Vegas 101

I went to Las Vegas last week. This was my third trip to Sin City and my first as an adult. Finally, I wasn't relegated to being treated as inferior due to my age. Anyway, I love Vegas and it was with my love for Americana and kitschy mid-century pop culture that I enjoyed three days dreaming of the future, sightseeing the past, and living in the present.



I visited the soul of Old Vegas, "Fremont Street" with neon signs dating back to humble beginnings as a gambling town for construction workers at the nearby Boulder (now Hoover) Dam and then as an oasis for the Mafia and defense industry. It's on Fremont Street where a zip-line carries people down the 800-foot stretch of souvenir stands and bars. It's also on Fremont Street where the casinos of yesteryear still have older machines and Vegas Vic is pointing at the Pioneer Casino.

Vegas Vic has been greeting Vegas visitors to the Pioneer Club on Fremont Street since 1951.

I also visited the world-famous Circus Circus, which was seen in its 1970's glamour in the 1971 James Bond film "Diamonds Are Forever", for the first time. Heck, my mom said that she first went there with my grandparents and her paternal grandparents in the early-1970's and she last went there with her friends in the early-1990's.

Unfortunately, Circus Circus is not as grand as the other hotels and it's fairly aged since it opened in October 1968 with few renovations. There is an upside to this. The EXIT signs lining the ceilings and walls are also older and since I do like the aesthetics of older Exit signs, this was a pleasant aspect of this.

Old EXIT sign (I assumed this was a 1968 Prescolite, similar to the ones originally installed in the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland in 1968-9 and even some in the Pirates in 1966-7)