Stay Away From Las Vegas



 The famed slogan for Sin City is "What happens here, stays here."

What the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority fails to tell visitors from Des Moines is the reason that it "stays here."

It's because whatever happens here stays stuck on the freeway.

Prepare yourself for a hot news flash.

Ready?

There's road construction on I-15 going on right now in Las Vegas.

Even if you're reading this missive online in 2019, the statement remains as true as it is here in 2011.

The reason someone reading this in Pascagoula won't find this funny is the part that the tourism board never mentions in their four-color brochures:

There is ALWAYS road construction on I-15 in Las Vegas.

Wait, let me rephrase that:

There are always barricades, orange barrels, orange cones, orange signs that say "Road Work Ahead," and flashing signs that read "No, seriously, there's road work ahead, honest"; detours that dead-end at empty shopping malls; and even the occasional pileup of earth moving equipment and paving machinery on a gravelly shoulder.

To be honest, I go to Vegas about once a month to deliver some poor unfortunate rural dweller to McCarron Airport (which has its own half-mile tunnel leading to the terminal that has been under constant repair since about 15 minutes after it opened.  I haven't been able to confirm the likely rumor that the project was actually the defect-prone model for Boston's Big Dig).

During these semi-monthly trips along I-15 over the last eight years, I've yet to see an actual construction worker doing anything on the other side of those orange barrels, cones, and signs.  I'm pretty sure the Audobon Society has an entire page devoted to the rarely seen "Orange Vested Reflective Striped Hardhatted Pavement Layer" that is rumored to visit a construction site in Vegas almost as often as cicadas make an appearance above ground.

There have been more verified sightings of Bigfoot than reports of someone actually working on a Las Vegas highway.

So as a public service, I'm warning out of state visitors to avoid coming to Las Vegas, unless you're flying in.  Customers with United, Delta, and American Airlines have already endured endless holdups and delays involved in getting on an airplane these days, including repeated security stops, crotch grabs, wanding, more I.D. checkpoints than an Iraqi Green Zone, and the incessant "did you pack your own bag?" question that outstrips in frequency and annoyance a three-year-old's fascination with saying "Mommy" 87 times in a row every 60 seconds.  Sitting at a dead stop for hours on a six-lane highway where signs saying "Speed Limit 65" will taunt you every 12 feet probably won't be much of a change from the torture of air travel. 

For such visitors, I strongly recommend taking a taxi from the airport to your hotel.  You'll still wind up stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic, ensuring that a six mile trip will take 90 minutes.  However, you won't be the one wearing out your horn hand and middle finger (both of which you'll need at the slot machines and craps tables).

To the rest of the country thinking about driving to Las Vegas, I would recommend against it.  Goodness knows we need the tourism dollars, but my conscience won't allow me to encourage anyone to endure the Las Vegas equivalent of Chinese water torture, which is the technique of stranding visitors on I-15 near exit 46 where you can see the glittering Strip hotel that holds your reservation, but you simply cannot get to it.

Instead, if you really feel compelled to taste of the Las Vegas experience, do this:  Head to your bank and cash your most recent paycheck.  Then take your car to the nearest shopping center and park in the busiest section, but leave your car running.  Get out and place a shopping cart behind you so you aren't tempted to drive away after being stuck for two hours.  Roll up all your windows and turn on your heater to full, or until the thing conks out (which is what most air conditioners do on the Vegas interstate after sitting still in the passing lane for three hours at a throw).

While you're waiting, take out your stack of money and a quarter.  Flip the quarter.  If it comes up heads, put some of your money on the empty passenger seat.  If it comes up tails, put the money on the dash.  Repeat 217 times, then take the pile of cash off the passenger seat, stick it into an envelope and mail it to me in care of this website.

Include an extra $10 and I'll send you back a stack of losing Keno slips and a tall plastic cocktail container labeled "Fremont Street" that's used and empty, complete with a circle of dried foam at the top marking how full the thing once was.  That way you'll have "proof" you can show your friends of all the fun you had visiting Sin City, and the empty pockets to back up your story.

If you enjoy this experience, ask about our special "Atlantic City" package, which includes all of the above plus we'll send a meth addict to your house to "trow you a good beatin'" and a homeless guy to whiz on your front steps, just so you get the realistic feel of a day near the boardwalk.