By Chris Carney
You came to the desert to eat, to gamble and to see a show or two. Bravo to you, that’s what Las Vegas is all about. But beneath the obvious, hidden under the neon glow are little known facts, places and oddities.
What’s in a Name?
Las Vegas is universally acclaimed as The Entertainment Capital of the World, but it sure didn’t start off that way. The dry piece of scrubby desert was named sometime in the 1800’s by the Spanish, who used the spot as a watering post along the Old Spanish Trail that connected Los Angeles with Santa Fe. The name translates as The Meadows. They came for the water, hidden underground in a series of artesian wells.
Aqua Fresca
It all stared with the water and water continues to dominate Sin City. Everywhere you look there is water. Pools reflect sun off topless beauties at Wynn and Caesar’s Palace and cool down hard bodies at the Hard Rock. The most magnificent expression of man’s power over water may just be the fountains at the Bellagio. Long a favorite, the fountains get most of their water not from Lake Mead from the same artesian wells that drew the Spaniards so long ago.
Let There Be Light
Water may be rare in Vegas, but light certainly isn’t. There’s the scorching sun that can top 110 degrees in summer. After sunset the 15,000 miles of neon tubing brighten the Strip and Downtown with a multicolored glow. Most impressive of all is the 30.2 billion lumens light canon atop the Luxor pyramid. To give some context, a very good projection TV clocks in at 1,000 lumens. The beam is so bright it can be seen from the airspace above LA.
Big, Bad Buildings
Where else in the world can you see a pyramid, the Eiffel Tower, a Roman palace, the canals of Venice and the tallest free standing building west of the Mississippi, all without getting out of your cab? Nowhere. Where the originals were built to celebrate dead kings, living Emperors and a revolution, Vegas built them to house revolving restaurants and beds to rest your head for a few hours before the debauchery begins anew.
Beds, Beds and More Beds.
Vegas has lots of beds. The city boasts 15 of the 20 largest hotels on the planet and over 124,000 rooms. And the king of the jungle is the MGM Grand, with a whopping 5,690 rooms and growing. The MGM is the second largest hotel in the world after The First World Hotel in Malaysia. It is so huge, that their linen department washes 15,000 sets of sheets a day.
What Kinda Shop Is This?
Vegas is legendary for shopping. Hidden among the normal and extraordinary are few stores that just make you say Huh? M&M World clearly lands in the category. As does the Barry Manilow store at the Hilton, where you can sing your own rendition of Barry’s top hits to torture your friends. Or accentuate your feminine side with a wig from Serge’s Showgirl Wigs.
Luck Ain’t No Accident
Vegas has many visitors from Asia, but for a time they mucked it up when it came to avoiding unlucky omens. The MGM’s emerald façade was a turnoff to Asian visitors who consider the color to be unlucky. The 80 ft. lion at the entrance also proved to be unlucky and was demolished. But Vegas learned her lessons well. The Wynn has no elevator floors that start with the number 4, deemed unlucky in many Asian cultures.
So avoid bad luck, search out the oasis and slip between the crisp, cool sheets. Just never lose that sense of wonder that Las Vegas exists at all.
Published in Las Vegas Magazine 9-30-07
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