Now being amazingly clever and yet unendingly clueless, I found a Vegas hotel for one night, on the strip, for $30.

Oh, how clever, right?

How amazing?

But if that deal is in a hotel under renovation, is it really a deal?

Well, the taxi driver certainly had an opinion.  He thought I was nuts.  I pointed out that the rooms were supposed to be fine, (having, of course, not actually seen the rooms, but merely read trip advisor,) and he went on a tear about how the Imperial Palace had fucked up traffic for blocks and that the only way in was a seedy back entrance beside where they kept the garbage.

Honestly, at first, I thought he was joking but sure enough, they had ripped up entire streets and one of them was the main street leading to the main entrance.  So, around the back we went, and through the back door I marched, the lovely smell of rotting garbage sitting like a fog.

Oncie inside, I immediately got lost.

Oh there were signs to the desk but the first one I followed led me to a desk that said, this desk is no longer in operation, please go to the front desk, a perfectly reasonable request if I could actually find the front.

I went up escalators, down steps, past bars and closed shops and tons of sweaty gamblers, half of whom were smoking.

Ah yes, I forgot.

Smoking is still ok in the casinos.

With a fake Michael Jackson singing in the casino and hordes of people holding drinks and stumbling around or sitting on chairs gleefully playing one armed bandits while rings of smoke swirled above their heads, I followed signs until I found the check-in desk, and… wait for it….

There was a line.

And if there was AC working, it wasn’t working here.

But I was near my goal.  An A/C room.  And food.

I got both relatively quickly.  The room had seen better days but it was cool and the sheets clean and I couldn’t hear any noise from either the other guests or the construction.  So, in search of food I went, settling on a place called the Hash House, somewhere in the casino (though, even as I’m writing this, I’m not quite sure where.)

I ordered a 24 oz Heinekin and drank most of it before ordering their speciality, a stuff meatloaf.

Now, by the time the food arrived, I was hungry, and a little drunk.  But OMFG the plate was HUGE.  I mean HUUUUUGE!!!  I could not eat it all.  I could only eat about half.

It was so good but jeebuz, in Vegas, when they tell you it’s a big plate of food, they are not fucking kidding.

I’m not even sure if 2 people could have eaten that.

But food and beer made me happy.  I drank and ate and wrote and then planned out tomorrow.

Only one rule.

Tomorrow has to be better.

Sure I survived, it all worked out in the end but man, today was exhausting.

(Pictures to come!)