Las Vegas report

Last month I stayed with friends near the north end of the Strip, near the new Fontainebleau Las Vegas (a $3.7 billion Florida export with a tortured history). The view from their terrace (note the Sphere towards the right):

They showed me the Las Vegas Arts District, usually bypassed by tourists who go from the Strip to Fremont Street. If you’re walking from the Strip you’ll pass by a dangerous area where you could lose half of your current assets and 50-80 percent of your income going forward:

The City of Las Vegas welcomes visitors from Maskachusetts with a billboard for healing essential marijuana:

Frida Kahlo dispenses advice, e.g., “the best way to succeed in a field is to have sex with a married man who is already successful in that field.”

After our light dinner at Ada’s, a gracious “goodbye” with the Fontainebleau in the background:

The Hunter Biden tour that I’d started at Sheri’s Ranch in Pahrump continued with a visit to the Crack Shack:

From there we continued driving to the Pinball Hall of Fame, which has an awesome sign:

The collection could use some maintenance help, unfortunately, and the ladies who were working there during our visit were not cheerful ambassadors for the passion. That said, there are some unique games to try out. I’ll do a separate post about this place.

We stopped by Atomic Motors to look at classic cars being maintained and offered for sale.

(I’d love to have the 1964 Chevrolet Chevelle Wagon if A/C could be retrofitted! Also, note the rare 1974 Jensen-Healey JH-5, above, at $29,000 with 81,000 miles (how did they get the British-made thing to run that far?). It is tough to imagine today, but the British were once significant innovators and manufacturers of cars!)

Dinner was at Endo, a Tokyo-quality you-gotta-text-and-be-invited omakase restaurant with six seats, three chefs, and two servers.

What did it cost? I’m afraid to ask, but fortunately my host paid. I don’t think that it was cheap, however, because the sake pairing, which I declined because I’m not sophisticated like James Bond and can’t appreciate sake, included a bottle that retails for $550:

The one disappointing aspect of the meal was that nobody expressed concerns about the U.S. economy. I was fully prepared to respond, “I share your anxiety. In fact, I don’t know where my next slice of A5 Japanese Wagyu is going to come from.”

We visited Red Rock Canyon, which is now so crowded that reservations are required but at the same time not crowded enough for the Federales to build a real bathroom in the middle (and maybe a restaurant?):

A school group of perhaps 60 kids was visiting at the same time. Out of the 60, I noticed 1 white girl (“it’s not a replacement”).

We hit Din Tai Fung inside ARIA for late lunch and then enjoyed the Chinese New Year decorations:

Then I walked through Caesar’s Palace, riding the circular escalators (a Mitsubishi innovation):

I saw Wizard of Oz at The Sphere. It’s been extended visually to fill the massive screen and cut down in time to 1:15. Massive fans simulate the tornado. I wasn’t a huge fan of the movie, but the Sphere experience is worth $150 (Sections 205 and 207, close to section 206, are probably the best value. The 100-level seats can be partially covered. Legroom is tight.). The Uber pickups and taxis aren’t handled all that smoothly so it might make sense to walk to the monorail or back to the Strip rather than getting caught up in the crowd.

I finished the trip with a walk through Fontainebleau, but was underwhelmed by the public spaces. There seems to be more to look at in Bellagio or Wynn.

Where should a person of means live in Las Vegas? They’re building some new apartment complexes near the Arts District that will likely be fun for the young and childless. According to my friend, Summerlin is where people with families or who don’t tolerate urban grit will want to be.