Leaving Las Vegas - Pt. 2

The stairwells in the parking garage reeked.  Part urine, part vomit, part stale beer:  the wall of smell that billowed out of the there was as overpowering as a candle store or any Victoria's Secret.

The undeniable scent of Las Vegas Parking Garage permeated my new wardrobe and that suited me just fine.  I was not going to be anyone that anyone else would look too closely at and in that space, I could do my recon.

I made my way to the Las Vegas Boulevard side of the hotel and joined the line of tourists waiting to board the bus that cruised the Strip from hotel to hotel while masquerading as a streetcar.

I nearly jumped out of my skin the first time the roller coaster thundered through the loop of track that was over our heads and hurtled into a vertical climb that topped out at about a hundred feet.  This was a after-thought, an effort to offer something to compete with the roller coaster on top of the Stratosphere and the fun dome at Circus Circus.  Like a clean bed and air conditioning wasn't enough.

This NASCAR-themed ride was so clearly an act of desperation that they only had enough money to suggest a thrill ride and, at that, it was over before it began.  Once riders reached the top of the tower, which they did almost immediately, there was no place left to go and they had endure the indignity of riding backwards into the hotel over the path they had just followed.  It was the unfinished sentence that told the complete story of a once-great hotel that was now counting the days until its inevitable date with the imploder.

After what seemed like an eternity in the dying light of a summer evening in the desert, a Streetcar Named Desperation pulled to a stop in front of the hotel and I joined the parade of its newest passengers in search of a seat.

Doesn't seem to matter where I go in the world, I am never more than a bus bench away from Albanians. 

Our very first stop after leaving the Sahara was at the Stratosphere and an entire basketball team's worth of Albanians got on for what I learned was a field trip to practice their English nouns.

They powered through their language, as they all do, as if they got paid by the syllable and every sentence was punctuated with a noun in English.  And once they had exhausted their knowledge, the tried to read random words off the many signs we passed on our route from hotel to hotel.

They were having a great time, oblivious to the fact that the rest of the passengers were laughing at them. 

I didn't dare laugh at them.  Tonight was not a night for drawing any unwelcome attention:  I had too much to do.