Page 6 of 7
Las Vegas, Nevada
Seems like it's always understood this time of year
Imagine taking a ride on a giant ferris wheel over Las Vegas. Maybe you could look right down at the strip, or the Bellagio fountains or even the pyramid at Luxor. Now instead imagine taking a ride on a giant ferris wheel over Las Vegas and not being able to see any of those things. Welcome to the High Roller ferris wheel.
I’m not saying that the back side of the casinos and parking garages aren’t interesting to look at, just that if the High Roller was closer to the strip, it would have been a lot more interesting. Although where it is located now does have some value. The LINQ (it’s all capitalized, so imagine someone yelling “LINQ!” at you every time you see it) is not only a casino but an exterior pedestrian passageway that connects the strip (between the Flamingo and the LINQ Casino) to the High Roller with shops and restaurants along the way, and with a zip line overhead. But the most important part of the LINQ is the fact that they included an on strip In-N-Out Burger, meaning you no longer have to figure out how to get to the other one on the other side of the I-15 Freeway. Thanks, LINQ!
So you probably figured out that we’re in Las Vegas, a place that I’ve been to maybe eight times, maybe nine. I say “maybe” because I have yet to stay in the same hotel twice so I usually try and remember how many times I’ve been there by how many times I’ve stayed there, although in some cases I have book ended Las Vegas stays at the ends of southwest driving trips for the better flight and rental car options. So far it’s been Luxor, Treasure Island, New Aladdin, Venetian, Tropicana, Vdara, Signature at MGM Grand, the Murder Hotel and now this one.
After all of those hotels, my new favorite in Las Vegas has to be Aria, where we stayed this December, easily dethroning my previous favorite (the nearby Vdara) and all of the other ones (although seriously I think sleeping in my car might also have beaten staying at the Murder Hotel). Aria is in a great location, mid strip but kind of off of it, with a free rail shuttle to the back of Bellagio, and the room (and the views from the room) were first rate.
A reason to go to Las Vegas the week before christmas isn’t to go to the stellar buffet at the Wynn (that’s open all year) but instead to take advantage of a pretty cheap flight and get to take my father to a hockey game at T-Mobile Arena, home of the Las Vegas Golden Knights. This was the inaugural season for the expansion Golden Knights team, and the arena, atmosphere and presentation were among the best of any NHL game I have ever been to. From the goofy introduction where a knight pulls a sword out of a rock, to the constant awesome drummers to that weird little balcony jutting out into and over the seating bowl, you knew you were somewhere special the whole time. And there was actually a game too (the surprisingly good Golden Knights beat the visiting Carolina Panthers 5 to 2), although I think even if it went the other way, it still would have been a damn fine experience.
Of all of the trips I have taken to Las Vegas, this may be the first time that I ever did anything even approaching a local experience or two. First was the hockey game. I’m sure there were tourists there, but the majority were most definitely locals. And then we went to Ethel M.’s, where the entire city and suburbs come to enjoy christmastime.
If you decide to be a local at Ethel M.’s the week before christmas, there are a few things you’ll find. The first is how hard it is to find a parking spot (it’s really busy), then you’ll find a massive line for hot chocolate. In between those two you’ll find the reason you came. Ethel M. lights up all of the cacti in her cactus garden with christmas lights, and although that sounds a bit goofy, the result is actually quite lovely. And in between there are all sorts of holiday extras like a sweaty desert Santa and a fake ice skating rink, where locals walk (and then fall) on the fake ice on their skates, forgetting (or not being told in the first place) that the skates are there for gliding and not walking.
From a christmastime cactus garden in Nevada to a tour of a garbage truck garage on West Street from months before, we’re going to end this page of the slideshow bouncing around through space and time like never before.
The DSNY (Department of Sanitation of New York) garage is located on the waterfront near the Holland Tunnel and is the nicest garbage truck garage you will ever visited. I visited through Open House New York as part of a two building DSNY tour that was led by architects from WXY and Dattner. The garage includes a generous green roof, a massing that helps give nearby buildings more breathing space, a screened facade to hide all of the trucks and (occasionally as you walk through) as hideous of a smell that you can imagine- they may be in a really nice, well designed garage, but they’re still garbage trucks after all.
he other building in the two building tour was the DSNY salt shed, the nicest salt shed ever built. It looks kind of like a giant, concrete salt crystal and it instantly became a recognizable landmark as soon as it opened in 2015.
While the DSNY salt shed is spectacular from the outside, inside it’s still just a salt shed, although it does have some skylights so you can see all of the salt inside.
After visiting rooftops and sub, sub, sub basements in Washington DC, the Sistine Chapel in Lower Manhattan, LoDo and the USAFA Chapel in Colorado, Fat Matt’s, the ghost of Nikola Tesla, The Egg, a field of cows searching for the sunlight in the Berkshires, Chicago twice, Ethel M.'s lit up cacti and a garbage truck garage, we find ourselves at last in the Bronx at the New York Botanical Gardens to see the Dale Chihuly exhibit. Called simply CHIHULY (it’s all capitalized, so imagine someone yelling “CHIHULY!” at you every time you see it), the exhibit is a series of works scattered about the gardens, from large scale installations at the conservatory to smaller museum style exhibits (like these) in the library.
The exhibits at the library were beautiful, but things are taken to the next level by the time you reach the conservatory. Chihuly (or I guess CHIHULY) scattered installations all over the place, but he seemed to have the most fun here.
Our very last pictures of Chihuly (or, I guess, CHIHULY) are from CHIHULY Nights (you would have thought they would go all in with the caps and call it CHIHULY NIGHTS instead), a special ticketed attraction where the installations are lit as the rest of the gardens start to disappear into the darkness.
