set aside all of that for the quick fix of the quick buck won and mostly lost.

Want to spend your children's inheritance as fast as possible? This is the place to begin. Visit a headliner show, if you can get there on a night when someone you want to see is available and doesn't require a major physical and financial effort to get there after all. The Donny and Marie Osmond show is highly acclaimed by Las Vegas insiders and outsiders alike, but at the usual $150 per person price tag (not counting the taxes and other fees) most middle-class folks would have to make serious choices after getting the bill back home. Other shows are also pricey, ranging at the minimum of $75 each for the cheap seats and in the several hundreds for the best.

A four-day trip turns out to be two days and partial days spent traveling, finding where to go, thumbing through event brochures, checking baggage and standing in endless lines for food, show tickets and entry into anything. This Disneyland for adults isn't for the person looking for rest and relaxation or just a vacation on the cheap. Instead it's for someone seeking excitement and who has endless energy and funds as well. For the food is just as pricey relative to the shows on the Strip, and those relatively cheap meals that were the temptations for folks to go to the casinos and try things out no longer exist. Every square inch of the casino territories is dedicated to making money, so there isn't even a coffee pot in the room let alone potable water, as everyone in the know knows not to drink from the tap in Las Vegas town. Add water to the price.

A journalist and spouse went to the city that sleeps only during the day for many folk to spend time with family and entertain at a locally-sponsored party and event. Food with family and free food at a party can substantially help a budget be less excessive than it could have well been for the couple lost in the inebriating textures of Las Vegas. Still the venue was overwhelming, of the nature that made rest a four-letter word of the past.

Expect, if you gamble and do that only minimally, to easily spend with that round-trip, airfare and hotel included at a lesser price, if you can get it, of $560 from Portland, Oregon, for just one show at $200 for two for a lesser-than-major-celebrity show, $125/day for food that includes one sit-down meal and otherwise fast food, which comes slowly after long lines of waiting, $100 each allowance for gambling, t-shirts for the happy couple at $40, a couple at $6 and counting for soda ; and that not-your-mother's Vegas turns out to be a high-priced rendezvous indeed. It is not easily affordable for the folks back home at the grand total of $1500.

We did it for less without the gambling and drinks, but the magic that brought folks from anywhere is slowly disappearing along with the water table, both in short supply. But if you like that and fighting crowds that are like the worst at the midday hour at the Chicago airport at Christmas than leave your mother home.